After visiting Yellow Cat and the Poison Strip
in Utah, we continued on to the more favorably named
Eden Valley, Wyoming,
in search of Blue Forest petrified wood.
Don't Tom and I look happy in this photo?
We're putting on a brave front because this was after several nights sleeping on an air mattress that simultaneously steamed and abraded us. Even with a cotton fitted sheet, a sweaty layer of moisture would form between the air mattress and the unlucky half of our body in contact with it, resulting in a chill when we would flip over; and maybe it was something to do with the desert environment but it felt like we were sleeping on 1000 grit sandpaper: not rough enough to cause scarring but it left Tom feeling like he might have to get his tattoo touched up.
Still, it was beautiful,
and since Jim and Vickie bring everything but the kitchen sink (and they would bring that, too, if they could figure out a way to make it work), we camped in relative style.
No, this is not a scene from "Breaking Bad."
It's Jim and Vickie's interesting little trailer that was packed with all manner of foods, drinks, utensils (an entire knife block) and dishes but, strangely, no bowls. Only an issue when we wanted cereal, and the coffee mugs stood in for that.
So what were we there for?
The wood, baby!
Blue Forest wood is gorgeous: the fossil retains every tiny detail and at times, I had to look twice to convince myself it was a fossil and not a modern branch. The wood is surrounded with layers of blue-hued chalcedony and golden calcite crystals.
But there's a catch.
You have to dig to find it and...
nearly every piece is encased in layers of hard, fossilized algae.
Finding an algae cast is no guarantee of success. The cast in the above picture was empty.
Empty!
It ain't right.
The ground is pocked with holes from decades of fossil hunters
and covered with discarded algae casts.
I pondered the environmental impact of all the digging but the area was dug up long ago and "planted" with oil and gas wells which are visible in every direction. Fossil hunters are allowed to dig as long as they don't use mechanized equipment.
Pick a hole, any hole.
I decided to give myself a head start on the digging and jump into a hole that had been started by some other hunter. Here was my new burrow for the next day and a half.
I hit pay dirt my first try so I just kept digging, uncovering a load of fossil twigs and branches
and even a root ball which I am lovingly cradling in this photo.
I also found a long, unbroken algae cast but I still have no idea what's inside because
this crap is HARD!
We're still experimenting with ways to remove it without breaking the fragile fossil inside but the best bet seems to be...
ACID!!!
Muriatic acid to be exact, and in small measured doses. I'll post results as they come.
Meanwhile, I found some float material that was algae-free
and Tom polished them in his masterful way:
And here's one he hasn't polished yet to show how gorgeous this stuff is:
But wait! One more!
This picture isn't the best but Tom found a limestone nodule and when he broke it open, it contained a piece of fossilized wood so realistic looking you'd be afraid of getting a splinter.
USPS Feud Update
It's just possible that with a mix of Gorilla and packing tape, I have tamed the United States Postal Service delivery beast.
Stay tuned...
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