My main reason for going to Klickitat WA was that I had never been there before. You hear that word frequently on this side of the river, but that's mostly because of the county and not the town. It also sounded like it might be a good place to collect a few unhoused rocks.

I found out that the reason I had never been there is that there is really almost nothing there. The town is mostly there because of what used to be there.There used to be a sawmill, and a railroad, and a dry ice plant, and a mineral springs. Except for the springs that's all gone. What they left behind is a lot of small houses on small lots. Many of them are right on the highway. They have a big school house, along with the usual assortment of churches, bars, and other small businesses. It looked like most of the traffic was motorcyclists who were drawn to a highway with a lot of curves and very little traffic. I had to look it up on the internet to figure out why the town is there. "It's mostly a bedroom community." A third of the population is children. That percentage drops steeply after they turn 18. The median age is reported to be 30 there. The town's main draw is that they have a lot of relatively inexpensive houses left behind by the mill workers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klickitat,_Washington

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klickitat_Mineral_Springs

It's a pretty area and we enjoyed our visit, but we didn't find a lot of rock that looked like it needed a home. Washington state was probably only 2 or 3 pounds lighter when we left.

When we get somewhere near it the Saint John's Monastery Bakery is an irresistible draw for us. It looks like they're doing well. That place is always busy. It looks like they've completed 2 of their 3 building goals. If I read their sign correctly it looks like they want to expand into a full service restaurant. It should do well. They're already selling a lot of food and other stuff. I picked up a big tub of Greek "chili" from their freezer, along with our usual assortment of coffee and pastry and stuff.

https://stjohnmonastery.org/

After scouting out some other rivers on the Oregon side of the Columbia river I finally figured out that one of the best places to find pretty rocks near me is the Columbia river itself. The trick is finding places where you can easily get to the river and yet don't draw huge numbers of visitors. We found a nice day use area that, for the Columbia gorge, doesn't get a lot of traffic. By the time we left we had been the only people there for over a half hour. There had only been one other couple there when we arrived. Several families came and went while we were there. By comparison, the much bigger parking lot at the Multnomah falls just a little further down the freeway was absolutely packed.

We found some agates and some jade and other pretty rocks, but my best find was a nice chunk of carnelian agate that has been badly beat up by the river. It was the first time I found a piece of carnelian that was just out wandering around without any supervision. My specimen is at least 3 times bigger than what this guy has.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/1181934113/jelly-deep-red-tumbled-oregon-carnelian

TB

On Tuesday, July 25, 2023 at 11:48:52 AM UTC-7, Technobarbarian wrote:
> My main reason for going to Klickitat WA was that I had never been there before. You hear that word frequently on this side of the river, but that's mostly because of the county and not the town. It also sounded like it might be a good place to collect a few unhoused rocks.
>
> I found out that the reason I had never been there is that there is really almost nothing there. The town is mostly there because of what used to be there.There used to be a sawmill, and a railroad, and a dry ice plant, and a mineral springs. Except for the springs that's all gone. What they left behind is a lot of small houses on small lots. Many of them are right on the highway. They have a big school house, along with the usual assortment of churches, bars, and other small businesses. It looked like most of the traffic was motorcyclists who were drawn to a highway with a lot of curves and very little traffic. I had to look it up on the internet to figure out why the town is there. "It's mostly a bedroom community." A third of the population is children. That percentage drops steeply after they turn 18. The median age is reported to be 30 there. The town's main draw is that they have a lot of relatively inexpensive houses left behind by the mill workers.
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klickitat,_Washington
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klickitat_Mineral_Springs
>
> It's a pretty area and we enjoyed our visit, but we didn't find a lot of rock that looked like it needed a home. Washington state was probably only 2 or 3 pounds lighter when we left.
>
> When we get somewhere near it the Saint John's Monastery Bakery is an irresistible draw for us. It looks like they're doing well. That place is always busy. It looks like they've completed 2 of their 3 building goals. If I read their sign correctly it looks like they want to expand into a full service restaurant. It should do well. They're already selling a lot of food and other stuff. I picked up a big tub of Greek "chili" from their freezer, along with our usual assortment of coffee and pastry and stuff.
>
> https://stjohnmonastery.org/
>
> After scouting out some other rivers on the Oregon side of the Columbia river I finally figured out that one of the best places to find pretty rocks near me is the Columbia river itself. The trick is finding places where you can easily get to the river and yet don't draw huge numbers of visitors. We found a nice day use area that, for the Columbia gorge, doesn't get a lot of traffic. By the time we left we had been the only people there for over a half hour. There had only been one other couple there when we arrived. Several families came and went while we were there. By comparison, the much bigger parking lot at the Multnomah falls just a little further down the freeway was absolutely packed.
>
> We found some agates and some jade and other pretty rocks, but my best find was a nice chunk of carnelian agate that has been badly beat up by the river. It was the first time I found a piece of carnelian that was just out wandering around without any supervision. My specimen is at least 3 times bigger than what this guy has.
>
> https://www.etsy.com/listing/1181934113/jelly-deep-red-tumbled-oregon-carnelian
>
> TB

Do you engage in "rock trafficking", or just hoard the formerly unhoused rocks, far away, from where nature placed them?
Mr. Natural Jr.

