Paleonthology in my road trip!

[fred_faleiro]

Hi folks!

I am a Brazilian guy in the US this year for a study abroad.
I'll finish a summer internship this week, so next week I am going to a road trip in the northeast region of the US - Boston, NY, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Chicago and Saint Louis.

I want to check everything related to paleonthology in these cities, but besides the museums and their gift shops, I don't know that much of places.
So... Any recomandations? =D

[Gryphoceratops]

Well as far as actual sites with fossils there is always Big Brook in central NJ.  There are literally small fossils all over the place there.  Literally.  Seriously you just walk around for a few minutes then *bam*, cretaceous shell.  There are also dinosaur bone fragments and large marine reptile bones and  teeth that have been found there but they are much more rare. 

[DinoLord]

Dave's Rock Shop is right outside of Chicago and is a great fossil shop. They have a lot of less commonly seen fossils for sale, and in the basement you can see an impressive fossil collection belonging to the shop owner. The store has quite a few Mazon Creek fossils for sale, many of which he found himself (the site is very over-collected and it's hard to find anything there nowadays). The staff are very knowledgeable too. They even have a UV light if you have any doubts about the authenticity of the fossils.

There's another fossil hunting site in central NJ called Ramanessin. There are many late Cretaceous age shark teeth to be found there. However, if you do decide to go collecting there you'll need a gravel sifter and a shovel (or something else for dumping gravel on to the sifter), as you'll need to sift through the gravel to find anything.