In pursuit of a giant sloth

This past weekend I went out on my 2nd trip to retrieve 12,000 year old giant sloth bones from southwestern Iowa. Our site is in a small creek bed out in farm country. You can see from the pictures I've uploaded that it's a fairly isolated spot. Despite the hard work and the discouragement of not finding as much as you would like, we enjoy the adventure. This trip was more special than others. It wasn't what we found, but rather, the company we had with us. Aside from us volunteers (me, Charlotte & Ron), we had the museum coordinator and five students.

These were some of the funniest students I've never had the pleasure of working with. Steve (anthropology) and Alex#1 (pre-med) seemed to know the lyrics of every song ever written. I was constantly amazed and very entertained by their spontaneous and frequent episodes of bursting into song. They even tried falsettos. What really cracked me up was their ability to go from Judas Priest to Bon Jovi to Savage Garden to Tiffany ("I think we're alone now") to Elton John without batting an eye. When they weren't singing, they were creating scripts for their University commercial. Twyla (environmental studies) was hired by the University to take pictures and film the dig, which will be used to create one of those two-minute recruiting commercials for TV. Steve and Alex (a.k.a. Hollywood Buttercup and Juice) would do a whole improv for an infomercial "you, too, can have your own sloth digging video. Just six payments of $14.99....". They even thought of having a reality show for sloth digging. I think they only time they stopped was when they were sleeping. Tamsin (history) and Alex#2 (senior in high school) had the fortunate experience of finding several bones, for which the rest of us were very envious.

Although I spent the entire time shoveling clay, I'm still glad I went. I had a great time with the students, had my own hotel room (seniority is such a blessing), and even came back with some new quotes. "Dude, did you crack a funny?" says Juice...."Ahh, you missed it bro." responds Hollywood Buttercup.

The other rather comical part of the trip involved one very not-my-taste type of books on tape, which the museum coordinator had brought. In fact, I believe that within 15 minutes into the book, all of us had our head phones on. lol Of course, there were times in between songs where you had no choice but to hear that voice droning on and on...and in those times, you also heard the student commentary from the back seat. "Dude, this chick is a real ho." (in reference to a rather casual female character in the book), which made us all laugh.

After the five-hour drive back to the University and then the 40-minute drive back to my house, all I could think of was dinner, steaming hot bubble bath, and yoga...in that order. The bath and yoga helped, but I could still use a masseuse to loosen up the sore and tight muscles in my shoulders and arms. I guess it's about time I called the massage school and made an appointment....