On Tuesday, July 25, 2023 at 8:38:47 PM UTC-7, film...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Tuesday, July 25, 2023 at 11:48:52 AM UTC-7, Technobarbarian wrote:
> > My main reason for going to Klickitat WA was that I had never been there before. You hear that word frequently on this side of the river, but that's mostly because of the county and not the town. It also sounded like it might be a good place to collect a few unhoused rocks.
> >
> > I found out that the reason I had never been there is that there is really almost nothing there. The town is mostly there because of what used to be there.There used to be a sawmill, and a railroad, and a dry ice plant, and a mineral springs. Except for the springs that's all gone. What they left behind is a lot of small houses on small lots. Many of them are right on the highway. They have a big school house, along with the usual assortment of churches, bars, and other small businesses. It looked like most of the traffic was motorcyclists who were drawn to a highway with a lot of curves and very little traffic. I had to look it up on the internet to figure out why the town is there. "It's mostly a bedroom community." A third of the population is children. That percentage drops steeply after they turn 18. The median age is reported to be 30 there. The town's main draw is that they have a lot of relatively inexpensive houses left behind by the mill workers.
> >
> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klickitat,_Washington
> >
> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klickitat_Mineral_Springs
> >
> > It's a pretty area and we enjoyed our visit, but we didn't find a lot of rock that looked like it needed a home. Washington state was probably only 2 or 3 pounds lighter when we left.
> >
> > When we get somewhere near it the Saint John's Monastery Bakery is an irresistible draw for us. It looks like they're doing well. That place is always busy. It looks like they've completed 2 of their 3 building goals. If I read their sign correctly it looks like they want to expand into a full service restaurant. It should do well. They're already selling a lot of food and other stuff. I picked up a big tub of Greek "chili" from their freezer, along with our usual assortment of coffee and pastry and stuff.
> >
> > https://stjohnmonastery.org/
> >
> > After scouting out some other rivers on the Oregon side of the Columbia river I finally figured out that one of the best places to find pretty rocks near me is the Columbia river itself. The trick is finding places where you can easily get to the river and yet don't draw huge numbers of visitors.. We found a nice day use area that, for the Columbia gorge, doesn't get a lot of traffic. By the time we left we had been the only people there for over a half hour. There had only been one other couple there when we arrived.. Several families came and went while we were there. By comparison, the much bigger parking lot at the Multnomah falls just a little further down the freeway was absolutely packed.
> >
> > We found some agates and some jade and other pretty rocks, but my best find was a nice chunk of carnelian agate that has been badly beat up by the river. It was the first time I found a piece of carnelian that was just out wandering around without any supervision. My specimen is at least 3 times bigger than what this guy has.
> >
> > https://www.etsy.com/listing/1181934113/jelly-deep-red-tumbled-oregon-carnelian
> >
> > TB
> Do you engage in "rock trafficking", or just hoard the formerly unhoused rocks, far away, from where nature placed them?
> Mr. Natural Jr.

I'm mostly a rock hoarder, but I have my limits. I don't need huge piles of rocks. I just like having nice specimens of this and that. Just about anything that's pretty or pleasantly ugly, that will sit still without rotting or making a mess. The economics of rock trafficking discourage this activity. With a small collection I bought cheap I could sell a thousand dollars worth of rock, without putting a serious dent in my personal collection. By the time I converted those rocks to cash I would have put over a thousand dollars worth of work into them.

I saw a video by a crazy rockhound in AK. Nephrite jade is actually pretty common. This guy was regularly finding jade stones that weighed 40 pounds or more. He was looking at one of those rocks out by some river and says that sitting there it's not worth anything. But, he can take that rock home and cut it into 10 pieces and sell those pieces for $20/each. So he thinks that's a $200 rock. I think he's paying himself very poor wages.

So I have ended up with rocks that I would like to find a good home for. I have more than enough: small agates, nice sized dendritic agates that are most likely "Sweetwater agates" from Montana, thin slices of good quality nephrite jade, thin slices of black jasper with some sort of crystal inclusion, red jasper, and some of the biggest "Apache tears" that I've seen. I have both polished and unpolished examples of the Sweetwater agates and the Apache tears. I have some other stuff, but it would cost a lot more to mail it than it's worth. If you would like to give any of that a good home let me know. :-)

Who knows what the "natural place" is for a rock? The oldest rocks here started out as island chains off the coast of Idaho around 20 degrees north latitude, 400 million years ago. They're now a bit north and south of the 45th meridian. and well inland. Everything gets recycled from rock to sand and back to rock again. I have rocks that are obviously on at least their second time of being a rock because you can see the first rock crushed up in the second rock.

