My good friend Lisa is a producer by day at CNBC, but on weekends and nights she follows her other passion - paleontology. On weekends she works at the museum of Natural History and every summer goes to Montana to do dinosaur digs. For years she has been asking me to join her, but I felt the pace might be too slow for this adventure mom. You know me, I’d have to have the dinosaur chasing me, or be able to fly on the back of a pterodactyl to get my juices flowing. There is one exception though, and that’s when new experiences or adventures are practically in my backyard, and that is exactly what happened. Lisa found a place only a few hours from me in New Jersey were we could explore; heck it’s a lot closer than Montana.

What exactly was the adventure? It was called water fossiling…yup, looking for million year old fossils in the water…a thought or experience that had never crossed my mind. Turns out there’s a place called Big Brook Preserve in Colts Neck, New Jersey.

I went to their website to get some information: “The Big Brook site consisting of 143.44 acres, … includes being long recognized as a major site for fossils of both the Cretaceous and Pleistocene ages (70-65 million years old). … hundreds of specimens ranging from sharks teeth (relatively common) to rare Cretaceous marine reptiles and Ice Age mastodons…”

I was game. As I always believe adventures are more fun when shared so I decided to bring my “adventurer in training,” my nine-year-old niece, Athena and invite my friend, Janette and her boyfriend Barry to come along as well.

The great thing I like about adventures is that my trips are so diverse. For example, a few short weeks ago I was kicking back after a camel trek on a gorgeous soft and fluffy bed in my room at the 5 star Royal Plantation in Jamaica, overlooking the beach and planning my next meal or yoga workshop. Then moseying to the stunning jacuzzi waiting for a waiter to take my order. And the next minute, I can be camping out in the woods in New Jersey, in a tent packed with 6 people, putting up citronella sticks to ward away mosquitoes, doing a rain dance around the campfire and dining on s'mores and hot dogs. I love it! Diversity at it's finest, and I get to share that with my niece.

We changed into our river attire in the parking lot. A packing list for New Jersey digs:

• high boots or water shoes so you don’t slip on the rocks in the water
• pair of shorts
• a plastic bag for finds
• a small trowel
• some kind of sifter… being a true Italian, I brought a spaghetti strainer.

Oh yeah, and there’s one more thing you need, lots of patience…something that this fast talker lacks.

Of course you could do as Barry did and use plastic bags and duct tape around the legs of your jeans. Since it was supposed to rain we had on raincoats as well, even though we were going to get wet from the knees down anyway. Face it, this is not one of those glamour sports you are going to see on the cover of Sports Illustrated.

With everything in order we walked down a short trail and found a good place to enter the ankle high water.

Janette and I had to go to the bathroom and as you might of guessed, luxury toilet facilities like the ones I experienced in Jamaica, were not available, but not to worry, this butt has been exposed to many a questionable bathroom from the wilds of Africa to the frozen tundra of Antarctica. Even Janette has faced the jungles of Rwanda. Athena, being a budding adventurer, refused to go and held it as long as she could till she started to do the famous potty dance, and nature persuaded her.

Barry found a petrified oyster, also very common, but a cool find. Then we heard it…the first real cool find of the day, “I found a sharks tooth!” We all scrambled over to see what it looked like. That made us all sift faster. Then Lisa yelled out, “I found small animal bone.” I personally wanted to find a masterdon bone and have it put in some museum named after me…”Fran’s funny bone.”

Athena was getting discouraged…she and I have that same impatience gene. I said, “Athena let’s visualize we find something really cool.”

We did. I swear, not ten minutes later, Athena who had been desperately looking for a sharks tooth all day long to take into school says casually, “I don’t’ care if I find a sharks tooth anymore.”

I said, “Mmmm, really and why is that Athena?” She proudly holds up her hand and says, “Because I found THIS!” She pulled out an 8 inch rib bone. We took pictures, measured it, and Lisa said she would both check it against the NJ fossil find website and send a picture of it out to her friends in Montana so they could identify it. I of course, tend to think in other terms. “Hey Lisa, No chance it's Jimmy Hoffa?” She just smiled. Hey, you never know, it’s Jersey after all.

With enough fossiling under our wet boots, we headed to the car, toweled ourselves clean, threw the dirty clothes and boots in a plastic bag and drove 30 minutes to the Turkey Farm Camp site. It was an all-female endeavor, and I thought that would be a good first camping experience for my niece. I wanted her to know camping is something women can do without men. We all worked well together, Athena learned how to pitch a six person tent with us, set up the bedrolls, build a good fire and most importantly eat and prepare smores and dance around the campfire.

At one point Athena said, “I still wish I had a found a sharks tooth.” I said, “No problem, I’m sure that Lisa will gladly trade you the sharks tooth for that rib.” Athena smiled, “On second thought, I think I’ll keep my rib to go.” We laughed, and examined the bone, thinking up cool stories of where it had come from. Athena wrapped the bone, placed it into the car and crawled into the tent. She said, “Frannie, I think I’m going to have trouble falling asleep outhere in the forest.” Two minutes later she was asleep.

A day of adventure will do that to you. And although this was not of the high adrenaline type, it was one that required more imagination…one where you step back in time, way back, and get to literally touch the remains today of ice age mammals millions of years ago that roamed the earth. When that happens you realize that everything in life is connected. A cool thought indeed.