The exciting news this time is Dan's discovery of a femur of an (as yet) unknown reptile from
the Triassic Period, perhaps 203 million years old. It could be a dinosaur or a forerunner of a
crocodile as both are found in the Redonda formation of New Mexico, where he spent a week
in the field. He discovered the bone casually walking through the country, surveying the formation
with his colleague, Dr. Axel Hungerbuehler. Serendipity favors the prepared mind and eyes, apparently.
Dan working to extract the fossil femur from the rock
News & Notes
After Dan's Redonda field camp, we rendezvoused in Denver for a few days of R & R. We visited one of his paleontologist friends in Boulder, Wayne Itano; spent a day at the Denver Botanic Gardens; spent another day at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science and enjoyed ample time chilling, it being a very hot summer and all.
Wandering the Botanical Garden's tropical exhibit
When we weren't informing ourselves about botany or paleontology or other nature and science stuff, we relaxed at restaurants and bars. In Aurora CO, a suburb of Denver, we learned about a "craft beer brewery crawl" sponsored by the Aurora Public Library. We liked their approach to promoting reading: Visit five craft breweries, get a passport stamp at each, return the passport to the library and receive a free beer glass. We were happy to promote both brewing and reading!
Here's to the Aurora Public Library's Promotion of Brewing and Reading
Dan drove out to celebrate the Fourth of July with Dave and Stephanie. He got the Left Bank Cidery tour and a complete initiation into the fun around Catskill NY, including hiking, fossil hunting, wild swimming and socializing. The two guys took a quick road trip to Boston, so Dan could return a fossil to Harvard's MCZ.
Dave and Dan, Diner Denizens in Chatham MA
While the guys were cruising around the East Coast, we took a quick trip to Libby MT to see Jim and Julie. We managed to contract Covid-19 on the trip, probably the BA.5 variant of the Omicron variant. We cut the trip short and followed the accepted guidelines for quarantining and testing. Both of our cases were mild, and we're definitely over it.
Dan prefers traveling on the back roads rather than the Interstate highways. As a plan for his route back home to Iowa from New York, he chose to follow the path described by the "population medians" for the US censuses since 1790. In that year the midpoint of the population EW and NS was 23 miles east of Baltimore MD. A decade later the population median had shifted to be 40 miles west of Baltimore. And it continued west. For the 2020 census, the median point is 15 miles NE of Hartville MO.
Wikipedia shows the whole path. Some population medians are honored. Others are just random places in the woods [1840]. The 1880 median is in a parking lot at the Cincinnati airport.
Dan followed the Midpoint of the US Population Across the Nation's History
Our niece Miggie Snyder is a singer and songwriter who recently launched her music career in Nashville TN. She live-streamed a cabaret performance during her Summer Tour. It was our first chance to see and hear her live and it was fun. Check out her music; she's got a terrific voice!
Miggie Snyder singing at a cabaret in MO
