To Write Adventures...You Must Have Adventures

 Every holiday should involve some kind of excitement!

 It should also involve figuring out why the box turtle is chasing you...

She was VERY thirsty.

 It should involve appreciating nature...

 Every adventure should have a beautiful sunset to enjoy.

And every adventure should wear out your puppy so you can take silly pictures of her.  

Really and truly, when you go on holiday, do you think about the setting? The characters you meet? The potential for adventure?  Holidays are another way to collect experiences so that they can show up in your writing in the future.  You may not know when or even if you can use the experience....but if you don't take notice of it, you won't have the chance to use it?

What adventures are you having this summer???

Are you taking notes of 509 photos (like I took)?

Happy Summer Holidays My Dear Blog Friends!!!!

Collecting 350-400 Million Year Old Shells...

 Rockford, Iowa is home to a treasure...the Fossil & Prairie Park. 

K and I spent a Saturday afternoon exploring this awesome park. 

This was the first spot we maneuvered down to. 

We immediately began our quest...to find Devonian shell fossils.

We decided we really wanted to go here... 

So we climbed down this!

 And we discovered this!

Check out how the fossils are sticking up on little mountains of clay!   

This former quarry was used from the early 1890's to the 1970's to extract clay for brick and tile making.

 This was our haul...

The park fossil hunting identification guide showed seven kinds of fossils...

We think we found examples of all of them.  :)

Crinoids were the smallest and hardest to find...K found these.  I found none.

The park covers about 400 acres...We'll be back next year for sure!  We didn't even get to this part of it...

Do you like to collect rocks, fossils or other bits from nature?  Where do you like to go to collect specimens?