TB

On 7/26/2023 9:27 PM, Technobarbarian wrote:
> On Tuesday, July 25, 2023 at 8:38:47 PM UTC-7, film...@gmail.com wrote:
>> On Tuesday, July 25, 2023 at 11:48:52 AM UTC-7, Technobarbarian wrote:
>>> My main reason for going to Klickitat WA was that I had never been there before. You hear that word frequently on this side of the river, but that's mostly because of the county and not the town. It also sounded like it might be a good place to collect a few unhoused rocks.
>>>
>>> I found out that the reason I had never been there is that there is really almost nothing there. The town is mostly there because of what used to be there.There used to be a sawmill, and a railroad, and a dry ice plant, and a mineral springs. Except for the springs that's all gone. What they left behind is a lot of small houses on small lots. Many of them are right on the highway. They have a big school house, along with the usual assortment of churches, bars, and other small businesses. It looked like most of the traffic was motorcyclists who were drawn to a highway with a lot of curves and very little traffic. I had to look it up on the internet to figure out why the town is there. "It's mostly a bedroom community." A third of the population is children. That percentage drops steeply after they turn 18. The median age is reported to be 30 there. The town's main draw is that they have a lot of relatively inexpensive houses left behind by the mill workers.
>>>
>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klickitat,_Washington
>>>
>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klickitat_Mineral_Springs
>>>
>>> It's a pretty area and we enjoyed our visit, but we didn't find a lot of rock that looked like it needed a home. Washington state was probably only 2 or 3 pounds lighter when we left.
>>>
>>> When we get somewhere near it the Saint John's Monastery Bakery is an irresistible draw for us. It looks like they're doing well. That place is always busy. It looks like they've completed 2 of their 3 building goals. If I read their sign correctly it looks like they want to expand into a full service restaurant. It should do well. They're already selling a lot of food and other stuff. I picked up a big tub of Greek "chili" from their freezer, along with our usual assortment of coffee and pastry and stuff.
>>>
>>> https://stjohnmonastery.org/
>>>
>>> After scouting out some other rivers on the Oregon side of the Columbia river I finally figured out that one of the best places to find pretty rocks near me is the Columbia river itself. The trick is finding places where you can easily get to the river and yet don't draw huge numbers of visitors. We found a nice day use area that, for the Columbia gorge, doesn't get a lot of traffic. By the time we left we had been the only people there for over a half hour. There had only been one other couple there when we arrived. Several families came and went while we were there. By comparison, the much bigger parking lot at the Multnomah falls just a little further down the freeway was absolutely packed.
>>>
>>> We found some agates and some jade and other pretty rocks, but my best find was a nice chunk of carnelian agate that has been badly beat up by the river. It was the first time I found a piece of carnelian that was just out wandering around without any supervision. My specimen is at least 3 times bigger than what this guy has.
>>>
>>> https://www.etsy.com/listing/1181934113/jelly-deep-red-tumbled-oregon-carnelian
>>>
>>> TB
>> Do you engage in "rock trafficking", or just hoard the formerly unhoused rocks, far away, from where nature placed them?
>> Mr. Natural Jr.
>
> I'm mostly a rock hoarder, but I have my limits. I don't need huge piles of rocks. I just like having nice specimens of this and that. Just about anything that's pretty or pleasantly ugly, that will sit still without rotting or making a mess. The economics of rock trafficking discourage this activity. With a small collection I bought cheap I could sell a thousand dollars worth of rock, without putting a serious dent in my personal collection. By the time I converted those rocks to cash I would have put over a thousand dollars worth of work into them.
>
> I saw a video by a crazy rockhound in AK. Nephrite jade is actually pretty common. This guy was regularly finding jade stones that weighed 40 pounds or more. He was looking at one of those rocks out by some river and says that sitting there it's not worth anything. But, he can take that rock home and cut it into 10 pieces and sell those pieces for $20/each. So he thinks that's a $200 rock. I think he's paying himself very poor wages.
>
> So I have ended up with rocks that I would like to find a good home for. I have more than enough: small agates, nice sized dendritic agates that are most likely "Sweetwater agates" from Montana, thin slices of good quality nephrite jade, thin slices of black jasper with some sort of crystal inclusion, red jasper, and some of the biggest "Apache tears" that I've seen. I have both polished and unpolished examples of the Sweetwater agates and the Apache tears. I have some other stuff, but it would cost a lot more to mail it than it's worth. If you would like to give any of that a good home let me know. :-)
>
> Who knows what the "natural place" is for a rock? The oldest rocks here started out as island chains off the coast of Idaho around 20 degrees north latitude, 400 million years ago. They're now a bit north and south of the 45th meridian. and well inland. Everything gets recycled from rock to sand and back to rock again. I have rocks that are obviously on at least their second time of being a rock because you can see the first rock crushed up in the second rock.
>
> TB

Aren't all rocks and dirt as old as the earth?
--
NAGA Dimocrats are the diseased who are infecting the entire country
with insanity.

