Lost River, Fossils, Day Hikes Trip Repo rt

“Photobucket pix

This was supposed to have been a February trip, but I got sick so we had to move it into mid-March, March 11-14, to be precise.

Lost River State Park is in the eastern part of the state, not far from Wolf Gap and other neat places.

We had rented a cabin for the February trip, although it was almost warm enough to camp out. So we enjoyed warm bed, toasty fire, good food, hot showers, and other niceties for this treat.

I arrived in mid-afternoon and got my stuff into the cabin and began setting things up. Got a nice fire going and ate dinner, cleaned up the dishes, and was ready to pour a Balvenie when Creek Dancer showed up.

Next day we set off on a fossil hunt. We hit a quarry in the Needmore Formation, where Creek Dancer loudly proclaimed that she was setting the fossils free (after about 400 million years of captivity).

From there we went to a Mahantango Formation site for relatively young fossils - a mere 385 million years.

We stopped at some stores in Wardensville, then drove back to the cabin for lunch. After lunch, we took a trail up to a ridgeline for some interesting views of the surrounding countryside.

Next day we did another fossil hunt, then took another day hike along Howard's Lick Run, which cuts through the park (no snickering MarkO!).

We found a delightful series of little cascades along the run, then headed back.

The time was too short, but it was a wonderful getaway from work and home.

Creek Dancer can add her thoughts and comments if she's so inclined.

Now, to plan another trip ...”

“I get to play editor to the editor here. heheheehe... OK, what is wrong with the sentence when you consider your readership is a diverse group of people from across the U.S.??? >>>

"Lost River State Park is in the eastern part of the state, not far from Wolf Gap and other neat places."”

“(I've applied for a city editor position, Geo, I'm in practice here for what I perceive a city editor does... like spot holes! And I'm not talking Howard's Lick Bacon Ring either. LOL!)”

“Doh! West Virginia.”

“Good luck with the application, lizs.”

“Thanks, I had faith you'd catch it! lol

Sounds like fun. I like to look for fossils. :-) And the cabin?? Brilliant!!”

“What fossils are in that formation?

When I lived in Omaha, I spent a day at the Ashfall Fossil Beds near O'Neill. It was hard to picture camels & rhinos roaming Nebraska. Also, kinda sad to think of a volcano in Idaho killing animals in Nebraska.”

“Fossils in the Appalachians are marine fossils of the Cambrian through Pennsylvanian (some Permian in spots).

What we found were brachiopods, branching corals, a bivalve, and a couple of completely unidentifiable things. Creek Dancer found what looked like a fern frond, which doesn't quite stack up with middle Devonian marine fossils. At first I thought it might be a vertebrate, but the stem was not segmented so that idea was a wash.”

“We also found a thoracic segment of a trilobite, but not enough to make it worth keeping. Trilobites in the Needmore grew to three or four inches.”

“Geo, what do you look for in a city editor? Just curious...”

“We're a small weekly. We don't have a city editor. I have an assistant editor. Needs knowledge of QuarkXpress and Photoshop, plus writing ability and preferably some experience, although for what we pay experience is not absolutely required.

Some papers pay in peanuts. We pay in peanut shells.”

“Fossils fascinate me. I'm more of a dinosaur nut, but the brachiopods and trilobites are cool. Sounds like it was a day well spent.”

“I like to collect a representative cross section of whatever is at a given site and try to reconstruct an idea of what the habitat was like back then. Not all sites have much in the way of multiple species, though.

Appalachian fossils tend to be brittle and easily break. Some are even deformed from the pressure. When you get back into Ohio, you start to find nicely preserved fossils.”

“Geo, this would be at a small daily. Mind you, I don't really know the titles of positions and what they do, but I was trying to look at what other job ads said on journalismjobs.com

This place was fairly vague. Here's what it said.... "needs a city editor, someone who can share his or her passion for news with our readers and staff. We need a communicator and leader. Web-based journalism experience would be a plus. This is the ideal job for a reporter with at least 3-5 years experience at a weekly or small daily newspaper who wants to take on more responsibility."

From what I've seen I'm figuring it has to do with making local news assignments, perhaps spotting holes and editing, working with reporters. Yes, I'll try to get it more defined right away, should I get an interview.”

“A city editor would be in charge of local news, I suspect, while the wire desk or national desk would take care of that. It could involve assignments, but from the sounds of it a lot of hands-on editing and posting stuff on the web. I've studiously avoided taking anything that sounds remotely like copy editing. Too boring. It's the part of the job I like least.”

“I spotted it too, so now I know what my next career will be.”

“Great, if you want to be part of the most underpaid profession.”

“I collect fossils as well. I live in Dallas, Tx. A line from Lake Texoma to Glenn Rose Tx contain ammonites, sand dollars and sharks teeth. I have an Ammonite that is 13 inches in diameter I found in Denton county. My back porch is littered with fossils. The wife loves me.”

“Just tell her you are starting a museum and if she's nice to you, you'll name a wing for her.”