that’s what I do…

Life has been tough… hard… and boring… No raccoons and the kids are all out of the nest living their best life. Anxiety, work, and stress have taken the front seat. Summer came in long and dark even though the sun is shining bright. Winter dreams of a vacation dashed as life stepped in and said, “not now kid”. I have been away more days from the ranch than I’d like to say. Just life, sometimes it steals the fun and the spark right out of your soul. You can’t say anything, cause honestly, who wants to listen to a downer? Then you have those uber-positive folks that exist, who, if they heard you utter the negative, they would try to sweep you up and explain all of the great things you have going in your life… “You are still alive”, “Every day is a gift”, “It will get better”, “You are just stuck in a groove”. To them, yes, you are correct, I am each and every one. I know that. But, sometimes life gets dark and starts closing in on you.

One thing that has been ‘hummin is Paleo Park tours. Folks from all over the world have been dropping emails, texting and calling, looking to see if they can find their own 67 million year old treasure. Tours ground me. I get to tell stories of yesterdays. Even if those yesterdays were 20 years ago, 40 years ago or 120 years ago, I get to forget my world for 2 hours and dive back into happier days. Paleo was my Dad’s dream. Years and years of dragging dinosaurs bones into the house and piling them into boxes and buckets had stretched the space in the house. Upon finding Kelsey, the Triceratops, Dad’s dream started to become reality. He wanted a lodge that would house all of our dinosaurs that we found. A place where scientist, scholars and kids could come find dinosaurs. A place in the fall could turn into a hunting camp. Where tall tales, laughter and a little beer could be shared. So, all be damn if he didn’t build it. But, we know how the story ended. Dad died in the middle of building it. Then, I took the reins and put my brand to Paleo Park. It connects me to Dad.

Dad always loved dinosaurs. Why not? Dinosaurs are something we have always had. From the earliest of days of 1906 to present day. 5 generations have dug dinosaurs on the ranch and not one of us are “professionals” so to speak. Even though none of us are “professionals”, there has been some wild stuff taken off the ranch and a few changes of paleo history made in the process. Dad loved to tell stories of the ranch and show everyone the dinosaur bones we had. He especially loved to see the look on little kids faces when it clicked that they were the first human to ever touch a 67 millin year old bone. That is what Paleo Park was meant for. I made up the term, “Where your imagination meets reality” to describe Paleo Park and it really is true. Do people really know about us? No. Do the locals come by and check us out? No. It is all good, cause the ones who do want to know about us, come. Since I have to have a real job to help pay bills, tours are pushed to the weekends. For a change, the weekends have been busy this summer.

My tour a few weeks ago had a family from Germany visit us. A family of four. Mom, Dad and 2 adorable little kids. The kids were little, I would put them around 6 and 8. The kids didn’t understand English, but the parents would tell them of all my ramblings. I skipped the history of the ranch on this one. The looks on their face told me they wanted to go find some dinosaur bones. We headed out, swapping stories of our two worlds. I laughed and apologized for our country as they all must laugh at the state of our country anymore. The Dad laughed and said for sure not as they loved the good ole USA and to be honest Germany is just a mess. We went to the tracks and I watched them get quite and stare as I explained how a T-Rex, Hadrosaur, crocodile, Zerbsti and a handfull of other dinosuars walked through this one spot within 2 hours of each other. I rolled my hand over the Zerbsti and I talked about how it is the only one in the world and named after my family. The parents were in the awe and the kids were chomping to go find a dinosaur bone. So I said, “let’s go find some dinosaur bones”. That they figured out and excitement shot across their faces.

We went to the microsite, or as we call it, the beach. I explained what it looked like in the day, or my interpretation of what it all looked like. We all zoned in and started to pluck ancient bones out of the earth. The first human to roll it in their hands and give it a gander. The Mom was sitting next to me and we were talking about bones that were around us. She started to trace her fingers over a bone in the ground. I knew what it was as she started to brush the dirt off of it. She asked me what it was. I smiled and said “it is frill, the round part around a Triceratops head”. She jumped up, squeeled and danced around. It made me happy. As she was showing her find to her family, I was sifting through the hole that the bone had left. I saw a tip of something I knew all too well what was about to pop out of the dirt. I let out a “ohhh”.. The mom said, “What?”. I told her, “get Leo”. She hollered at Leo and he came up. She explained to him that I had found something and I wanted to show him. I took my hand away and there sat a beautiful Nanotyrannus tooth. He grabbed it like he was grabbing a golden nugget. He asked her what it was and she told him and he sat there and stared at it. The rest of the family came over and they carefully tucked it into a speciman sack that they had brought along. The mom later found a tip of a T-Rex tooth which was pretty cool.

When we got back from the tour my little pal Leo was digging through his treasures and looking them all over. He looked over at me and asked his mom where his tooth was. She pulled it out and he again sat it into his little hand looking at it. I wondered what he was thinking about. He looked back at me watching him and smiled at me. He asked his mom to help him take off his long sleeve shirt. Under his long sleeve, he had a tshirt that had cartoon dinosaurs all over it. He again smiled at me and pointed to his shirt. I came over and started poking at all the dinosuars on his belly and talking and laughing about each one. Giggles surrounded us as we sat there talking dino’s and knowing neither one of us knew what the hell we were saying. Through his laughter, he told his mom something. His Mom looked at me and said, “Leo wants me to tell you that he is very happy”. That little 6 year old soul took my breathe away. Here we were, one 6 and one let’s just say, old, didn’t understand what each other was saying, but one simple dinosaur tooth brought us both to the same playing field. That moment was stamped into my brain. A good day. The reason why Dad wanted to do this brought front and center to my brain yet again.

The following tour brought in some grand parents that brought their grand kids to try their luck. I started my little speech that I have legit given 100’s of times before. So many times, that it just starts to roll out like a record. I got to the part of Dad wanting to build Paleo and I could feel my voice was going to crack. I tried to take a deep breathe to stop the lump that was starting to form in my throat. It was no use. My voiced cracked and in an instant a few hot tears leaked out of my eyes. I was surprised at myself as usually I whip right through it. Not today. I couldn’t finish my speech, I took a deep breathe, aplogized for my break and asked the kids who was ready to go find bones. Then we went on down the dusty rutted road. We got to the microsite and I sat down on the ground to help them start finding things. As I was looking at the ground I saw something move out of my eye. A perfect gray feather that looked exactly like the feathers tattooed on my arm came floating by. I grabbed it and popped it into my pocket. When I got home, I went to look at the feather. Wouldn’t you know, the feather was gone, just a memory existed.

Even though the bumps, canyons, valleys of life have etched across my life this year, doesn’t mean all is lost. I get these little glimpses of light that show me it is all ok. Maybe it is because tomorrow would have been Dad’s birthday or maybe it was a little kid named Leo who helped me remember why I do what I do. Did I mention my Dad’s name was Leonard? Maybe, just maybe, Dad really isn’t gone, just always around laying stuff in front of my face to pull my ass up and show me that there is a reason for everything. I mean, he got me to write it. Happy early birthday to the man who gave me the art of story telling, the fight in my belly and the hazel in my eyes.