Back in Blue

The official 3rd annual rockhounding tour of the west

started with my fossil friends, husband and wife team of Don and Pam

making a spectacular maiden voyage in their new/used camper from Cape Coral, Florida to the Denver, Colorado airport where I anxiously awaited their arrival.

My anxiety was short lived

since we were in the state of legal marijuana.

I completely understand if you have issues with this issue so please avert your eyes

 for the next photograph.

I did a little stocking up for the road trip, of which I would spend most of my time nested in the back seat, reading, knitting, watching shows on my iPad, 

knocking back G&T's, and experimenting with edibles.

Come on!  I'm grown!

At 52 years of age I don't think there's anything wrong with a little light experimentation.

I lovingly looked at this box of goodies and started singing

(to the tune of "Edelweiss")

"Box of vice, box of vice, 

I feel happy to see you."

And away we went!!!

(please note that ALL edibles were completely consumed before I left the borders of the state of Colorado.)

We had a short drive of 351 miles before we got to our first stop:

The Blue Forest area of Wyoming

and its prized fossil wood.

We rolled in right at sunset, which in Wyoming in June is around 9 pm,

so even though we were only about 10 miles from our digging site, we opted to stay in a local primitive campground and start fresh at dawn, which in Wyoming in June is around 4 am.

We were geared up for our extended stays in primitive desert areas:

a 30 gallon tank of fresh water under the camper that was hooked up to a sink, toilet and shower...

...until we rolled over our very first sagebrush, 

within feet of where we were going to camp, broke a pipe, 

and all the water quickly drained out into the dust.

Regroup!

We had plenty of bottled drinking water 

so all we had to do was adjust our expectations of cleanliness and comfort.

Done!

This was my second trip to the Blue Forest

and a first for Pam and Don.

It's hard digging and dealing with up to 3' of sandy/rocky overburden is a drag

 but we got right to work.

I started morning #1 off with some good wood

(and yes, I set myself up for that ridiculously easy joke):

This was a promising branch but every segment I recovered after this piece was shattered.  I wrapped the fragments of each section tightly in bubble wrap and I will eventually try to reconstruct it like I recently did with the ground sloth molar.

Pam first tried using divining rods to locate wood.

She managed to find water...

but since the wood is everywhere, the best method is to jump in a hole and start digging.

I thought I was being very clever when I came up with the idea 

of bringing a little sun shelter for comfort and protection.

The elevation of the Blue Forest is over 6,000' so the sun is merciless.

What I didn't foresee is that, unlike last year, we were going to spend all 3 days of this year being buffeted by 20-25 mph winds.  I had a brief respite each morning to dig under the shelter but by noon, the option was to dismantle the shelter or watch it get ripped to shreds and carried away.

I plan on taking it back next year because when I could use it, it made digging much more "pleasant."

The other thing that makes digging "pleasant"

is a selection of hydrating fluids, kept handy, ditch side.

These may include, but are not limited to, coffee (in the morning), gin and tonic (in the late morning and throughout the day and evening and night, for the pain, you see), electrolyte mixes, sodas, and of course, water. Lots and lots of water.

The wind complicated beverage intake.

I had this G&T at my lips when I tasted the extra "ingredient" of mud.  Always the trooper, I simply wiped off the lid and sipped it like cowboy coffee.

When in Rome...

We had mandatory rest times

(the times while we were waiting for ibuprofen to kick in)

when we would catch up on light reading,

revel in the changing patterns of light on the unchanging scenery,

or observe the wildlife up close.

I will close with a little info from the internet regarding the Blue Forest and the fossil wood we dig for in that area.  Please stayed tuned for the next installment of my western rock hounding adventure of 2017.

From the website: https://thegemshop.com/pages/eden-valley-petrified-wood-location

Wyoming is a state rich in fossil wood and has several petrified forests. The petrified wood from one forest is known to collectors as Eden Valley Petrified Wood and is named after the town of Eden, Wyoming. Eden is located in the west-central part of the state and is in the center of the 80 mile long area where the fossil wood is found. Three collecting areas are well known.

The Blue Forest collecting area is located in the west end of the deposit about 30 miles west of Farson. The fossil wood found in this area is known for the light blue agate surrounding many of the pieces. The Big Sandy Reservoir is located just north of Farson.   This area is known for Petrified Palm Wood. On the eastern end of the deposit, fossil wood is found around Oregon Buttes just east of South Pass, Wyoming.  Oregon Buttes is a major landmark on the Oregon Trail.

Eden Valley Petrified Wood was formed from plants living about 50 million years ago and the rock exhibits features not found in fossil wood anywhere else in the world. The petrifaction process for this area involved shallow "algae growing" lakes. In many cases, for undetermined reasons, the wood came to be in this water in its live condition (see 1st image on the left below) before it had a chance to dry out and look like old dead wood.  This wood became coated with algae (2nd image from the left) which adhered to the surface making a cast or mold around the wood.  Later the wood dried and shrunk in the mold made of algae (3rd image from the left). Over time these algae casts became part of a layered rock formation.   Silica-rich water solutions seeping through the rock then petrified the wood and filled in the spaces left between the dried wood and the hardened cast with agate, calcite, and quartz (4th image from the left). 

As the agate coated the inside surface of the algae cast, perfect impressions of the bark were left in the agate.  Thus there are some rocks that show two 50 million year old "pictures" of the same plant -- one picture of how the plant looked alive and another after it died and dried out!

Because the petrifaction process seems to have been "protected" by the algae cast formation, unusually detailed representations of the wood have been preserved. Exquisite representations of bark both live and dried out have been preserved. Worm holes, insect borings, woodpecker holes, and other events have been observed in the petrified wood.