Showing posts with label dinosaurs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dinosaurs. Show all posts

Friday, August 11, 2023

Day 13 in England: In the Footsteps of Mary Anning

 

Low tide waits for no one, and so three of us were up at the crack of dawn this morning to drive over to Lyme Regis and spend a couple more hours in the footsteps of Mary Anning.

Here's our complete itinerary for the day:

  • fossil hunting in Lyme Regis
  • back to Beer for breakfast and picking up the sleepyhead
  • back to Lyme Regis again for sightseeing
  • drive back to Gatwick Airport, stopping at a convenient local chain store along the way for souvenirs
  • drop off the rental car, check into our airport hotel, and try to fit a hundred pounds of rocks and fossils into four carry-ons and four personal items!
Who knows how on earth we would have gotten all our rocks and fossils home if we'd been as successful at fossil hunting as I am in my dreams!


We parked by Monmouth Beach, then hustled west, where we puttered on the shore, fossil hunting and admiring the Ammonite Pavement:




We found a few pretty treasures of our own!

The best part, though, was imagining myself in the footsteps of Mary Anning. This stretch of coast was her backyard, and although she ranged widely both east and west, this was her home ground:




I'm sure I'm grubbing in the wet sand just like she did, only she was wearing massive wool skirts and I'm wearing a filthy pair of joggers:








Eventually, we had to make the long walk down the beach back to our car (funny how the walk is always SO much longer on the way back!) so we could go back to Beer and fetch our teenager before checkout.

I did wash my hands before I sat down for my last full English breakfast of the trip, but I didn't change out of my muddy clothes. Gotta stay true to myself no matter where I am!

In our early morning trip to Lyme Regis, we'd encountered little traffic and just a couple of dog walkers and joggers. By mid-morning, however, Bank Holiday Monday/Mid-Term Break was in full swing omg! Matt was a tentative but extremely careful driver during this whole week, and it was funny/terrifying to encounter so many absolutely terrible drivers on these, the narrowest roads outside of Dartmoor--honestly, I think some were even narrower than in Dartmoor! We missed by centimeters being collided into by a car that turned into us around a blind corner, and half the cars we saw (including ours, ahem) spent half the time driving half onto the sidewalk. And that was even with us parking in a pay lot at the edge of town--the traffic we saw in the middle of town was absolutely bonkers!

British friends, WHAT ON EARTH.

Nevertheless, I made it to my ultimate destination, the pinnacle of this trip: 



I was so lucky, because this museum is closed on Mondays. The only exception?

School breaks!

So me and all the rowdy school kids and all their parents happily crowded inside on this Half-Term Monday, and I could achieve my dream of worshipping at the feet of Mary Anning, on the spot where she once lived and worked and kept her fossils.

The Lyme Regis Museum is built on the site of Mary Anning's former house, which was torn down in 1889. The only known depiction of what her house looked like is this drawing--


--which the museum turned into this model:

I love those picture windows. I imagine them all full of fossils!

The museum has a wonderful mix of exhibits. It has fossils collected (or likely collected) by Mary Anning--


I have explained to Matt numerous times that I am in desperate need of a giant LEGO ichthyosaur of my own, and yet what did I get for my birthday? Well, actually I got an absolutely awesome DIY model kit of Stonehenge and I'm thrilled with it... but I also still really want a giant LEGO ichthyosaur!


This fossil is a shark skull, the first of its kind and used as the holotype of the species. Mary Anning discovered it, collected it, and prepared it... so obviously it's named Hybodus bechei after Henry De la Beche.

This complete ichthyosaur fossil is on loan here while the Lyme Regis Museum crowdfunds the money to purchase it.

--items from the period in which she lived--

Look at all those pipes! I mudlarked so many of their stems on the Thames!

--and tons of other fossils collected in this area and donated by local fossil hunters. 

The gift shop was great, too. Here's me having an emotional reaction to JURASSIC CREATURE STUFFIES!!!

I'm supposed to stop buying "family stuffies" so I did not bring any home, but I intend to revisit this ridiculous rule soon. The only stuffies that I so far own and insist on exhibiting in the family space are 1) an Edmontosaurus annectens, 2) a whale shark, 3) the exact same mermaid sequin dinosaur that the SpaceX Crew Dragon took into orbit as their "gravity indicator," and 4) Captain Ameribear, a Build a Bear that I liberated from a friend as we were setting up for a group garage sale. That is NOT too many family stuffies, you guys!

