Kemmerer, WY

After having some time to goof around home, it was time to head out to Kemmerer WY for my next job.  I flew into Salt Lake City, and after a bit of a disagreement as far as what classified a full sized car, vs a compact, Hertz gave me a nice Nissan Altima.  I met up with Debbie at Liberty park, and we went out to eat at Sicilia's and got some tasty sub sandwiches.   From there we went to Walmart so she could do some shopping.   While walking through some isles, Deb wanted to try on a pair of pants w/o going into the changing rooms and just putting them on over her shorts.  It would have worked out well if the pants didn’t become stuck, and a stranger came walking around the corner to see Deb in the process of frantically removing a pair of pants.   A moment of awkwardness settled over, and he calmly state, “I’ve got to come to Walmart more often.”  It was pretty epic.  From there I dropped Deb off, but we agreed to meet up again in a while to hit up the dollar theater.    I ran a few errands, picked up some drinks and snacks to smuggle into the cinemas.  We then watched and enjoyed Atlas Shrugged.  From there I headed off to Kemmerer.  The drive was boring, but I got to my hotel room, checked in, and went to sleep. 

 

The next few days at work were ok.  I was able to go over to sightsee after work and checked out the Fossil national park.  I did a few hikes here and there.  I did some off-trail exploration after  I got a feel for the geographic layers.  I was then harassed by another pair of falcons who were riding updrafts to high elevations and swooping down at me screeching.  I left them alone, especially since I could see dark clouds moving in, and the temperature dropped several degrees in less than a half hour. The visitor center was pretty incredible.  Great displays, informative staff, and my personal favorite, the scale timeline of Earth’s history extending for several hundred meters.  Humans were a mere thin line.  Various species of animals coming about, mass extinctions, followed by distances of nothing on the timeline.  After work one day I went over to a fossil quarry and paid a fee to use tools, and keep the fossils I gathered.  It was great fun, and filled the trunk of my rental car with slabs of limestone. 

 

During the weekend I checked out of my hotel, dug for more fossils, and went down to SLC.  There I met up with Dan Sloan, and we were able to catch up a bit.  From there I met up with Bryan at the Philadelphian for some food, and then watched an Imax movie.  I then made my way over to Damion’s place for the evening, and left to head back to the airport.  I left the  fossils in Damion’s basement for future retrieval when I had my car.  My luggage full of tools was already close to the weight limitations for the airlines.