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.

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