Post by Bluesky78987 on Aug 19, 2012 22:20:00 GMT -5
Wow, I had the most amazing rockhounding weekend! Have to apologize, I didn't take a single dang picture! Hopefully anybody who wants to will still have fun following along.
Modified to add: Gah, put this in the wrong forum. Oh well, mods move it if you want. ;-)
Saturday I took my friend Shannon for her first rockhounding trip. Guess where we went? LAVIC! Can you imagine a better first trip? And we explored a bit and found a place where there was pretty good material sort of near the car. And she liked it! That made me feel good. I think she might be sucked in now! Even her husband liked her rocks when she got home. She said he was amazed at how clean they were. ;-) One of the nice things about the desert! It wasn't even too hot - only 100, as we were leaving, with a nice breeze. Cooler than when I went in March and May and hiked all those miles!
Then I drove up north, spent the night in beautiful smelly Coalinga East, and went on this field trip with Kris and Al from Hand-2-Mouth-Mining, to the Panoche Hills:
forum.rocktumblinghobby.com/index.cgi?board=orgatrip&action=display&thread=54001
I was looking forward to it because as I was reading the trip reports from their prior trip, some guy named Allen posted a picture of a rock he had found on (I think) their July trip. I looked at the picture and said "HEY!!! I JUST BOUGHT THAT ROCK ON EBAY!" No sh*t. Same rock. I cut it up last saturday. So I already knew I really liked the rocks from that location.
And then, when I got there and started turning over rocks . . . All I can say, is, OMG YOU LA AND CENTRAL VALLEY PEOPLE (AND DEE!) SHOULD HAVE COME. If you like the way the Panoche Hills rocks look (lots of jaspers with lines, streaks, white quartz lightning bolt intrusions, something very like jade, serpentine, magnesite, brecciated jaspers, orbicular jaspers, etc.
We met nice and early and drove to the site, which was huge, and the rocks were close the the car. I was like "Ok, where do we walk to?" And they looked at me funny and pointed to the ground under my feet. Doh! I was in hog heaven, since I happen to really like that style and color of rocks (as y'all have probably figured out by now, I like pretty much all rocks). At times I would set down my bucket, and just methodically pick up and spray each rock within a 2' diameter, and put 80% of them in the bucket. Crazy.
Most of the rocks were cutting size - I'd say average was 6" in diameter, with LOTS of larger ones, and a good number of smaller ones, and also tumble rough if you wanted it (although I didn't collect much of that, except the jade-like one, so wasn't really paying attention to that size). The rocks were in a streambed (dry) which has been bulldozed all to heck to make the irrigation canals, so picture large piles of dirt riddled with rocks. You can just pick a hillside and start picking up the rocks. We also looked at the actual streambed (dry), where the rocks were more sorted by size in gravel bars. And the collecting area is vast. It will never be picked over, I don't think.
We went to several different spots in the same general area, and the back of my 4runner is now FULL of rocks. The folks at the club better watch out, I'm going to be a saw hog for awhile with the big ones. Bottom line, it was easy, fun, and i got a ton of rocks I can't wait to cut.
Al doesn't post here, and I don't think he even reads it, based on his reactions to my questions. But you all know Kris and his golden pen. (And smilie icons, ;-) But I just want to say, they are both SUPER nice guys in person. I think I asked about 35 questions per hour, and it at least *seemed* like they actually enjoyed answering them! We had a great time.
I might have also badgered them into taking me back to the shop -- not their idea at all, and TOTALLY not a sales pitch. They showed me those rainbow slabs in the "slabs and saws" thread, and I MIGHT HAVE taken at least one of those pictured home with me (Ahem, I am now a collector I guess) . . . as well as a whole bunch of other stuff that probably you will see in the cabbing section soon. Got me some Blue G, Crazy Lace, the O'sid of course, various slabs for my project (you'll see later), some Mariposa, etc. It was so much fun to look at the actual rocks before deciding on them, which is a totally new for me as we have no brick and mortar rock shop in this town of however many tens of millions of people.
