The great dig

Compelling as the "vacation" involving tracking and counting mountain lions -- which we highlighted yesterday -- sounds, I'm afraid I've crossed that off our list of potential vacations. Although it it is important to think out of the box, stretch yourself, and all that, I also feel very strongly about staying intact. So I consulted our book about vacations that enrich your life for one that might offer excitement, but not that much excitement.

"You really should read this book," I told Joe. "There's a lot of cool things to do in here."

"Like what?"

"Well, I think there's a trip where you go to this little tourist town and, um, help sell souvenirs..."

"Take that book back to the store," he said.

But then, as I pointed out, we might miss the opportunity to help discover why a bunch of teenage mammoths in North Dakota all perished together in a sinkhole. This involves excavating a mammoth cemetery.

"You don't like dirt," he said.

I have to hand it to him. He brings out the heavy artillery right away.

But for some reason the story intrigues me. It sounds eerily like another I read recently, this time about a group of teenage dinosaurs in Mongolia who all died together in a bunch of mud from which they couldn't escape. Scientists theorize that the adults were not paying attention --will we ever learn? -- and, as teens are wont to do with no supervision, all got together and spray-painted the junior high (which has yet to be excavated). But then something went tragically wrong, and as they fled the scene of their misdeed, they were stopped by the mud, literally in their tracks.

Personally I think it likely that the two incidents are in some way connected. Perhaps some cosmic force was attempting to lure the young of the world away, for some nefarious purpose, and then abruptly abandoned its purpose when the teens wouldn't agree to change their cell phone ringtones to "All Hail the Cosmic Force." It's possible.

But we don't have to travel all the way out west to help dig things up. Although not technically a "vacation," more along the lines of "volunteer labor," there are opportunities to participate in archaeological excavations at Mount Vernon, which is only an hour from our house. Past digs have turned up wig curlers, forks made from animal bones, distillery items, lottery tickets. Okay, no lottery tickets.

Sadly, a dung repository has already been excavated and thoroughly researched, but I'm sure many other exciting opportunities await.