August rides

I took off on the F-5 this morning and rode out to Big Rock Road. But I didn’t just come back the same route. Just as I got back into Mabank, I split off and rode CR4001 to FM3080, and then a couple of miles east on FM3080 before turning around. That gives me 40 miles. I’m still doing mostly 30 mile rides, but I’ve started throwing in one 40 mile ride each week to give me 100 miles each week.

I ended up with 12 rides for 390 miles on the bike in August. That’s the most miles I’ve done in a month this year. And I once again finished the month with no medical drama, so I’m continuing my march toward regaining fitness.

Today’s route.

Hill County creek, August 26th

I made a trip to a new creek in Hill County last Thursday. This is another Eagle Ford formation creek, though it is very close to Austin Chalk coverage. It was another creek that’s tough to hike in places. Even with my new, first time ever, prescription glasses on, I didn’t find a whole lot, but I did bring home a few interesting pieces.

Here are opposite direction views of the same outcrop in the creek. It has the blue gray clay you find so often in Eagle Ford outcrops. Click the photos to be able to zoom in and get a closer look.

Here’s my friend I met in the creek. I let this big guy swim on by before I waded across.

There were lots and lots of small ammonite imprints in rocks, like the one in the upper left part of this rock, but no surviving ammonite fossils that I found.

And there were lots and lots of shell fragments in rocks. These were bigger than most.

This rock looks like just another of those with lots of shell fragments.

But this side view of the same rock shows a hidden jewel I almost missed. That’s a Ptychodus tooth.

Shark teeth were few and far between in the creek, but here are a couple of pretty ones, though small, still in the matrix.

As I get more experience at fossil hunting, I’ve gotten better about not just picking up everything neat looking that I find. But I couldn’t resist this, one of the larger bison teeth I’ve run across.

There were lots of hard to identify fossils in the rocks. That looks like some kind of tooth on the left, but I have no idea what the others are. They all look too delicate to remove from the matrix, but I may do a bit of pick work to try and tell better what they are.

And finally, this bone. The first photo shows a view of each side of it. There is still a bit of rock attached. I didn’t remove any matrix from it; this is just the way I found it. The last photo shows a side view. I’ve posted these photos in The Fossil Forum. I’m hoping someone there can identify it.