On Thursday, July 27, 2023 at 7:49:33 AM UTC-7, George.Anthony wrote:
> On 7/26/2023 9:27 PM, Technobarbarian wrote:
> > On Tuesday, July 25, 2023 at 8:38:47 PM UTC-7, film...@gmail.com wrote:
> >> On Tuesday, July 25, 2023 at 11:48:52 AM UTC-7, Technobarbarian wrote:
> >>> My main reason for going to Klickitat WA was that I had never been there before. You hear that word frequently on this side of the river, but that's mostly because of the county and not the town. It also sounded like it might be a good place to collect a few unhoused rocks.
> >>>
> >>> I found out that the reason I had never been there is that there is really almost nothing there. The town is mostly there because of what used to be there.There used to be a sawmill, and a railroad, and a dry ice plant, and a mineral springs. Except for the springs that's all gone. What they left behind is a lot of small houses on small lots. Many of them are right on the highway. They have a big school house, along with the usual assortment of churches, bars, and other small businesses. It looked like most of the traffic was motorcyclists who were drawn to a highway with a lot of curves and very little traffic. I had to look it up on the internet to figure out why the town is there. "It's mostly a bedroom community." A third of the population is children. That percentage drops steeply after they turn 18. The median age is reported to be 30 there. The town's main draw is that they have a lot of relatively inexpensive houses left behind by the mill workers..
> >>>
> >>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klickitat,_Washington
> >>>
> >>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klickitat_Mineral_Springs
> >>>
> >>> It's a pretty area and we enjoyed our visit, but we didn't find a lot of rock that looked like it needed a home. Washington state was probably only 2 or 3 pounds lighter when we left.
> >>>
> >>> When we get somewhere near it the Saint John's Monastery Bakery is an irresistible draw for us. It looks like they're doing well. That place is always busy. It looks like they've completed 2 of their 3 building goals. If I read their sign correctly it looks like they want to expand into a full service restaurant. It should do well. They're already selling a lot of food and other stuff. I picked up a big tub of Greek "chili" from their freezer, along with our usual assortment of coffee and pastry and stuff.
> >>>
> >>> https://stjohnmonastery.org/
> >>>
> >>> After scouting out some other rivers on the Oregon side of the Columbia river I finally figured out that one of the best places to find pretty rocks near me is the Columbia river itself. The trick is finding places where you can easily get to the river and yet don't draw huge numbers of visitors. We found a nice day use area that, for the Columbia gorge, doesn't get a lot of traffic. By the time we left we had been the only people there for over a half hour. There had only been one other couple there when we arrived. Several families came and went while we were there. By comparison, the much bigger parking lot at the Multnomah falls just a little further down the freeway was absolutely packed.
> >>>
> >>> We found some agates and some jade and other pretty rocks, but my best find was a nice chunk of carnelian agate that has been badly beat up by the river. It was the first time I found a piece of carnelian that was just out wandering around without any supervision. My specimen is at least 3 times bigger than what this guy has.
> >>>
> >>> https://www.etsy.com/listing/1181934113/jelly-deep-red-tumbled-oregon-carnelian
> >>>
> >>> TB
> >> Do you engage in "rock trafficking", or just hoard the formerly unhoused rocks, far away, from where nature placed them?
> >> Mr. Natural Jr.
> >
> > I'm mostly a rock hoarder, but I have my limits. I don't need huge piles of rocks. I just like having nice specimens of this and that. Just about anything that's pretty or pleasantly ugly, that will sit still without rotting or making a mess. The economics of rock trafficking discourage this activity. With a small collection I bought cheap I could sell a thousand dollars worth of rock, without putting a serious dent in my personal collection. By the time I converted those rocks to cash I would have put over a thousand dollars worth of work into them.
> >
> > I saw a video by a crazy rockhound in AK. Nephrite jade is actually pretty common. This guy was regularly finding jade stones that weighed 40 pounds or more. He was looking at one of those rocks out by some river and says that sitting there it's not worth anything. But, he can take that rock home and cut it into 10 pieces and sell those pieces for $20/each. So he thinks that's a $200 rock. I think he's paying himself very poor wages.
> >
> > So I have ended up with rocks that I would like to find a good home for.. I have more than enough: small agates, nice sized dendritic agates that are most likely "Sweetwater agates" from Montana, thin slices of good quality nephrite jade, thin slices of black jasper with some sort of crystal inclusion, red jasper, and some of the biggest "Apache tears" that I've seen. I have both polished and unpolished examples of the Sweetwater agates and the Apache tears. I have some other stuff, but it would cost a lot more to mail it than it's worth. If you would like to give any of that a good home let me know. :-)
> >
> > Who knows what the "natural place" is for a rock? The oldest rocks here started out as island chains off the coast of Idaho around 20 degrees north latitude, 400 million years ago. They're now a bit north and south of the 45th meridian. and well inland. Everything gets recycled from rock to sand and back to rock again. I have rocks that are obviously on at least their second time of being a rock because you can see the first rock crushed up in the second rock.
> >
> > TB
> Aren't all rocks and dirt as old as the earth?
> --

Like everything else it depends on how you look at it. Before they were rocks most of the rocks here were probably magma. It seems like most of the rocks here were spit up by volcanoes more than once. I guess it's sort of like evangelical christians. They were "reborn". The Cascade mountains are actually a fairly recent addition to the landscape. That's why they aren't all worn down, like the Appalachian, so called "mountains". Some of those mountains was turned into dirt. You can see where our mountains are turning into dirt. A lot of our dirt was once living organisms. All of our dirt was made from something that wasn't dirt at one time.

