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.

This last week end was a busy one for me. It started Friday evening as I was loading the car for the next day’s trip to Rome, Oregon. As I loaded up my Equipment I also worked on my tumbling project. This was the time I need to change from the 220-grit to 400-grit. The rocks are looking really good now except for one problem; I am starting to get some chipping in the rocks. I am guessing that this is due to the fact that the rocks have worn down quite a bit and now the tumbling motion is much rougher. To resolve this I combined the two three-pound barrels in one barrel. I have read about using plastic filler pieces to resolve this issue so I will look into purchasing the filler if the combining does not resolve the problem. I also started another tumbling batch of petrified wood using 90-grit. When I checked the barrels Sunday evening both barrels looked very promising.

Saturday started early as the alarm went off at 5:30. I had to be at the ION truck stop at the highway 78 and highway 95 junction by 7:00 to meet up with the group going to Rome, Oregon. I was worried that I would not make it in time but managed to get there with plenty of time to spare. Shortly after arriving Walter Barnett, the leader of this field trip, informed me that I would not be able to make it to the collecting site in my car. I made arrangement to ride with a guy named Carl once we left the pavement because I wanted to take my car so I could explore some other areas on my way home.

At around 9:30 we had arrived at the dirt road leading to the collecting area. I grabbed my gear and jumped in Carl’s truck. Right away I could see that I would not have been going anywhere in my car. As we road along Carl told me about his experiences collecting in this area. We decided to stop at a location the he had collected at before; we figured we could catch up to the group later. At first we weren’t finding anything but soon we were finding small pieces on a hill a little ways from where we parked.

After working the hill for a few minutes I found a piece that I thought was petrified wood. When I showed it to Carl he said that it might be a petrified bone. This gave me an uneasy feeling because it is unlawful to take bone from public lands. As we looked at it again later Carl changed his mind about what it was and thought that it was just an odd piece of the snake skin agate that we were there to collect. I polished the end of this piece Sunday and now I am back to thinking it is petrified wood due to the pattern that can now be seen. I also found a very nice chunk of the snake skin agate that had no chips and some nice orange-red colors.

We then joined the group and found some more snake skin agate. These pieces were small and will make good tumbling material. We also explored another ridge before leaving and found a few more pieces but nothing as good as the pieces found on that hill side we explored earlier.

I didn’t explore any other locations on the way home but instead followed the group to Hooker’s creek to collect petrified wood. Hooker’s creek is located north of Jordan Valley, Oregon. I drove my car into this place but found it a bit rougher than when I had drove in there a year earlier. I collected about a half a bucket of wood before leaving. As I drove out I accidently hit something in the road. Whatever it was I could not see it coming or going. My guess is it was an animal hole. Luckily there was no damage to my car.

When I got home all I could think about was dinner and a shower. Unloading the rocks and gear from the car would just have to wait until morning.

Sunday I unloaded the car and then spent most of the day cutting and polishing rocks. I first cleaned up and polished the two nicer pieces collected in the Rome area the day before. Then I started cutting more of the Jasper from the trip with John and Jason a few weeks ago. I ended up making a small free form cabochon with some very nice material that was found at the collecting area that is literally at the Idaho-Oregon border on the East side of highway 95. I ended the day and weekend activities by checking the tumbler and passing out rocks to the neighborhood kids that often come by to see what I am up to.

Saturday I wanted to go to Thunder Egg Days in Nyssa, Oregon but due to another obligation I had to stay home and finish an art project that was to be presented that evening.

I was able to break away from the art project for a little bit to go buy grits and belts for my rock tumbler. This was kind of a disappointment since I purchased the tumbler and a grit kit a week earlier. As soon as I got the tumbler home I started my first batch of rocks. Right away I discovered that the grit kit barely had enough materials to do one batch of rocks (two 3 pound barrels). This was a Thumlers’s #300 kit which cost me $10. Buying grit in bulk from your local rock shop is a much better deal. As the first step in the tumbling process came to an end the tumbler’s belt broke. The tumbler I purchased was a cheapo from Harbor Freight. I had heard that their tumblers had problems with belts breaking and motors burning out, however I would expect to get at least one complete cycle before a belt broke. The belt was so cheaply made that instead of buying another one from Harbor Freight I went a bought a Lortone belt. Hopefully this belt will last longer.

Saturday evening I told my wife that we needed to do a trip Sunday. I had asked her if she wanted to go to Idaho City or Silver City. She didn’t answer so the next morning I asked again. Finally she said Idaho City. We had a late start; by 10:30 we had the kid, the dog and gear in the car.

We first went to Boise where we stopped and ate lunch. Around noon we made it to our first stop. I thought that the place we stopped at might be the road to Thorn Creek where I had read that topaz could be found. I figured out that road was another mile down the highway after we left this first stop. While we were stopped we did a little hiking and searching for rocks. We didn’t find any good rocks but did manage to take some nice nature pictures.

