Trilobites and Topaz

TRILOBITES

There's a lot of T's in that title!  My friends and I went on a local adventure to one of the least populated places in the US and if you can believe it, it is right here in Utah!

This journey started by traveling about 3.5 hours southwest of Salt Lake City out into the sticks.  Well, I'd say sticks but there aren't even many sticks out there!  There is a great big lake - Lake Sevier with an oasis type view through the dessert.  The one cool feature along the ride is the "shoe tree."  This is a dead tree along the road that passerby's leave their shoes.  It's kind of funny and neat all at the same time.  If you take the time to look there are a ton of varieties from tennis shoes to red high heels.  It's definitely a unique feature along the rather boring drive.  As I did some quick research I found that there are actually a few of these shoe trees in Utah.

The Shoe Tree

Driving past Delta, Utah about 30 miles and then taking a well maintained but gravel road another 20 miles you end up at the U-Dig fossils.  While there are apparently a few dig sites this site seems to be the best.  The curators (if that is what you call them) are an extremely friendly husband and wife team and they provide you with buckets and hammers.  Even better is that after you collect your finds they polish and cut them for you! 

The Vista from the dig site

The U-Dig Office

When we first arrived there was a family from Switzerland.  They had skipped Zion's, came straight from Bryce and slept in their campervan just outside the gates to be the first ones in for the day!  They spent a total of four hours chipping away.  The two young girls seemed very excited about their finds.  I'll have to admit that I would not put this on my foreign trip agenda (there is just so much driving in the desert and out of the way) but we met more foreigners and apparently the site has a ton of foreigners during the week.  I would have never thought!  At the same time I guess it is pretty cool to find fossils ~500 million years old - that's old!

Anyway, my friends and I scaled back to a two hour session which we deemed plenty long.  The site takes a back hoe and digs out of the side of a shale rock area which has a ton of trilobites in it.  You simply go up and start hammering away at rock.  You can get out some good aggression this way!  Maybe it was my too strong of hammering but I seemed to only find half of fossils or no fossils at all.  My friend, on the other hand, seemed to crack a rock and find several trilobites each time.  I found that walking along the dig area and turning over rocks was more productive for me. This may not be as exciting as Indiana Jones archeology but it's fun to play an archeologist for a morning! 

Indiana Jones' for the day!

Way nice curator measuring my find

So here is the funny part...novice TrekkingTrego, I, found two different very large trilobites.  I thought they were cool because they were big but apparently they were some of the biggest found this summer.  The name of this fine fossil is Asaphiscus and it measures 2.5" long!  Typically they are only 1.875" long so mine is huge!  Apparently they are worth up to 150$US.  I'm not sure where the market is for these types of items so I'm not sure how to realize that amount other than to brag to people about it when I show it to them. 

The big trilobite!

All in all we had a good time.  The curators are just so friendly and amazingly helpful.  Its easy enough for any age child to do it so if your child is interested you should go for it - just know that it is a seriously long and boring drive.

TOPAZ

To round out the day and since we were already out in the sticks, I mean near Delta, we drove over to Topaz.  Topaz is one of the ten interment camps for the Japanese during WWII.  Online there is indications of a museum and that parts have been renovated or rebuilt.  I'm here to tell you that it hasn't happened yet.  I was so glad this wasn't the only reason we drove out here or we would not have been happy campers.  After driving through the weed field (literally) for the Topaz site we found on the far corner a nice monument with a little information. 

The monument

The historical site, or lack thereof...

It was a stark reminder that we take for granted many freedoms and beliefs now days.  I hope that someday this site is restored to a more historic area where we can all be reminded of our past and how we can learn from it.