TB

On 7/26/2023 7:27 PM, Technobarbarian wrote:
> On Tuesday, July 25, 2023 at 8:38:47 PM UTC-7, film...@gmail.com wrote:
>> On Tuesday, July 25, 2023 at 11:48:52 AM UTC-7, Technobarbarian wrote:
>>> My main reason for going to Klickitat WA was that I had never been there before. You hear that word frequently on this side of the river, but that's mostly because of the county and not the town. It also sounded like it might be a good place to collect a few unhoused rocks.
>>>
>>> I found out that the reason I had never been there is that there is really almost nothing there. The town is mostly there because of what used to be there.There used to be a sawmill, and a railroad, and a dry ice plant, and a mineral springs. Except for the springs that's all gone. What they left behind is a lot of small houses on small lots. Many of them are right on the highway. They have a big school house, along with the usual assortment of churches, bars, and other small businesses. It looked like most of the traffic was motorcyclists who were drawn to a highway with a lot of curves and very little traffic. I had to look it up on the internet to figure out why the town is there. "It's mostly a bedroom community." A third of the population is children. That percentage drops steeply after they turn 18. The median age is reported to be 30 there. The town's main draw is that they have a lot of relatively inexpensive houses left behind by the mill workers.
>>>
>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klickitat,_Washington
>>>
>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klickitat_Mineral_Springs
>>>
>>> It's a pretty area and we enjoyed our visit, but we didn't find a lot of rock that looked like it needed a home. Washington state was probably only 2 or 3 pounds lighter when we left.
>>>
>>> When we get somewhere near it the Saint John's Monastery Bakery is an irresistible draw for us. It looks like they're doing well. That place is always busy. It looks like they've completed 2 of their 3 building goals. If I read their sign correctly it looks like they want to expand into a full service restaurant. It should do well. They're already selling a lot of food and other stuff. I picked up a big tub of Greek "chili" from their freezer, along with our usual assortment of coffee and pastry and stuff.
>>>
>>> https://stjohnmonastery.org/
>>>
>>> After scouting out some other rivers on the Oregon side of the Columbia river I finally figured out that one of the best places to find pretty rocks near me is the Columbia river itself. The trick is finding places where you can easily get to the river and yet don't draw huge numbers of visitors. We found a nice day use area that, for the Columbia gorge, doesn't get a lot of traffic. By the time we left we had been the only people there for over a half hour. There had only been one other couple there when we arrived. Several families came and went while we were there. By comparison, the much bigger parking lot at the Multnomah falls just a little further down the freeway was absolutely packed.
>>>
>>> We found some agates and some jade and other pretty rocks, but my best find was a nice chunk of carnelian agate that has been badly beat up by the river. It was the first time I found a piece of carnelian that was just out wandering around without any supervision. My specimen is at least 3 times bigger than what this guy has.
>>>
>>> https://www.etsy.com/listing/1181934113/jelly-deep-red-tumbled-oregon-carnelian
>>>
>>> TB
>> Do you engage in "rock trafficking", or just hoard the formerly unhoused rocks, far away, from where nature placed them?
>> Mr. Natural Jr.
>
> I'm mostly a rock hoarder, but I have my limits. I don't need huge piles of rocks. I just like having nice specimens of this and that. Just about anything that's pretty or pleasantly ugly, that will sit still without rotting or making a mess. The economics of rock trafficking discourage this activity. With a small collection I bought cheap I could sell a thousand dollars worth of rock, without putting a serious dent in my personal collection. By the time I converted those rocks to cash I would have put over a thousand dollars worth of work into them.
>
> I saw a video by a crazy rockhound in AK. Nephrite jade is actually pretty common. This guy was regularly finding jade stones that weighed 40 pounds or more. He was looking at one of those rocks out by some river and says that sitting there it's not worth anything. But, he can take that rock home and cut it into 10 pieces and sell those pieces for $20/each. So he thinks that's a $200 rock. I think he's paying himself very poor wages.
>
> So I have ended up with rocks that I would like to find a good home for. I have more than enough: small agates, nice sized dendritic agates that are most likely "Sweetwater agates" from Montana, thin slices of good quality nephrite jade, thin slices of black jasper with some sort of crystal inclusion, red jasper, and some of the biggest "Apache tears" that I've seen. I have both polished and unpolished examples of the Sweetwater agates and the Apache tears. I have some other stuff, but it would cost a lot more to mail it than it's worth. If you would like to give any of that a good home let me know. :-)
>
> Who knows what the "natural place" is for a rock? The oldest rocks here started out as island chains off the coast of Idaho around 20 degrees north latitude, 400 million years ago. They're now a bit north and south of the 45th meridian. and well inland. Everything gets recycled from rock to sand and back to rock again. I have rocks that are obviously on at least their second time of being a rock because you can see the first rock crushed up in the second rock.
>
> TB

I also enjoyed the rock hounding part of it, back in the day. I'd take
what I found - or acquired on ebay - and slab it up on my 16 inch rock
saw. Then I'd take the slabs and sell them on ebay. Eventually, I
realized that with all the time cutting, measured, weighing,
photographing, advertising, packaging and shipping, I was lacking time
for other things I also wished to do. Still, it was fun taking a rough
chunk of rock and cutting slabs from it to see what it looked like
inside. I still have a large chunk of Lapis Lazuli left over from those
days.

Somewhere, I still have a DVD about rock hounding in Oregon. It was from
this site - http://orerockon.com/ore_rock.htm - I think. We went camping
with that group in Central Oregon back in the nineties. Got to go to
some local sites for geodes, another for some nice Jasper, petrified
wood and agates.