One of the exhibit labels in the Lyme Regis Museum mentioned that Mary Anning was buried at St. Michael's Church, "just a few hundred meters from the museum." So guess what I Googled next?



That's two of my most favorite heroines who have died of breast cancer, if you're keeping count.

St. Michael's Church, like Mary Anning's former house, has its back to the sea, and below the church there's actually a paved path that follows the coast and passes over the spot where she made one of her best discoveries. 


If you walk down the path to the end, you'll find Mary, herself, ammonite in hand, Tray at her feet, walking with purpose towards eternity:


Yes, I made Matt take a photo of me walking arm in arm with her, chatting like the best friends we are. I have a very vivid and active internal life!


My meeting with Mary was the culmination and final wish on my list for this trip, so we meandered slowly back to our car up the narrow streets of Lyme Regis, browsing in every rocks and fossil shop we saw along the way. We braved the last of the narrow roads, and Matt handled the A303 like a man who'd been driving here his whole life and knew every single rule for roundabouts:


On the outskirts of London, I found a shopping area that said it had a Sainsbury's, so we detoured over for Cadbury and crisps to take back home, and we had a lovely surprise! The teenager had discovered, too late in the London leg of our trip, a discount bookstore chain that she wanted to visit. This was our second to last day in the city, though, and there was not a location anywhere near us--but, alas, the day before, when we'd taken that long bus trip out to Pax Lodge, we'd seen one from the bus window but didn't know what it was! ARGH!

I felt terrible about it, because it was, like, literally one of two entire things the kid expressed genuine interest in during the entire trip, so omg I was beyond ecstatic when it turned out that this shopping area had The Works bookstore! 

Bonus: it also had a Sainsbury's AND a Poundland! All our cheap souvenirs in one convenient trip!

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Thursday, July 6, 2023

Here's Every National Park Junior Ranger Badge Kids Can Earn On-Site or By Mail (Updated July 2023)


July 2023: This is an update of my original Junior Ranger badges post, first written WAY back in 2018! I crossed out several Junior Ranger badges that are no longer available to earn by mail, but fortunately I also added a few new ones, too, and I updated my map with new Junior Ranger badges that kids can earn on-site.

It's been years since the kids first discovered the Junior Ranger program at Badlands National Park, and thus began their obsession. I'm never one to let an educational experience go, so since that first thrilling day, I have deliberately organized ALL of our US vacations to include as many Junior Ranger programs as possible, and I've included all of the Junior Ranger programs that it's possible to earn by mail into our homeschool plans.

"How did you figure out where all of the Junior Ranger programs are?" you ask.

Friends, I made a giant freaking map:



Yes, that is EVERY SINGLE NATIONAL PARK SITE WITH A JUNIOR RANGER PROGRAM. I put them all in by hand. I went to every single national park's website, searched for its Junior Ranger program, and if it had one I put it on my map.

When I plan road trips, I check my map for all the national park sites with Junior Ranger programs that we could detour to, and then we detour to them. During our upcoming road trip, for instance, we're visiting Saint Croix Island and Acadia National Park, primarily for their Junior Ranger programs.

But the kids' enthusiasm for earning Junior Ranger badges is unceasing, and yet we cannot spend our entire year traveling to various national parks. If only!

So I went back through every one of those websites, and I noted every park that permits children to earn their Junior Ranger badge by mail. Most of these parks provide the badge book as a downloadable pdf for kids to complete using internet or book research (often the park's own website, but we've also found useful park videos on YouTube). They mail their completed badge books to the park, and in return, the park rangers mail them back their badges and certificates.

It's always, eternally thrilling.

The kids have been doing this for years now, and still have tons of Junior Ranger badges left to earn by mail. They've learned geography, history, and several sciences in the process, experienced the breadth and depth of the national experience in ways they haven't had the opportunity to do in person, and have an intense appreciation for the variety of cultural, historical, and geographic artifacts and monuments that must be explored, preserved, and protected.

