Fourth of July has always been one of my favorite holidays.
When I was a child, my family often spent the day sailing on Canandaigua Lake in upstate New York. We’d sail to a spot we called “The fossil place.” My dad would anchor Lucky Penny, our sailboat, and we’d swim ashore and hunt for trilobites and brachiopods at the cliff edge.
Truthfully, there wasn’t much hunting involved. There were so many. We sifted the dirt through our fingers and a fossil would be revealed. My brother Grant and I got turned on to fossils and together we amassed quite an impressive collection…