Next we went through Idaho City to a place where we walked along some dried creek beds. I did find a small piece of milky quartz with metallic sparkles in it. It was nice to find something even though it most likely will just be added to the flower beds.After our brief stop at the dry creek bed we returned to Idaho City. Here I took some picture of a few of the old buildings and visited an antique store while the family took a nap in the car. Afterwards we went to the Sarsaparilla Ice Cream Shop and had waffle cones. This was a nice break since the temperature was getting quite hot by this time. It was also fun to watch my 18 month old son mash strawberry ice cream in his face.

As we headed out of Idaho City we decide to just take a road and see where it leads us. We found one that took us high up in the mountains. We stopped a few times and looked for rocks but didn’t find anything good. At one point the road started to get a little rough for my small car and we could see ahead far enough to see debris from a logging operation littered the road ahead. We decided to turn around and head back to Idaho City.

On our way back out of the mountains we ran into a group of people that had metal detectors and rock picks. I stopped and talked with them for a bit and found out that they were looking for remnants of old railroads that were in the area in the early 1900 for logging operations. I explained that I was a rock hound and that I thought I might be able to find quartz in the area. The gentleman leading this group said he knew of some good places to look but most of them were not accessible by car. He suggested a couple of location that I could access and we head to the closest spot.

At the first location near the Rabbit Creek picnic grounds we stopped and played in the creek to cool off then hiked around looking for quartz. We did find a few pieces but they were not that good. As we were getting ready to leave I did find some interesting rocks that lead me to believe that there might be something there but it was getting late and my wife wanted to start going home. I will have to wait for another time to search some more. As we drove home we also located some other roads that lead to some other locations suggested by the gentleman we met on the mountain. I am already thinking of the next trip to this area.

Last Saturday I got together with Jason Estes and John Howell to do some rock hunting in the McBride creek and Succor Creek areas of the Owyhee Mountains on the Oregon-Idaho border. Jason arrived at my house at 7:15 that morning and by 8:00 we were leaving John’s house and heading to Highway 95.

The first place we stopped was a location about 5 miles south of the turn off for McBride Creek that was just to the East of the highway and literally on the Idaho-Oregon border. As we explored the area John and Jason were in Idaho and I was in Oregon; we were within sight of each other the whole time. This location was said to have petrified wood, agate and thunder eggs. We did find some agate and petrified wood but most of it was small tumbling material. A few pieces were a little larger but not large enough to make anything with so they most likely be broken up for tumbling.

The next stop was mile back into Idaho on the same side of the road. This was another location for petrified wood and agate. As we got closer to the waypoint we realized that it was just over the hill from the first location we stopped at. Before we arrived at the waypoint we came to a gate that we would have to open before continuing. There were a lot of cattle on the opposite side of the gate so we decided not to continue since it was likely that the material would be the same as that found at the first stop and we didn’t really want to bother the cattle.

Next we headed back to McBride Creek and started heading towards Succor Creek. As we drove John pointed out many roads and told us where they went and what materials could be found at the locations. We then decide to take a back road around Three Fingers Butte.

I had a GPS waypoint for a location in this area that I have been wanting to checkout for quite some time so we went there first. Within minutes of arriving at this location we started find good jasper in the dry stream bead. There were pieces of all sizes at this location. None of us had been to this site before so we were all happy to have found a new collecting area. The following pictures show a few of the smaller pieces from this location that I worked with Sunday.

As we left this new location we commented on how a fence that went through the area looked very new. We then headed for another area where there are many locations to collect rocks. As we approached the collecting areas we found that the road was blocked by the same fence that we were commenting on at the last location. This blocked area contains many well known places like Wild Horse and Blue Mustang. If these spots are still under active claims there are going to be some very irritated claim owners.

We then decided to head to Succor Creek Park. Along the way we went past some blue opal claims and found that the new fence went all the way over there on the opposite side of the road from the claims. I mention this because people who know this area will realize how long this fence is. I don’t know if this is a BLM fence or a rancher’s fence but it is blocking a very large area with many known rock collection sites. Either way it would have been nice to know that it blocked many roads before we tried to use them. There are no signs or warnings of closed roads at all.

When we arrived at the park none of us wanted to stop since it was early evening and we were all very tired. We headed back to Caldwell to drop off John. When we arrived at John’s house he gave us tour of his rock collection and working areas since Jason had not been there before. I have seen john’s collection many times and every time I learn something new as he shows new materials. After that Jason dropped me off at my house. It was almost 8:00 P.M. I was so tired I just put my stuff away and went inside to clean up and have some dinner before going to bed, ending another rock collecting adventure.