On Thursday, July 27, 2023 at 7:16:22 PM UTC-7, kmiller wrote:
> On 7/26/2023 7:27 PM, Technobarbarian wrote:
> > On Tuesday, July 25, 2023 at 8:38:47 PM UTC-7, film...@gmail.com wrote:
> >> On Tuesday, July 25, 2023 at 11:48:52 AM UTC-7, Technobarbarian wrote:
> >>> My main reason for going to Klickitat WA was that I had never been there before. You hear that word frequently on this side of the river, but that's mostly because of the county and not the town. It also sounded like it might be a good place to collect a few unhoused rocks.
> >>>
> >>> I found out that the reason I had never been there is that there is really almost nothing there. The town is mostly there because of what used to be there.There used to be a sawmill, and a railroad, and a dry ice plant, and a mineral springs. Except for the springs that's all gone. What they left behind is a lot of small houses on small lots. Many of them are right on the highway. They have a big school house, along with the usual assortment of churches, bars, and other small businesses. It looked like most of the traffic was motorcyclists who were drawn to a highway with a lot of curves and very little traffic. I had to look it up on the internet to figure out why the town is there. "It's mostly a bedroom community." A third of the population is children. That percentage drops steeply after they turn 18. The median age is reported to be 30 there. The town's main draw is that they have a lot of relatively inexpensive houses left behind by the mill workers..
> >>>
> >>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klickitat,_Washington
> >>>
> >>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klickitat_Mineral_Springs
> >>>
> >>> It's a pretty area and we enjoyed our visit, but we didn't find a lot of rock that looked like it needed a home. Washington state was probably only 2 or 3 pounds lighter when we left.
> >>>
> >>> When we get somewhere near it the Saint John's Monastery Bakery is an irresistible draw for us. It looks like they're doing well. That place is always busy. It looks like they've completed 2 of their 3 building goals. If I read their sign correctly it looks like they want to expand into a full service restaurant. It should do well. They're already selling a lot of food and other stuff. I picked up a big tub of Greek "chili" from their freezer, along with our usual assortment of coffee and pastry and stuff.
> >>>
> >>> https://stjohnmonastery.org/
> >>>
> >>> After scouting out some other rivers on the Oregon side of the Columbia river I finally figured out that one of the best places to find pretty rocks near me is the Columbia river itself. The trick is finding places where you can easily get to the river and yet don't draw huge numbers of visitors. We found a nice day use area that, for the Columbia gorge, doesn't get a lot of traffic. By the time we left we had been the only people there for over a half hour. There had only been one other couple there when we arrived. Several families came and went while we were there. By comparison, the much bigger parking lot at the Multnomah falls just a little further down the freeway was absolutely packed.
> >>>
> >>> We found some agates and some jade and other pretty rocks, but my best find was a nice chunk of carnelian agate that has been badly beat up by the river. It was the first time I found a piece of carnelian that was just out wandering around without any supervision. My specimen is at least 3 times bigger than what this guy has.
> >>>
> >>> https://www.etsy.com/listing/1181934113/jelly-deep-red-tumbled-oregon-carnelian
> >>>
> >>> TB
> >> Do you engage in "rock trafficking", or just hoard the formerly unhoused rocks, far away, from where nature placed them?
> >> Mr. Natural Jr.
> >
> > I'm mostly a rock hoarder, but I have my limits. I don't need huge piles of rocks. I just like having nice specimens of this and that. Just about anything that's pretty or pleasantly ugly, that will sit still without rotting or making a mess. The economics of rock trafficking discourage this activity. With a small collection I bought cheap I could sell a thousand dollars worth of rock, without putting a serious dent in my personal collection. By the time I converted those rocks to cash I would have put over a thousand dollars worth of work into them.
> >
> > I saw a video by a crazy rockhound in AK. Nephrite jade is actually pretty common. This guy was regularly finding jade stones that weighed 40 pounds or more. He was looking at one of those rocks out by some river and says that sitting there it's not worth anything. But, he can take that rock home and cut it into 10 pieces and sell those pieces for $20/each. So he thinks that's a $200 rock. I think he's paying himself very poor wages.
> >
> > So I have ended up with rocks that I would like to find a good home for.. I have more than enough: small agates, nice sized dendritic agates that are most likely "Sweetwater agates" from Montana, thin slices of good quality nephrite jade, thin slices of black jasper with some sort of crystal inclusion, red jasper, and some of the biggest "Apache tears" that I've seen. I have both polished and unpolished examples of the Sweetwater agates and the Apache tears. I have some other stuff, but it would cost a lot more to mail it than it's worth. If you would like to give any of that a good home let me know. :-)
> >
> > Who knows what the "natural place" is for a rock? The oldest rocks here started out as island chains off the coast of Idaho around 20 degrees north latitude, 400 million years ago. They're now a bit north and south of the 45th meridian. and well inland. Everything gets recycled from rock to sand and back to rock again. I have rocks that are obviously on at least their second time of being a rock because you can see the first rock crushed up in the second rock.
> >
> > TB
> I also enjoyed the rock hounding part of it, back in the day. I'd take
> what I found - or acquired on ebay - and slab it up on my 16 inch rock
> saw. Then I'd take the slabs and sell them on ebay. Eventually, I
> realized that with all the time cutting, measured, weighing,
> photographing, advertising, packaging and shipping, I was lacking time
> for other things I also wished to do. Still, it was fun taking a rough
> chunk of rock and cutting slabs from it to see what it looked like
> inside. I still have a large chunk of Lapis Lazuli left over from those
> days.
>
> Somewhere, I still have a DVD about rock hounding in Oregon. It was from
> this site - http://orerockon.com/ore_rock.htm - I think. We went camping
> with that group in Central Oregon back in the nineties. Got to go to
> some local sites for geodes, another for some nice Jasper, petrified
> wood and agates.

Like the rest of the land, the rock scene here is obviously changing. Open sites are getting harder to find all the time. I consider it normal to find a locked gate where there used to be an open site. Some of the places that used to allow digging for a fee no longer allow anyone but employees to dig. Personally I'm not digging up anything. I get plenty of exercise from picking rocks up off the ground, and you can still find a lot of nice stuff that way.

There's still at least one place where you can dig for sunstones for free. That's a lot more work than I plan to do for any rock. There's a place that will let you smash up their sunstone ore for $600/day. For an additional $50 they'll supply a table to smash your rocks on. After that you only pay half of the wholesale value of anything that's gem quality and over 10 carats. I accidentally acquired a small jar of small stones and bits and pieces of sunstone. That's more than enough sunstone for me. I've always liked museums. I have my own little natural history museum.

Some guy out here bought 6 mining sites that were producing semi-precious stones, with some mixture of: wholesale, retail and digging for a fee. One of them was producing "polka dot" agates. He put the whole operation into bankruptcy. It's all fun, but it's a hard way to make a living.

