I went to the museum
twice during the summer, once in the beginning and once at the end.
In the beginning of the
summer I worked in the lab on one day for two hours and fifteen minutes. During
this time I continued to work on the detailed process of cleaning off the many
layers of Jane’s leg bone. By the end of my time there I was actually pretty much
complete with the bottom part of the front half of the bone so I flipped the
bone over and started cleaning a tiny bit of the bottom part of the back half.
From looking at the caliche the back side of the bone looks as though it’s
preserved in a way that’s quite a bit smoother and one layered than the front
half. If this is true I should be able to finish this side of the bone faster than
I finish the front side. I’m excited to see if I discover anything new or
different on the back side of the leg bone.
At the end of the
summer I came to the museum with family that was visiting just intending to
show them what I do in the lab, but ended up conducting two tours for campers.
It turns out that the Behind the Scenes HMNS Summer Camp gets a tour of the lab
one afternoon a week, which just so happened to be the one I was there.
Typically David gives them the tour but he was out of town. They didn’t realize
this so they showed up anyways. I love to tell people about what I do and didn’t
want to send them away empty handed so I offered to give the tour. I pulled out
some of the neat things we have in the lab for them to see, showed them a
couple of the Dimetrodon jackets I’ve worked on, and let them see and touch a
piece of scrap bone found in the Spoil Pile that I cleaned some of the caliche
off of just for purposes this is. They took lot of pictures and seemed to thoroughly
enjoy themselves. This made me feel proud that I’ve gained enough knowledge
that I can confidently talk about what I do and why it’s important to people.
