The Wyoming Expedition
by Kris Leja
Kris Leja at Bighorn National Park in Wyoming
Photo: © Project Exploration
Hi, my name
is Kris Leja. I’ve been a Junior
Paleontologist for three years. I have
also participated in Science Giants,
and went to Montana in 2003. This summer
I got to go on the Donor Trip to Wyoming.
The Donor Trip lets people who help fund
Project Exploration's work go out on a dinosaur
dig, which funds Project Exploration programs.
I was a student representative and field
assistant on the Donor Trip because of my
previous experiences in the field and in
the classroom.
Below are some of the pictures I took and
some excerpts from my field journal.
Thursday, June 23, 2005
Mary Beth Perez, Project Exploration
cofounder Gabrielle Lyon, her daughter Ava,
and I got to the Kedesh Ranch a day early
to begin setting up for the rest of the
expedition team members. We rented a Dodge
Durango pickup truck from Billings, Montana
and went to Wal-Mart and loaded it with
tons of juices and snacks and stuff. The
drive through Montana and Wyoming was awesome
and everybody was saying it was "so
green", they were getting a lot of
rain this year. Once we got to the ranch
I had to go exploring.
Ava, Project
Exploration cofounder Gabrielle Lyon, and
Kris Leja.
Photo: M. E. Perez
Friday, June 24
I got to go for a hike around the Kedesh
Ranch. To the right, the owner's house and
horses. On the left and back was all mountains!
I climbed over a fence and out in the back
up a small hill to take some pictures of
the mountains. I also saw some cool granite
rocks. When I got back to the cabin everybody
was already sleeping. It’s barely
9:15 pm and still light outside.
The mountains
near the Kedesh Ranch in Wyoming.
Photo: K. Leja
Saturday, June 25
I woke up at 7 o’clock and
went to Dirty Annie’s for breakfast.
I asked for pancakes and sausage and got
two normal sausages and one gigantic pancake—about
a foot in diameter and an inch thick. I
couldn’t even finish half of it.
I just got back from star gazing. We didn’t
see anything because the clouds covered
most of the sky. But we did get to see Jupiter
a little when the clouds moved out of our
way. The ride home was fun. We blasted some
disco music on the car stereo during the
ride back to the ranch.
Sunday, June 26
We ate breakfast. Ray Vodden, a fossil preparator
from Paul Sereno's dinosaur lab, and I headed
to the shed to pick stuff up for the site
and for the shed out in the field. We took
a shortcut dirt road and saw the guy at
the shed. He followed us down a crazy bumpy
road to the site, right around the base
of the Bighorn Mountains.
Hiking to the
dig site.
Photo: K. Leja
We dropped the equipment off at the shed
and the crew met us up there. We went for
a hike to some older quarries where a famous
Swiss paleotologist dug up a lot of dinosaur
bones. We made it to our site. We got all
our tools and started digging. I always
feel like I’m going to mess something
up, but I got into it really fast. The guys
found a jacket buried, and Ray was working
on the legs of the Camerasaurus.
Paul started jacketing, and then it started
raining. We covered the site and drove in
the rain back to Kedesh Ranch.
Yeehaw! I just got back from
a horseback ride—awesome! I was a
little goofy on the horse at first but Doc
(the horse) and I got along fine towards
the end. He was afraid of the white, unicorn-looking
donkey. He kept messing with the other horses.
First we went up this steep hill and then
around a bend for about an hour. The people
at the horse ranch were really cool. They
helped me out telling me what to do and
what not to do.
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