I mean, I like looking through books on dinosaurs.  I like a slow, imaginative look at the mounted bones in a museum.  It just flabbergasts me that those creatures were alive, right here, a couple blocks from Kentucky Fried Chicken and Pizza Hut.

I like thinking about what things were like before the pavement rolled over so much.  I like walking in places that are still a bit wild, natural.  The walking around, just looking, noticing the smell of the place.  Being happy to be there, at that moment.

But I really like finding stuff.  Picking up a rock or a stick, anything that catches my attention.  Something that  decide I like.

I like fossils, they're special.  I've been learning more about them through books and classes at the museum, but it seems that hasn't made me like them any more than I already did.  The fun of finding a thing of interest is there, plus there's this "wow" factor built in.

Well WOW, I found my very first recognizable dinosaur bone.  I had decided to take my lunch break walking around a mesa near here.  I had wanted to take a look at a spot of coal that I had seen exposed way off the trail.  Along the way I was looking for stuff.  The place was a real mess of river jumbled rocks, lying in the short grass.  Mostly football sized, rounded chunks of granite, feldspar, sandstone.  My path was along a stream for a while, then I just set off up the hill, at a comfortable angle. I was headed for the high spot, where I thought the coal seam was.  Then something caught my eye. My eye, now more experienced at recognizing
fossil bone. 

I reached down and picked up one of the thousands of rocks.  This one special rock out of them all.  It was about 8 inches diagonally.  Something like 6 x 6 from the flatter side & maybe 4 inches deep.  Heavy enough to be a load in my daypack.  One look and I knew I had found a large chunk of bone.  And knowing the geology of the place, this large chunk of bone was from a dinosaur.  The mesa is exposed rock deposited in the late Cretacious, the final age of dinosaurs.

I put it down and dropped by daypack next to it. I spiralled around the area, looking for other fossil bits.  But alas, this certainly was not the spot where the dinosaur had died.  This one bone had been washed along, with the rest of the thousands of rocks, into this jumble.  I stuffed it into my daypack.  Made my way up the hill and found the coal.  There I found a nice big chunk of petrified wood.  I could hardly hold my daypack!

While showing it to a friend at work I was asked if it was a vertebra, a backbone segment.  I remarked that I really couldn't tell _what_ it was.  But then I gave it a better look.  My first impression was that I had a small piece of some larger bone; something unrecognizable.  But upon closer inspection I noticed where the surfaces were.  Indeed much of it show signs of wear, pieces are broken off, but the general shape of it is still there.  Suddenly I recognized the shape. 

It is a vertebra.  I found a dinosaur vertebra!  My first recognizable dinosaur bone!!!  I'd really like to figure out what kind of dinosaur this came from.