Land of Rock and Honey

Have I mentioned how much I love Arizona?

Where else can a Florida rock hound hop out of the vehicle to pose with a mound of snow

and find an awesome deposit of marine fossils and geodes right across the road?

The spring months mean it’s time for me to head back to the deserts of the American southwest to meet up with my partners in crime, Vickie and Jim, for another fun rockhounding trip.  

It’s “fun” if you don’t mind driving several hours to get to your target area and it’s fun if you like digging for hours at a time. Thankfully, that is our exact definition of fun.

The main destination of this year’s trip was the Mongollon Rim of Arizona (NOT the Mongolian Rim) which is a geologic feature about 200 miles long, starting in Yavapai County and running eastward, ending near the border of New Mexico and forming the southern edge of the Colorado Plateau in Arizona.

 The “rim” is composed of limestone and sandstone deposited during the Carboniferous and Permian periods, as well as extensive lava flows. Our hunting focus was the small stretch near Kohl’s Ranch.

Once we got started, there was no stopping us.

Jim has a method for dealing with our rock obsession: he turns off the truck and falls asleep at the wheel.

Normally this would be a very effective way for him to stave off boredom when he's with us but on this occasion, he opted to park fairly close to the center of the road, mistakenly believing that a gravel road this far off the beaten path would be infrequently traveled.

Wrong!

By the time the 6th concerned motorist stopped to ask him if he was ok, 

he told us to wrap it up.

Fair enough.

We had a good haul of interesting rocks.

There was a lot of this material which I would love to label, in a knee-jerk fashion, as branch coral, but I honestly have no idea. 

There were large shell fossils so I believe I can correctly say it was a marine fossil exposure.

The most interesting part of it was the plethora of small geodes,

some still attached to the matrix,

and nearly all of them filled with little druzy crystals when broken open:

My camera is not good enough to catch the sparkle so you'll have to take my word for it.

I want to cut these open with my slab saw but they are so small, it will be like slicing a plum with a chain saw: it'll work but you won't have much left when you're done.

More Arizona to come...

Quiet Please!!!

The Peace River is my "happy place,"

but when high waters keep me from digging in the Peace, 

I go to a different river known as my "OK place."

There's not a lot to find there, but it satisfies the craving to move a ton of gravel
 with a garden shovel.

(some of the curious rocks to be found)

After 4 years of indulging in this hobby,

I am, unfortunately, even less patient

with the weekend canoe enthusiasts who want to know, 

"What are you looking for?"

It would be ok if they chose a spokesperson for their flotilla who would then disseminate the information to the rest of the crew, but that's not how it works.

Someone in each and every canoe

asks the question, and sometimes, BOTH people in the canoe ask.

On the particular Saturday in question (which is why I always try to avoid digging on weekends) 

I kept my spirits up the first 20 times I answered the question, providing tidbits of fossil info to willing listeners, but by the 40th time I answered the question, my replies were terse and mumbled.

"Fossils, dammit. What does it look like I'm doing?" 

So I'm working on a new strategy.

I don't think many people would grasp the Buddhist concept of practicing silence

but a clearly lettered sign, staked in the river about 50 yards upstream of me that says,

"Shhh!  Paleontologist at work"

with a QR code directing them to my blog (so they can see that I'm not finding much at all!)

and perhaps an Anne-Geddes-style portrait of me asleep in a pumpkin shell,

would do the trick.

I'll post when I get it all sorted out.

Still, all my digging wasn't in vain, or maybe I'm just easily entertained.

Shell casings are common finds in the rivers but this was my first in this area and I was really hoping to find a beat up old gun to go with my Bear Grylls survival knife.  

No such luck...yet.

 
A really cool fossilized oyster shell that, when cut on the slab saw,

revealed an interesting agatized interior.

And then there was this little nut.

I briefly entertained the idea that it was a fossilized pecan but that didn't really seem feasible.

And then, the following week in a river far, far away, I found this:

Eerily similar in appearance and definitely coral so I concluded

 that my "pecan" is probably the same thing.

Nuts!

Friends with Talents

It's so good to have friends with talents.

I can't brag enough on Roger Hostetler,

my favorite knapper.

He makes such pretty things out of the coral I find.

But his talents are not limited to knapping.

Remember the Bear Grylls WalMart survival knife found in the river?

I felt certain that Roger could breath new life into it.

Check it out now!

Your eyes do not deceive you:  that is the same knife with a...wait for it...

ELK ANTLER HANDLE!

In exchange, he requested a little of my time with my lapidary saw.

Glad to do it!

Now, what kind of scabbard do I want...?

Another good kind of friend to have on your side

is a friend who lives in heaven or almost heaven.

I went to visit my friend in West Virginia and hunt for weapons of an older sort in her fields.

Lots  of interesting rocks to be found,

as well as a fossil or two.

West Virginia isn't that far from Florida but the difficulties with flights in and out of her rural area might make you think you were traveling to Papua New Guinea.  On the way there, the airline tried to land us in the fog then turned around, went back, and drove us there on a bus instead.  On the way out of there, the airline had all 4 passengers (FOUR) racing to the plane to beat a lightening storm.

My next trip will be back to Salt Lake City and I'm thinking the journey will be a 4 hour, non-stop, fog-less pleasure.

There I'll meet up with another great friend to have:

A friend with 4 wheel drive.