Not every national park, or even most national parks, allow their Junior Ranger badges to be earned by mail, mind you. You'll know if one does, because it will say so on its website or on the book, and it will have the book available as a downloadable pdf and include a mailing address for the completed book to be sent to. Many parks will state, kind of pissily in my opinion, that they do NOT allow badges to be earned by mail, and that's their right, but I think everyone loses when they do that--why stifle a kid's desire to learn? Why refuse an opportunity to grow someone's knowledge and love of your national park?

Before you get your kid all revved up on earning these badges by mail, you should know that since you've got to mail the completed badge books to each park, you'll be paying a few bucks for postage and manila envelopes each time. If you're conserving resources, check out the online badges that I've noted in my list--those let kids either do or submit their work online, so you don't have to pay for either supplies or postage.

Fortunately, MANY national parks are happy to have more kids interested in them and working to learn more about them! Here are all the national park Junior Ranger badges that you can earn by mail:

NOTE: I do NOT include Junior Ranger badges in which the badge book is offered as a pdf from the national park site, but kids cannot mail them in or submit them online to earn the badge without a visit to the site. Lots of national park sites offer their badge books as pdfs so that kids can get a head start on the book (which is a great idea!), and some sites even allow kids to mail in their badge books later if they didn't have time to complete them at the park, but this is is solely for badges that kids can earn entirely from home.

 I'm also not including any of the newer "virtual Junior Ranger programs," which let kids complete some web activities and then print an image of the Junior Ranger badge. Those can be fun, but this list is solely for physical badges that kid can earn from home.

This is one of my absolute favorite activities that we do in our homeschool, but it's partly so wonderful because it's so adaptable. Sure, it can be your entire geography curriculum, or just an enrichment to another spine. You can include it in your history studies, or in the natural or earth sciences. Even if you don't homeschool, these Junior Ranger books are so fun that kids can simply DO them for fun. My kids do, and they think it's a nifty trick that I also let them count them for school!

If your kids love earning Junior Ranger badges, then they'd likely be interested in learning about the national park system as a whole--there's so much to explore there, from history and culture to geology and the sciences. Here are some of our favorite resources for learning about and exploring the national park system:


P.S. Want more obsessively-compiled lists of resources and activities for kiddos and the people who want to keep them happy and engaged? Check out my Craft Knife Facebook page!
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Saturday, July 1, 2023

Day 5 in England: The Natural History Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum

Overall, my teenager was fairly patient with being hauled along on Mom's England Trip of a Lifetime, but this kid who used to be my best traveler now insists that she hates all travel with the fire of a thousand suns... and she hates visiting museums with the fire of almost a thousand suns.

Funnily enough, the kid who used to be the worst traveler... just, OMG the WORST TRAVELER!... is now the best traveler ever, and by that I mean that she loves all the same travel things that I do: museums, tours of old shit, a few more museums, grubbing in the mud to find literal trash, eating local junk food, and for a nightcap, we'll hit up one more museum then go to bed early so that on the next day we can be at our first museum right when it opens.

So although I was sad to leave my teenager home on this day of museums, she was ecstatic to have the choice to opt out and spend the whole day just rattling around the AirBnb by herself.

And my college student and I, Matt in tow, were ecstatic to catch the bus around the corner and take it all the way to the front door of the Natural History Museum.

We were there right when it opened!

I was the most excited to see the Fossil Marine Reptiles Hall, which is where Mary Anning lives, but in the interest of crowd control, we first hit up the gallery I was second most excited to see:

DINOSAURS!!!

This was not my favorite dinosaur exhibit--for some reason, many of the fossils were mounted overhead, in dim light--

--and I had a lot of trouble simply making them out, much less peering closely and nearsightedly at all their tiny details, as I prefer. 

Still, there were some wonderful treasures! Here is part of the first (known) T-Rex fossil ever discovered:

We also saw the first known Iguanodon fossils ever discovered, two teeth found by Mary Ann Mantell. Later, a quarry owner discovered part of an Iguanodon skeleton inside a limestone slab that had been blasted apart. These Iguanodon teeth are another example of men intercepting women's finds and claiming them as their own, as it's Mary Ann's husband, Gideon, who gets most of the credit for the Iguanodon. To be fair, he was the one who researched it and described it, but he's also the one who had the education and the freedom of movement to do so.

