Chapter 4: From the Successful Mongolian Expedition to My Saddest Discovery

Simon:

Amy was fantastic. She ensured so much money fund that we was able to organize an independent expedition. Naturally we used other grants, but her and her previous firm's money funds were the most important. She also helped us in the normal work. Some professor colleagues were envious of me to have such voluntary as Amy. My colleagues and I liked her. It was very interesting my wife Megan and my daughters liked her as well. We invited her to our house several times, but she refused the most invitations. I knew she adored our daughters and I did not understand why she denied our invitation. Megan explained in spite of she had much money, she was sad because she had not any her own kid. Our family troubled Amy, because it reminded her of the lack of children.

Amy had buried herself in organizing of the Mongolian expedition. I flew with Robert to Ulaanbaatar (the capital of Mongolia) after Xmas to negotiate our expedition with the Scientific Academia, University of Ulaanbaatar, Geological Survey of Mongolia, the Ministry of Foreign affairs and the Ministry of Cultural. The Science and Cultural responsible of the embassy of USA helped us. We were successful and we got permission from the Mongolian authorities. The Mongolian Scientific Academia and the Geological Survey of Mongolia wanted the first big fossils after restoration, but we could keep the second big fossils. They were not interested in the small mammal and bird fossils at all. We came home with big success.

Soon Amy and Ken went to Mongolia and despite being strangers they began to organize our expedition. The US Embassy in Mongolia also assisted them very well, they proposed a good interpreter to them. Amy and Ken negotiated with some transport entrepreneurs and they flew to the local center of the expedition area. Mongolian winter is same cold as the Siberian winter, so Ken's and Amy's achievements were fantastic. When they came back Amy told us laughing the next expedition would be in the Antarctica. Ken told us Amy had big prestige in the local center, because he knew so well to ride on horseback as local shepherds.

My responsibility was to look for a guest professor, who would hold lectures for students. It was easy, because we found a dinosaurs and ancient reptile expert from the University of Calgary, Canada, who accepted two years guest professor job possibilities. He hoped he could meet our first found fossils in our department. He only would come to our excavation in Summer. The most experts were from other Universities and museums, as paleobotanical, paleoarthropod experts, dinosaurs and ancient reptiles experts, fossil fish and amphibian experts, etc. They would come for a shorter time, but we would be on the site all time. Geophysics and geochemist experts would help us to define the age of the volcanic ash from the decay of the radioactive isotopes and other geologist expert would work with us to explain the ancient environment. We were proud, this time others would be the guests of our expedition. Everybody was grateful to Amy. Amy was glad to have been one of the organizers of this expedition. She told me several times she felt she was not unnecessary in the life.

My daughters were before school age, so Megan came with our kids and she planned ornithology observation on the grassy Gobi desert. Good hotels and modern apartments were for the tourists in the local centers of Mongolia. We hired apartments with big garages and some colleagues could work with the found fossils in the garages. Megan wanted to get a ornithology job in our local natural reserve authority and this was a good possibility to renovate her ornithology knowledge. She wanted to go out with us to the paleontology site and to observe the local birds. Amy and Megan would be the babysitters alternately. Amy accepted this too, so we flew to Mongolia before melting the snow to start our expedition.

Soon we went to the local center and we arrived in the green Gobi desert. The melted snow changed the desert into a green grassy area with wild and domestic animals. The shepherds herded their bactrian camels, cattle, sheep and horses into the grassy area. We went by jeeps and built a camp with the hired people. I experienced Amy got a prestige, because she rode on horseback so well as the Mongolian shepherds. The Mongolian people were very friendly and hospitable and Amy's prestige was a big opportunity to build very friendly connection to the locals.

Amy worked with us in the excavation sites and she organized the expedition fine besides babysitting my daughters. Local colleagues joined to our expedition and we started the research. Soon we found more good sites and we began to explore the layers. We had sites from the Jurassic and Cretaceous too, moreover we found a site after Cretaceous in the Tertiary age. The fantastic site had more volcanic pyroclastic flows areas. The volcanic hot ash killed the animals and plants but this rare possibility gave us fantastic fossils and a photo-like snapshot about the ancient life forms. We found lot of ancient mammal and bird fossils, but the reptile fans also got many good fossils until November, when we left Mongolia.

Amy and our daughters became true friends until Megan took home them in September, because the school started for Nancy. Megan published her bird observation in the Gobi desert and this was a good help to get a job at the State's natural reserve authority. The expedition was a success for every participant as my wife.

We got so many fossils despite we left some of them for the Mongolian Scientific Institutes that we could work to process them for more than fifteen years. We, my colleagues and I reached the top of the true Scientific totem pole. We began to publish our results soon. We knew that we really could not thank this success to Amy, but Amy told us she was glad to help us. It was interesting she was so happy for our scientific success as we were. We reminded Amy she was almost so good horse rider as the Mongolian shepherds and we laughed a lot on this with her. We also learned to ride on horseback, but Amy was the only true horse riding expert among the Americans.

When we arrived from Mongolia I dug myself into my work with the fossils and I rarely went to the canteen. I ate sandwiches or I boiled cookery in our department. Sometimes I went to the canteen so I met a professor fellow from the engineering. I knew Doug was in the middle of his difficult divorce. I found him to be very happy and I did not understand this at all.

I said. "You told me you were in the middle of an ugly divorce. I don't understand why you're so happy? Have you just won the children custody in the courts?"