On the rocks
At times you are happy to hear that there people out there who are as crazy as yourself. People who would enjoy digging through dirt for a few pieces of rock, hoping to find something interesting or … god forbid … even valuable.
Gregg of recent NMHU fame is this other crazy guy. You can also see him on the right hand side in this photo from the Santa Train Ride story:
Gregg and I went on short trip on Sunday to explore two places that he knew about from past excursions. I have to add that I was officially released from baby-sitting duty, because my wife had a few days of partying in Philly for her sisters graduation and I had taken care of the wookie during her absence.
Gregg and I met around 10am and drove up to the Tent Rocks area and then way beyond. I can’t provide details about the locations, otherwise I would have to shoot you. However I can provide a satellite map that shows the two locations we went to (good luck matching them against a real map):
I had my GPS with me and marked the two spots where we collected material.
Crazy also, because we seemed to have picked the hottest day of last week to go on this excursion. Hot sun, no clouds and the reflection of heat from rocky grounds generates a nice amount of sweat.
Gregg shows me a location where he had found Agate in the past and after a while we actually manage to find some pieces that look interesting. Once we get too hot we continue our trip up the mountain to the next location.
The second location is a place where he had found Jasper in the past. We do find a few Jasper pieces, but far more Agate in this area. At one point a huge vein of Agate seems to stick out the ground. Very nice!
It’s just way too hot to spend a lot of time in the sun. At 3pm we call it a day and head back down to Santa Fe. I grab this shot of the Tent Rocks from the “back side”:
Gregg took all the raw rock material home with him and promised to use his special saw to take the pieces apart. I hope to have an update soon that shows the cut and polished results …