Because I like to keep you on your toes...

I decided to post today, too. I know, it's totally out of character for me to actually be somewhat regular in my blog posts, but I have some cool stuff to say. (I think, at least.)

First off, to address a few things in comments Mom and Trudy left for me...

I plan to take regular scrapbooking classes at GASC in June, because I can digi-scrap anytime. I've been doing a lot of it lately because it is easier, quicker, and less messy, as well as because I do have creative team requirements! I'm glad you like them, though, Mom.

I would love to put pictures of cats and dogs on my fridge, only I don't have any. So let's combine Mom and Trudy's suggestions, and have Ella, Ari, and Egan draw me pictures of cats and dogs to hang up there! How about it, guys?

And now, a recap of my first field trip in this class. We drove around to 4 or 5 different sites, stopping on the side of the road and talking about rock formations. We were particularly interested in discovering what types of rock we were looking at, as well as imagining the paleoenvironment that may have formed them. (Paleoenvironment meaning "ancient environment", for example, we know limestone only forms in marine (oceanic) environments, so finding limestone would suggest that parts of Colorado were once covered by an inland sea.)

We looked at sedimentary and plutonic rocks, sandstone, limestone, shale, mudstone, granite, glauconite, quartz, feldspar, mica, and many other different cool sounding rocks and minerals. At our last stop, we were all feeling a little tired of rocks (it was around 1 pm, and we had been out since 9 am) when my professor announced that we were to embark on a 2 hour hike. I haven't mentioned this yet, but it was COLD out there, and WINDY! We didn't have a choice, though, and it turned out to be a nice hike.

Here are a few pictures. (The first 2 are different, I just couldn't decide which I liked better.)

This is a couple of my classmates studying the rock during our field quiz. We were supposed to identify the type of rock that the Purgatoir Formation is made of. Can you guess what it is?

If you picked sandstone, like me, you would be correct!

I got extra points for finding this gigantic piece of quartz. Our task was to find the largest clast in the Fountain Formation, and then either extract it or, if extraction is impossible, outline the size in our notebooks. (Fountain formation is a sedimentary rock that is made up of Pikes Peak granite, which is made up of quartz, feldspar, and mica, among other things. A clast would be an individual piece of the foundation stone (granite) that can be found in the sedimentary rock (Fountain formation).) I found the biggest one, and my professor told me to take it back to campus.

Now, do you see anything special in this next picture?

What about now, if I give you a little help?

The lighter bits outlined in white in the above rock are fossilized dinosaur bones from the Jurassic period! Cool, huh?

And here is my friend Alex conducting an extremely scientific test to determine if these are, in fact, dinosaur bones.

The conclusion is, yes, they are. We learned today that if you can tell if it is fossilized bone or not by licking it. There is some reaction between the bone and your saliva to cause a slight bonding or sticking sensation for a second if it is bone, and not just rock. Yep, I licked the dino bones, too! It was pretty cool.

And look at what I got in the mail today! The OWOH prize I won from Kim Mailhot. Not only did she send me the magnets I won, she also stuck in two of her "Rock my World" rocks. Thank you so much, Kim!