May 21, 2001

Not much sleep last night. Fought off some troodonts who'd decided to improvise a tug-of-war with my trousers. Trousers much less comfortable thereby. Oh, I wasn't in my trousers when it happened; I was taking a bath in one of the little rain-pools among the boulders west of here, out in the foothills.

Anyway, decided to start a journal this morning, being discommoded and possibly not entirely level-minded with the events of the last week or so. As I have no paper, my only recourse was to trek back to that diabolical appliance, my computer, which I'd hoped I'd left for good in this godforsaken swamp I first arrived in...

Well, I might as well type in a little of how I got here. I might make a little more sense if I do. (Doubt it.)

I was having a new DSL line hooked up last Tuesday. Apparently the sheer power of the dataflow spawned a cataclysmic quantum temporal vaporotranspondence disassociation, dumping me square into a pile of hadrosaur shit. I know it was a hadrosaur, too - a Corythosaurus casuarius male in his first rutting season, to be precise - because the duckbill himself was still standing there when I materialized. Ever thought what a dino passing gas would be like? Ever try scaring the living daylights out of one to find out? That's one reason I was taking the aforesaid bath, the stench still firmly cloying to my carcass after four nights of rainstorms and many, many dunks into the turbid rivers roundabouts.

On one of those dunks I got into toothier trouble. It was the same afternoon I survived my first brush with the Mesozoic. I first came down in a marsh in the deltas bordering the Inland Seaway. As near as I can place myself, I'm probably near Billings, Montana. Anyway, swarms of dungflies pursued me about a mile until I saw the low bank of a flood-swollen delta river directly in my path.

"Victory!" I screamed, waving my arms disjointedly as I sprinted for the water. "Catch me now, you little nonaquaeous losers!"

Without a thought I leapt out over the water and plunked down deep over my head. I flailed a moment, just now remembering I'm not such a good swimmer, and threw my head above the surface. I laughed maniacally at my triumph, as I got caught in the current and started drifting rather farther out from land than I intended. I continued laughing until the croc barely missed my calf with its jaws.

I don't remember how I got out of the river, or of the two or three miles I subsequently ran, to judge by how far I had to trek to find my computer the next morning. I do know I wrenched my knee somehow and that I've been limping ever since. I believe I spent my first night up in a Dryophyllum grove.

In case you're curious, I have as yet seen only two tyrannosaurs, both Albertosaurus sarcophagus. Both times at a distance, which I wasted little time to increase. It appears sarcos are pack hunters of the lambeosaurine duckbills inhabiting these marshy lowland areas, and they pay little attention to such scrawny morsels such as myself. At least the adults do, though I'm not convinced a juvenile might find me a suitable curiosity with which to pursue its carnivore apprenticeship.

I'm personally most worried with the dromaeosaurs. Tros are exasperating little twerps, but unless they gang up in their flocks of fifteen or twenty and decide to chase you for the fun of it (reminds me of a foxhunt, except tros are civilized enough to let me win), they really aren't much of a threat. Droms, however, promise to be my personal ticket to Hades. Remember the "raptors" of Jurassic Park? That's what these guys are like: nasty little wolfsized murderers with five-inch sickle-claws on their inner toes. I've seen two packs thus far (fortunately they don't appear plentiful), only one of which winded me and ran me a merry chase. Oh, they'd easily outrun any human they had a mind to. I escaped that time by happening upon a fallen trunk that was a little hollow inside. I scrambled in, getting my forearm slashed by manus-claws on my way in, and skittered in deep. The lead drom skittered in right after me, not roaring like a movie dinosaur, but silent and assured and much more deadly. I kicked him in the jaws, and the recoil slammed his head against the decaying roof of the trunk. The heavy growth of epiphytes on the trunk collapsed down, burying me safely among moss and woodchips while the droms futilely tried to excavate my remains. A good tip for future time-travelers: droms don't dig well.

