What we did on Christmas break

Two years ago we went to Mineral Wells fossil park and had such a good time that I immediately looked into other places to go fossil hunting.  Ladonia Fossil Park was at the top of my list, but I wanted to wait until the weather got cold - I'd rather risk freezing than facing water moccasins.  Of course, last Christmas break we were at Disneyland, so it was postponed.  We were finally able to surprise the kids with this trip a few days ago.

 Ladonia Fossil Park is just a flat place to park your car off the main road and a rugged stairway cut into the riverbank.  From our house, it's about a two hour drive through the back roads of east Texas.

 Unlike Mineral Wells, this place requires digging and hunting.  Also, the fossils at Ladonia are much more recent (comparatively speaking). 

 The car said the temperature was 39F.  I don't think it was wrong.

 I had to check the weather forecast because flash floods are common.  The best time to hunt is after a rainstorm and there had been a huge storm two days before we went out.  I suppose the perfect time would be after a rainstorm in the summer (since the water would be lower) but again, water moccasins.

 Most of this is shale.  We got very muddy.

 We came home with quite a few impressions, but most of them crumbled when disturbed.

 One of the impressions that made it through the extraction process.

 Looking for ancient shark teeth.  Didn't find any teeth but we did find hamulus (worm) fossils.

The information I read said that the bigger fossils are in the hillsides while the smaller sharks' teeth and shells are in the riverbed.  Dashiell was willing to break his neck climbing the walls, but I was not as keen on the idea. 

 When skipping rocks became more fun than fossil hunting, I knew it was time to go.

As we were packing up, Dashiell found a mosasaur tooth.