Cruisin' the Fossil
Freeway
An
Epoch Tale of a Scientist and an Artist on the Ultimate 5,000-Mile Paleo Road
Trip
By Kirk Johnson and Ray Troll

Cruisin’
the Fossil Freeway
follows the zany travels of a paleontologist and an artist as they drive
across the American West in search of fossils.
Throughout their journey, they encounter "paleonerds" like themselves, men
and women dedicated to finding everything from suburban T. rexes to killer
Eocene pigs to ancient fossilized forests. Much of their travels are spent
in remote places few people visit, where they discover small-town museums
packed with paleontological treasures, rock quarries that have yielded
hundreds of fossilized bones, and the remains of ancient seashores tracked
with the footprints of dinosaurs. What soon becomes evident is that fossils
are everywhere; it only takes knowing what to look for to find them—even at
65 miles per hour.
About Ray:
Ray
Troll earned a BA from Bethany College in 1977 and an MFA in studio arts from
Washington
State University in 1981. He moved to Alaska in 1983 to spend a summer helping his sister start
a retail seafood store, got hooked on the area, and has remained in Alaska ever since.
Troll has created artwork for various conservation organizations including
the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, and the Southeast Alaska Conservation Council.
Troll's
unique blend of art and science culminated in his traveling exhibit, Dancing
to the Fossil Record, which opened at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco in 1995. The
huge exhibit included Troll's original drawings, gigantic fossils, fish
tanks, murals, an original soundtrack, a dance floor, and an interactive
computer installation. The exhibit traveled to museums and aquariums across
the country and ended four years later at the Denver Museum of Nature and
Science, by which time it had grown to 14,000 square feet.
Meet Ray Troll!
Ray will be presenting a paleo-talk, slideshow and signing on Monday, May 5th
at Hearthside Books in the Nugget Mall at 7PM.