This reminds me just now of one of my pet peeves: the theropod population of dinosaur fiction. In the real Cretaceous, there's only one cinematic-caliber theropod for every 500 or so herbivores. Theropods are by far the most active dinos around, so you see them more often than you'd expect, but I've only spotted them an average of once a day. And another thing, which will entirely deflate human ego: dinos do not care that you exist. If a tyrannosaur is battling a ceratopsian and she sees you lurking among the shrubbery, she will not bellow and spring out to gobble you up. No, she will kill the ceratopsian, eat her fill, and ignore you... unless you try to sneak scraps from her kill. (Been there, done that.) In that situation, it's best to wait until the other scavengers move in; for that matter, unpalatable as it might seem, you're best off waiting until they have finished, and the third or fourth tier starts moving in, because these are the ones you can hold your own against. The carcass might be a few days old by then, so what it has gained in flavor it has lost in digestibility.

I think that's enough for tonight. I'm sleeping in a shelter I've rigged up from cycad leaves, tied together with my socks. My feet are finally getting a chance to dry! Just hope nothing decides to investigate my shoes....

May 24, 2001

Got caught in a Eucentrosaurus apertus stampede this afternoon. I had wandered farther than ordinary, gathering palm-hearts that I use to make a sorry paste that passes for bread, when I came out into this open, blisteringly sunny meadow. Not a grassland, since grass won't evolve for 40 million years. It was this dry ferny expanse with some stretches of what I think are termed forbs. Anyway, several hundred of the big horned dinos were grazing and moving southwesterly along the meadow when I, fresh off the turnip truck, wandered out among them. Ceras are rather more skittish than many dinos, and are perversely fond of charging you, horns-down, just to make you jump. That's not to say they don't skewer you when they get the chance.

As I was saying... The first snorting bull cut me off from behind, forcing me to dart deeper into the herd. The ground was trampled by the big elephantine pads these guys have; mothers lowed with an odd hwohh-hwweeh croak, pawing the ground as the bull drove me among them. Dumb fellow. I tripped once and fell, wrenching my knee, and I howled and writhed in agony. That's what triggered the stampede. I scrambled to my feet as the first matron brushed by me, her rough flanks tearing skin off my arm and bowling me over in the dust. I got up again, and the bull repeated the maneuver. I nearly got mashed by the next, then I rolled to my belly, clawed to my feet, and ran like hell with the herd.

I was battered, breathless, and I discovered that ceratopsians can run rather faster than a limping human with no training can. By artful dodging I managed not to get poked in the rear by those short but nasty snout horns, though one trouser leg was neatly snipped off by a parrot-like beak. It didn't even break my stride. I saw my chance as I dropped behind a second bull who had been harrying my ass; I flung myself behind his thick stumpy tail and dived headlong into a clump of cycads. Not the wisest thing I've ever done, but I'm proving myself not particularly wise. Anyhow, that's how I escaped that mess.

I limped "home" half naked and a moving bait for any predators or even agnostic herbivores that should wander by. I was bleeding profusely from a dozen nasty scrapes, so I ripped up some lengths of grape vine - not poisonous, I hope?? - and tied leaves onto my wounds. After awhile they clotted sufficiently for me to trek through the last few miles of forest as dusk came on. I fortified myself behind some washed-out tree roots, and, shivering, famished, and pale from blood loss, tried to bide my time until the crepescular predators - namely droms and tros - should finish up and bed down.

Afterward I loitered awhile in Yahoo clubs. I run a nice one, btw: Earth's Official Deep Time Club. Check it out sometime to see what my feverish brain is brewing on lately...

May 25, 2001

Still ill. To pass the time I put up my website. Am very peeved at GeoCities; had to paste it together from Corel Word Perfect and bits of twine. In a way it's gratifying to see my work where all the Holocene yokels can gander at it. Enjoying some chips one of my club-friends chronoported to me. In want of guacamole.

Will update site shortly. Right now I'm going to bed.