Christmas in March

Opening weekend at Aurora...not much fills my head with more anticipation for quality finds. I had heard from my 'insiders' that they were going to push a new ramp into the pit - always a good thing  and that the area had been expanded from last season. When we arrived at the parking lot it was pretty chili for those from Michigan and frickin freezin for those from the more southern states. Everyone was bundled up tight and hoping the wind would die down and the sun would come up soon - except for me - I was hoping it would stay cold and force the warm weather hunters to move like a fly in the winter while I zipped around at full speed. As it turns out, it did eventually get pretty nice, and the lower temps allowed us to carry less water in than we have to on warmer weekends. The area is HUGE this season, and the best part is that they took the Sunday group to the opposite side of the pit from the Saturday group for a separate HUGE area. There should be good finds and a lack of footprints for weeks to come. PCS has been very generous to us again this year. As a side note  they are asking for each collector to donate 1 tooth  not a meg, not a cow, just a tooth (mako, bull, hemi, tiger) to the museum; there should be a bag on your way out. Please consider this as a very minor 'cost' of collecting. It will allow the museum to save money as they currently have to buy teeth for necklaces and kiddie bags. I was thrilled to get to collect with Paleoboy for the day. For those that do not know him, he does a TON of work for the museum, not the least of which is acquiring most of the material for the annual auction (May 27th) at the fossil festival. And on top of that, he is just a really good guy and very knowledgeable. We got to spend the day chatting and I got to watch him decide which areas to collect. The two times he said "this area looks really good" both ended up in Megs (I have yet to develop that kind of power). The first time was a hill where he went on ahead of me and I heard "I am about to do the victory dance". Sitting up on top of the hill was a beauty of a fat 3 golden meg. It took a keen eye to spot as only the one side was visible  the entire labial side (inside joke). Gorgeous tooth. That hill yielded each of us with small (1"  1.25") chubbies, a couple makos, and a monster tiger for me. We wandered around for a while hoping for similar productive areas, but only found little spots to pick over, producing a few teeth here and there. We barely covered a fraction of the entire collecting area so I cant be sure what other areas had to offer. We were all the way at the back of the collecting area and as it was about an hour walk out, so we figured it was best to work our way forward with at least a couple hours left so we could investigate any interesting areas on the way out. While walking down the path, Paleoboy looked left and said 'this area looks good", so I headed up the hill. There was kind of a sharp corner and I happened to peak back around and over the corner to an area you could not see from the path. Sure enough, big pungo meg  unfortunately split in 2 by the bulldozer. It made cool "in ground" shot though (included), as both pieces were right next to each other. I took a couple shots, then pried it off the wall and sure enough  it fit back together nicely. Other interesting finds were a pristine lower (male) cow shark tooth (7 cone) and a large whale bone that had been used as a teething ring by a shark  gnaw marks all over it. VERY cool in my book. Overall, an excellent and fun hunt, and it was good to see M4 again and I got to meet Rivrdigger over the weekend as well. I look forward to future hunts or dives with Rivrdigger now that I can put a face with a name. Also had the weird experience of someone quoting one of my posts back to me not knowing my "true identity"  that was just weird.