For almost two weeks I have been looking forward to taking the family on a trip to the Bruno Wood Pile in Southwest Idaho. As it came closer to the weekend my wife didn’t show any real interest in going and my mother-in-law who would be joining us started asking/complaining that she wanted to wear sandals and shorts because it was going to be too hot. I quickly came to the conclusion that this would not be a good trip to take the family on but more of a pain in the gluteus maximus. Thursday I decide that we would go to Shirt Tail Creek, Baker City, Oregon and possible Sumpter, Oregon.

By 6:30 Saturday morning the car was loaded and we were on the way to pick up Grandma. When we arrived at Grandma’s house we found her waiting in front wearing black walking shoes, a big straw hat and a pair of sweat pants that were so big that they likely were made by Omar the tent maker. The site was hilarious; we were not sure if it was Grandma or a rodeo clown. Anyway we loaded up Grandma’s stuff and headed to Ontario, Oregon where we had breakfast.

After breakfast we started heading towards Baker City Oregon. About half way there we stopped at a place called Shirt Tail Creek which is about a mile behind one of the concrete plants that are located along I-84. This was a location where there was said to be agate, petrified wood and Oregon jade. We followed the GPS to about 700 feet away from the way point. We were not able to go all the way to the way point because it is behind a fence that is clearly marked with no trespassing signs. We continued past the location to where there were no signs and looked around for while. As we looked around I accidentally walked into a large swarm of gnats. I was so focused on the ground looking for rocks that I didn’t notice the swarm until it was too late. I had the nasty little buggers in my hair and shirt and was itching all over. My wife helped me brush the bugs out my hair and luckily I had another shirt to wear. At this point I was done looking anyway because we were not finding anything worth collecting. Grandma took off the big pants (she had short pants on under them) and put on sandals then we continued to Baker City.

Once we arrived in Backer City we went to the Oregon Trail Regional Museum. This museum has two very nice rock collections on display. The first one is the Cavin-Warfel Collection of rocks, fossils and minerals. This collection was started by two sisters who collected for 45 years. In 1983 the entire 18-tom collection was donated to the museum. The second collection is the Wyatt Family Collection which consists of 2,000 agate and picture jasper cabochons representing 35 years of collecting and lapidary work. Both of these collections are well worth the $5.00 cover charge to enter the museum. I don’t know where to start trying to explain these fantastic collections. The biggest thing stands out is the massive crystals and crystal combination that are on display. I took many pictures of the displays but as we were leaving we were given a map of the displays and it asks that no photography be taken. Oops! I am not going to share all the photos but will give you one to wet you appetite. One photo doesn’t do these collections justice. If you want to see more you will have to visit the museum.
After leaving the museum we went on to Sumpter Oregon. Sumpter is an old mining town. We had lunch then walked the main street and photographed the buildings stopping at one of them to view some museum displays of the local history. We then went to the train station where you can ride an old steam train and photographed the train. We ended our stay in Sumpter with a visit to an old gold dredge. This was a massive machine that tore up much of the area in search of gold; you can see dredge piles for miles. While at the dredge Grandma and my son Andy learned to pan for gold. As we were leaving I found a small piece of agate in one of the dredge piles. I was excited that the whole day wasn’t a collecting bust but when we got home I cut the agate and found that it was too fractured to do anything with other than tumbling.
  This trip was not a good rock collecting trip but was a great family outage. Everybody enjoyed themselves and is already taking about doing the same trip again. I am personally ready to go see the rock collection at the Oregon Trail Regional Museum again.The plans for this next weekend are to visit Siler City. I will also have my first batch of finished rocks coming out of the tumbler so hopefully I will have some more to share early next week.

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