TB

On Friday, July 28, 2023 at 4:39:27 PM UTC-7, Technobarbarian wrote:
> On Thursday, July 27, 2023 at 7:16:22 PM UTC-7, kmiller wrote:
> > On 7/26/2023 7:27 PM, Technobarbarian wrote:
> > > On Tuesday, July 25, 2023 at 8:38:47 PM UTC-7, film...@gmail.com wrote:
> > >> On Tuesday, July 25, 2023 at 11:48:52 AM UTC-7, Technobarbarian wrote:
> > >>> My main reason for going to Klickitat WA was that I had never been there before. You hear that word frequently on this side of the river, but that's mostly because of the county and not the town. It also sounded like it might be a good place to collect a few unhoused rocks.
> > >>>
> > >>> I found out that the reason I had never been there is that there is really almost nothing there. The town is mostly there because of what used to be there.There used to be a sawmill, and a railroad, and a dry ice plant, and a mineral springs. Except for the springs that's all gone. What they left behind is a lot of small houses on small lots. Many of them are right on the highway. They have a big school house, along with the usual assortment of churches, bars, and other small businesses. It looked like most of the traffic was motorcyclists who were drawn to a highway with a lot of curves and very little traffic. I had to look it up on the internet to figure out why the town is there. "It's mostly a bedroom community." A third of the population is children. That percentage drops steeply after they turn 18. The median age is reported to be 30 there. The town's main draw is that they have a lot of relatively inexpensive houses left behind by the mill workers.
> > >>>
> > >>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klickitat,_Washington
> > >>>
> > >>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klickitat_Mineral_Springs
> > >>>
> > >>> It's a pretty area and we enjoyed our visit, but we didn't find a lot of rock that looked like it needed a home. Washington state was probably only 2 or 3 pounds lighter when we left.
> > >>>
> > >>> When we get somewhere near it the Saint John's Monastery Bakery is an irresistible draw for us. It looks like they're doing well. That place is always busy. It looks like they've completed 2 of their 3 building goals. If I read their sign correctly it looks like they want to expand into a full service restaurant. It should do well. They're already selling a lot of food and other stuff. I picked up a big tub of Greek "chili" from their freezer, along with our usual assortment of coffee and pastry and stuff.
> > >>>
> > >>> https://stjohnmonastery.org/
> > >>>
> > >>> After scouting out some other rivers on the Oregon side of the Columbia river I finally figured out that one of the best places to find pretty rocks near me is the Columbia river itself. The trick is finding places where you can easily get to the river and yet don't draw huge numbers of visitors. We found a nice day use area that, for the Columbia gorge, doesn't get a lot of traffic. By the time we left we had been the only people there for over a half hour. There had only been one other couple there when we arrived. Several families came and went while we were there. By comparison, the much bigger parking lot at the Multnomah falls just a little further down the freeway was absolutely packed.
> > >>>
> > >>> We found some agates and some jade and other pretty rocks, but my best find was a nice chunk of carnelian agate that has been badly beat up by the river. It was the first time I found a piece of carnelian that was just out wandering around without any supervision. My specimen is at least 3 times bigger than what this guy has.
> > >>>
> > >>> https://www.etsy.com/listing/1181934113/jelly-deep-red-tumbled-oregon-carnelian
> > >>>
> > >>> TB
> > >> Do you engage in "rock trafficking", or just hoard the formerly unhoused rocks, far away, from where nature placed them?
> > >> Mr. Natural Jr.
> > >
> > > I'm mostly a rock hoarder, but I have my limits. I don't need huge piles of rocks. I just like having nice specimens of this and that. Just about anything that's pretty or pleasantly ugly, that will sit still without rotting or making a mess. The economics of rock trafficking discourage this activity. With a small collection I bought cheap I could sell a thousand dollars worth of rock, without putting a serious dent in my personal collection. By the time I converted those rocks to cash I would have put over a thousand dollars worth of work into them.
> > >
> > > I saw a video by a crazy rockhound in AK. Nephrite jade is actually pretty common. This guy was regularly finding jade stones that weighed 40 pounds or more. He was looking at one of those rocks out by some river and says that sitting there it's not worth anything. But, he can take that rock home and cut it into 10 pieces and sell those pieces for $20/each. So he thinks that's a $200 rock. I think he's paying himself very poor wages.
> > >
> > > So I have ended up with rocks that I would like to find a good home for. I have more than enough: small agates, nice sized dendritic agates that are most likely "Sweetwater agates" from Montana, thin slices of good quality nephrite jade, thin slices of black jasper with some sort of crystal inclusion, red jasper, and some of the biggest "Apache tears" that I've seen. I have both polished and unpolished examples of the Sweetwater agates and the Apache tears. I have some other stuff, but it would cost a lot more to mail it than it's worth. If you would like to give any of that a good home let me know. :-)
> > >
> > > Who knows what the "natural place" is for a rock? The oldest rocks here started out as island chains off the coast of Idaho around 20 degrees north latitude, 400 million years ago. They're now a bit north and south of the 45th meridian. and well inland. Everything gets recycled from rock to sand and back to rock again. I have rocks that are obviously on at least their second time of being a rock because you can see the first rock crushed up in the second rock.
> > >
> > > TB
> > I also enjoyed the rock hounding part of it, back in the day. I'd take
> > what I found - or acquired on ebay - and slab it up on my 16 inch rock
> > saw. Then I'd take the slabs and sell them on ebay. Eventually, I
> > realized that with all the time cutting, measured, weighing,
> > photographing, advertising, packaging and shipping, I was lacking time
> > for other things I also wished to do. Still, it was fun taking a rough
> > chunk of rock and cutting slabs from it to see what it looked like
> > inside. I still have a large chunk of Lapis Lazuli left over from those
> > days.
> >
> > Somewhere, I still have a DVD about rock hounding in Oregon. It was from
> > this site - http://orerockon.com/ore_rock.htm - I think. We went camping
> > with that group in Central Oregon back in the nineties. Got to go to
> > some local sites for geodes, another for some nice Jasper, petrified
> > wood and agates.
> Like the rest of the land, the rock scene here is obviously changing. Open sites are getting harder to find all the time. I consider it normal to find a locked gate where there used to be an open site. Some of the places that used to allow digging for a fee no longer allow anyone but employees to dig. Personally I'm not digging up anything. I get plenty of exercise from picking rocks up off the ground, and you can still find a lot of nice stuff that way.
>
> There's still at least one place where you can dig for sunstones for free.. That's a lot more work than I plan to do for any rock. There's a place that will let you smash up their sunstone ore for $600/day. For an additional $50 they'll supply a table to smash your rocks on. After that you only pay half of the wholesale value of anything that's gem quality and over 10 carats. I accidentally acquired a small jar of small stones and bits and pieces of sunstone. That's more than enough sunstone for me. I've always liked museums. I have my own little natural history museum.
>
> Some guy out here bought 6 mining sites that were producing semi-precious stones, with some mixture of: wholesale, retail and digging for a fee. One of them was producing "polka dot" agates. He put the whole operation into bankruptcy. It's all fun, but it's a hard way to make a living.
>
> TB

