Photo by Davis Turner / The Free Lance-Star Bob Simon uses an 'air-scribe' to remove bits of rock from the femur of a juvenile apatosaurus in a shed behind his Spotsylvania home. Simon is president of Dinosaur Safaris, a company that allows tourists to help dig for dinosaur bones in Wyoming. Click for larger photo. Photo by Davis Turner / The Free Lance-Star Removing rock from the fused vertebrae of a stegosaurus is one of Simon's projects. Click for larger photo.

Bob Simon had a perfectly profitable modern job, but left to fulfill a very big dream--finding and refurbishing dinosaur bones.

By BRIAN BAER
 

FREDERICKSBURG. COM

Remnants from hundreds of bones fill Bob Simon's makeshift shed.

Leg bones and arm bones. Finger bones and toe bones. Neck bones and shoulder bones. And plenty of teeth.

But the Spotsylvania County Sheriff's Office or local game warden won't be interested in his collection--unless they want to investigate deaths 145 million years old.

Simon, who lives in the Courthouse area of the county, is a professional dinosaur bone collector. He even has his own company.

An oil man for 20 years--he helped Chevron target prospects in the Gulf of Mexico--Simon gave up his lucrative career to pursue a most unusual dream.

He's the president of Dinosaur Safaris.

The company leases about 80 acres on a ranch in Shell, Wyo., where Simon works with another full-time employee and tourists to unearth bone fragments from the Jurassic age.

Simon spent all spring, summer and early fall on the ranch digging and scraping earth once walked by creatures most of us have imagined only on school field trips.

Tourists, teachers and groups from as far away as England have come to spend a couple of days looking for fossils.

Simon will return to the ranch in April, or whenever the snow melts, to do it all over again this year.

Until then, he doesn't need help killing time.

Simon hopes to visit some local schools to make presentations, as he did while living in Louisiana.

Plus, he brought back 3,000 pounds of fossils to work on at his home. He's up around 5 o'clock on most mornings and outside preparing bones when the temperature is bearable.

His tool of choice to work on these historic finds is ridiculously simple: an X-acto knife. Simon uses the blade to carefully chip away dirt, sediment and stone that covers the fossils. He uses an air-blowing machine to clean up the finer details.

Many of the fossils have a natural shine when Simon's done with them, but he uses no gloss when cleaning.

And while hundreds of the artifacts are laid out in small plastic bags labeled "unknown bones," many others are striking.

This week, for instance, three 5-foot-long dinosaur femurs lie on the ground of Simon's shed, encased in plaster
 protective carriers.

Simon will spend weeks preparing each one.

Some of the finds sell for just a few dollars. Others, like the large femurs, go for up to $5,000. He sells them on his Web site, dinosaur safaris.com and elsewhere online.

Simon has sold to museums and schools, but plenty of individuals also have ordered the fossils as conversation pieces, to show to their kids or to hang in their offices.

Not everyone appreciates his work.

Some in the scientific community believe all dinosaur matter-- no matter how small or plentiful--belongs in a museum or in academia.

Simon believes there's plenty to go around and says when he finds something rare or worth studying, he turns it over to the right folks.

He points out that because museums and schools are strapped for cash, amateur and commercial collectors tend to dig up most major finds of late.

Simon's company, for instance, unearthed a partial juvenile skeleton from an Allosaurus and the lower jaw of an unknown meat-eating dinosaur that paleontologists are examining.

His personal favorite find has been a tooth from a torvosaurus, a rare meat-eating dinosaur from the Jurassic age.

"It's one of the best, if not the best, from the Jurassic ever found from that species," he said.

Simon's company also has unearthed a 20-foot-long tail with all the vertebrae in a row. He keeps it at his shop in Wyoming.

It will take months to prepare, and Simon estimates its value at $20,000.

But Simon, who has geology degrees from Virginia Tech and the University of Virginia, says he didn't start this company for the money.

"I could have stayed six more years in the oil industry with early retirements and good benefits," he said this week.

Instead he walked away to pursue a dream.

"The most dangerous risk out there is the one you don't take," said Simon, 47.

"If you don't do something when you're young and able to do it and enjoy life, then you might look back and regret it."

Simon can be contacted by e-mail at dino_safaris@yahoo.com.