Hunting Fossils and Little Orphan Annie

We had a rather exciting Saturday. First off, we went to Big Brook Preserve in Monmouth County. We spent the morning wading through the muddy brook, sifting for fossils. We did manage to find a bout a zillion belemnite fossils AKA ancient squids. These came to be called "squid bits," as in, "Hey! I found some more squid bits!" G did manage to find the prize winning Goblin Shark tooth-the curator of the geology museum said it's the best example she's ever seen:

We then went to G's Alma Mater, Monmouth U. The college is situated on the former site of the Shadow Lawn Mansion, now known as Wilson Hall (Woodrow once had the "Summer White House"close by). It is also where "Annie" was filmed. We, erm, managed to get in and have a look 'round. 

The entire ceiling over the main hall is beautiful stained glass

The sitting room to the lady of the house's private Loo

Mirror and marble over M'lady's bath

Let's go check out the basement, Daddy!

Public ladies room near the basement theatre (Seriously, I don't have a bathroom fetish. They just had some of the most beautiful tile work)

Bathroom stall door. Seriously. 

They still use the bedrooms as classrooms, complete with chandeliers and huge fireplaces. It was amazing to walk through. G had taken me here when we were dating....at that time, we had gone on one of the original elevators, but seeing as we were in the house by ourselves, and the elevators are ancient, we thought it prudent to stay out of them.

S and I pretended to be ladies from the Gilded Age and talked about how we would spend our days, having tea parties and riding our ponies about the grounds. It was fun. We got home very exhausted.