So now it's practically bedtime, as I'm on the "8pm to 4am" shift! lol.
Thanks for coming along virtually!
Modified to add: Gah, put this in the wrong forum. Oh well, mods move it if you want. ;-)
Saturday I took my friend Shannon for her first rockhounding trip. Guess where we went? LAVIC! Can you imagine a better first trip? And we explored a bit and found a place where there was pretty good material sort of near the car. And she liked it! That made me feel good. I think she might be sucked in now! Even her husband liked her rocks when she got home. She said he was amazed at how clean they were. ;-) One of the nice things about the desert! It wasn't even too hot - only 100, as we were leaving, with a nice breeze. Cooler than when I went in March and May and hiked all those miles!
Then I drove up north, spent the night in beautiful smelly Coalinga East, and went on this field trip with Kris and Al from Hand-2-Mouth-Mining, to the Panoche Hills:
forum.rocktumblinghobby.com/index.cgi?board=orgatrip&action=display&thread=54001
I was looking forward to it because as I was reading the trip reports from their prior trip, some guy named Allen posted a picture of a rock he had found on (I think) their July trip. I looked at the picture and said "HEY!!! I JUST BOUGHT THAT ROCK ON EBAY!" No sh*t. Same rock. I cut it up last saturday. So I already knew I really liked the rocks from that location.
And then, when I got there and started turning over rocks . . . All I can say, is, OMG YOU LA AND CENTRAL VALLEY PEOPLE (AND DEE!) SHOULD HAVE COME. If you like the way the Panoche Hills rocks look (lots of jaspers with lines, streaks, white quartz lightning bolt intrusions, something very like jade, serpentine, magnesite, brecciated jaspers, orbicular jaspers, etc.
We met nice and early and drove to the site, which was huge, and the rocks were close the the car. I was like "Ok, where do we walk to?" And they looked at me funny and pointed to the ground under my feet. Doh! I was in hog heaven, since I happen to really like that style and color of rocks (as y'all have probably figured out by now, I like pretty much all rocks). At times I would set down my bucket, and just methodically pick up and spray each rock within a 2' diameter, and put 80% of them in the bucket. Crazy.
Most of the rocks were cutting size - I'd say average was 6" in diameter, with LOTS of larger ones, and a good number of smaller ones, and also tumble rough if you wanted it (although I didn't collect much of that, except the jade-like one, so wasn't really paying attention to that size). The rocks were in a streambed (dry) which has been bulldozed all to heck to make the irrigation canals, so picture large piles of dirt riddled with rocks. You can just pick a hillside and start picking up the rocks. We also looked at the actual streambed (dry), where the rocks were more sorted by size in gravel bars. And the collecting area is vast. It will never be picked over, I don't think.
We went to several different spots in the same general area, and the back of my 4runner is now FULL of rocks. The folks at the club better watch out, I'm going to be a saw hog for awhile with the big ones. Bottom line, it was easy, fun, and i got a ton of rocks I can't wait to cut.
Al doesn't post here, and I don't think he even reads it, based on his reactions to my questions. But you all know Kris and his golden pen. (And smilie icons, ;-) But I just want to say, they are both SUPER nice guys in person. I think I asked about 35 questions per hour, and it at least *seemed* like they actually enjoyed answering them! We had a great time.
I might have also badgered them into taking me back to the shop -- not their idea at all, and TOTALLY not a sales pitch. They showed me those rainbow slabs in the "slabs and saws" thread, and I MIGHT HAVE taken at least one of those pictured home with me (Ahem, I am now a collector I guess) . . . as well as a whole bunch of other stuff that probably you will see in the cabbing section soon. Got me some Blue G, Crazy Lace, the O'sid of course, various slabs for my project (you'll see later), some Mariposa, etc. It was so much fun to look at the actual rocks before deciding on them, which is a totally new for me as we have no brick and mortar rock shop in this town of however many tens of millions of people.
So now it's practically bedtime, as I'm on the "8pm to 4am" shift! lol.
Thanks for coming along virtually!