Steve Cook spent seven weeks of his summer vacation toiling under a hot sun in the badlands of north-central Montana. Lashed occasionally by dust storms and rain, he went for a week at a time without a shower, lived in a tent, and received no pay. He loved every second. He is coauthor of four books, including The Complete T. rex .
Summer finds by the crew included what appears to be a nest of intact, football-sized eggs.
The eggs were identified as those of a hadrosaur, a large duckbill dinosaur. Among Cook's most interesting finds was a leg bone of a baby meat-eating dinosaur similar to a Tyrannosaurus rex. At a second site, Cook's crew spent four days recovering the remains of an albertosaur, a dinosaur that resembles T. rex. Cook was lucky enough to find the largest bone. The bone was awkwardly shaped and weighed about 90 pounds.