I'm interested in the history of paleontology, and I like to look at exhibits that are still set up to look like they might have in the 1800s and early 1900s. It was really fun, then, that both the British Museum and the Natural History Museum had exhibits like this!

I like to look at the labels on older fossils to see if anyone interesting collected them. A couple of these fossils are labeled as coming from the Mantell collection, as in Gideon Mantell, and a couple more are labeled as having been collected by W.E. Cutler. There's not a ton of information about him, but a couple of cool points: he died of malaria in 1925 while on a dinosaur dig in Africa, and he has a mystery! In 1920, Cutler uncovered a partial Chasmosaurus skeleton and put it in storage to await a buyer. In 1921, he was hired to dig in Africa, where he died. He left no records saying what he did with his Chasmosaurus or where it is. There *is* a Chasmosaurus fossil in the Natural History Museum that resembles the field photographs of Cutler's fossil, but it doesn't have any associated records. 

I would happily spend the rest of my life in some museum's endless archives, puttering away and solving little mysteries like this one.

There were several good specimens from the collection of Georges Cuvier, who I used to be into until I learned about his WHOLE THING with "scientific" racism. He "dissected" the enslaved human trafficking victim Sarah Baartman after her death, not to figure out why she died but to get some primary source support for his racist beliefs, part of which included the idea that Adam and Eve were white. He was super gross, and I'm not happy to have to add him to my list of Misogynistic Men of Science. 

After the dinosaurs, since we were in the area and all, we looked at every mammal, every invertebrate, and every fish, reptile, and amphibian:

Then... Mary Anning!!!

Mary Anning's first articulated plesiosaur fossil!!!

I do not understand the Natural History Museum's obsession with displaying artifacts up high, but a large number of my precious plesiosaurs and ichthyosaurs were mounted easily 15 feet up. I can't read the labels from that high! I can't closely inspect every bone!

Seriously, look at this nonsense!

Still, even though you have to crane your neck, there were so many beautiful fossils. Look at Mary Anning's marvelous ichthyosaurs!

I love how they're still in their original mounts, in their cases that call them Sea-Dragons!


Only the bottom fossil has a known provenance from Mary Anning, but she probably found the other two, as well. 

Two interesting things about the below inscription: 1) he uses the phrased "purchased from Mary Anning," which is a great way to not admit that she also discovered and prepared the fossil, and 2) he says that she found another part of this fossil later and sent it to him, which shows how well she remembered all of her discoveries, enough to connect one piece to another years apart, and that she was too generous for her own good. She ought to have charged him through the fucking nose for that piece.


This is Mary Anning's biggest ichthyosaur. Matt couldn't even get the whole thing in the same frame as me!


It's so big that it has other fossils ON it!


We could have easily stayed at the Natural History Museum until it closed, and we did swing by most of the other galleries, but on this day I also really wanted to check out the Victoria and Albert Museum, conveniently located just across the street. There was nothing in particular that I'd been excited about seeing there, but of course I DID find marvelous things!

See the pipe found on the Thames foreshore?!? SQUEE!!!


Thanks to all the Medieval art I studied in my misguided twenties, I got very distracted by all the lovely rood screens--

Awww, look at that beautiful sculpture of a bunch of men torturing a lone woman!

--and effigies--


--and dragons!




I really loved the large-scale architectural elements in the Victoria and Albert. The museum has saved pieces like staircases, entire balconies, and decorated columns-and you can look at them!


There was also a wonderful display of jewelry, so the college student and I spent a LOT of time inching our way around the jewelry exhibit, peering at every tiny ring and reading its label twice, then peering at it again with renewed interest based on what we'd learned from the label. I'm low-key obsessed with iron jewelry now--it was great to wear during mourning and during wartimes after you'd donated your precious metal jewelry, but it's also super bad-ass and I would wear it all the freaking time if I had it.

Also bad-ass? Queen Victoria's sapphire and diamond coronet!


It was designed by Prince Albert, who apparently had excellent taste and was in charge of making sure all of Victoria's jewelry was beautiful and classy.

I don't wear jewelry, but I could use someone with excellent taste to make sure that all of my cargo pants and T-shirts and sneakers are beautiful and classy!

Here's our trip so far!
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