Years ago, a prison guard who worked for me, wanted to build a rock BBQ in his backyard... His friend, another guard, said he'd help him... So, they hitched a trailer to the 4X4 P/U, and drove up into the hills, East of Fresno, until they found a turn out with lots of rocks laying around, & began to fill up the trailer, when along comes another LEO, working for the BLM, or Forest Service, who asked, "Why are you stealing all these rocks?"

There was an unpleasant confrontation, & the two prison guards ended up getting arrested for stealing rocks from BLM, or the national forest .... I don't recall the final outcome of the situation, but both had to hire lawyers, and it caused them grief at work, as well.... Neither of them, would admit, nor could believe, that they'd done anything wrong, which only made their plight worse! Guess they felt their Rights were being violated, because they couldn't pick up stray rocks, & put them to a better use?

film...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Friday, July 28, 2023 at 4:39:27 PM UTC-7, Technobarbarian wrote:
>> On Thursday, July 27, 2023 at 7:16:22 PM UTC-7, kmiller wrote:
>>> On 7/26/2023 7:27 PM, Technobarbarian wrote:
>>>> On Tuesday, July 25, 2023 at 8:38:47 PM UTC-7, film...@gmail.com wrote:
>>>>> On Tuesday, July 25, 2023 at 11:48:52 AM UTC-7, Technobarbarian wrote:
>>>>>> My main reason for going to Klickitat WA was that I had never been there before. You hear that word frequently on this side of the river, but that's mostly because of the county and not the town. It also sounded like it might be a good place to collect a few unhoused rocks.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I found out that the reason I had never been there is that there is really almost nothing there. The town is mostly there because of what used to be there.There used to be a sawmill, and a railroad, and a dry ice plant, and a mineral springs. Except for the springs that's all gone. What they left behind is a lot of small houses on small lots. Many of them are right on the highway. They have a big school house, along with the usual assortment of churches, bars, and other small businesses. It looked like most of the traffic was motorcyclists who were drawn to a highway with a lot of curves and very little traffic. I had to look it up on the internet to figure out why the town is there. "It's mostly a bedroom community." A third of the population is children. That percentage drops steeply after they turn 18. The median age is reported to be 30 there. The town's main draw is that they have a lot of relatively inexpensive houses left behind by the mill workers.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klickitat,_Washington
>>>>>>
>>>>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klickitat_Mineral_Springs
>>>>>>
>>>>>> It's a pretty area and we enjoyed our visit, but we didn't find a lot of rock that looked like it needed a home. Washington state was probably only 2 or 3 pounds lighter when we left.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> When we get somewhere near it the Saint John's Monastery Bakery is an irresistible draw for us. It looks like they're doing well. That place is always busy. It looks like they've completed 2 of their 3 building goals. If I read their sign correctly it looks like they want to expand into a full service restaurant. It should do well. They're already selling a lot of food and other stuff. I picked up a big tub of Greek "chili" from their freezer, along with our usual assortment of coffee and pastry and stuff.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> https://stjohnmonastery.org/
>>>>>>
>>>>>> After scouting out some other rivers on the Oregon side of the Columbia river I finally figured out that one of the best places to find pretty rocks near me is the Columbia river itself. The trick is finding places where you can easily get to the river and yet don't draw huge numbers of visitors. We found a nice day use area that, for the Columbia gorge, doesn't get a lot of traffic. By the time we left we had been the only people there for over a half hour. There had only been one other couple there when we arrived. Several families came and went while we were there. By comparison, the much bigger parking lot at the Multnomah falls just a little further down the freeway was absolutely packed.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> We found some agates and some jade and other pretty rocks, but my best find was a nice chunk of carnelian agate that has been badly beat up by the river. It was the first time I found a piece of carnelian that was just out wandering around without any supervision. My specimen is at least 3 times bigger than what this guy has.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> https://www.etsy.com/listing/1181934113/jelly-deep-red-tumbled-oregon-carnelian
>>>>>>
>>>>>> TB
>>>>> Do you engage in "rock trafficking", or just hoard the formerly unhoused rocks, far away, from where nature placed them?
>>>>> Mr. Natural Jr.
>>>>
>>>> I'm mostly a rock hoarder, but I have my limits. I don't need huge piles of rocks. I just like having nice specimens of this and that. Just about anything that's pretty or pleasantly ugly, that will sit still without rotting or making a mess. The economics of rock trafficking discourage this activity. With a small collection I bought cheap I could sell a thousand dollars worth of rock, without putting a serious dent in my personal collection. By the time I converted those rocks to cash I would have put over a thousand dollars worth of work into them.
>>>>
>>>> I saw a video by a crazy rockhound in AK. Nephrite jade is actually pretty common. This guy was regularly finding jade stones that weighed 40 pounds or more. He was looking at one of those rocks out by some river and says that sitting there it's not worth anything. But, he can take that rock home and cut it into 10 pieces and sell those pieces for $20/each. So he thinks that's a $200 rock. I think he's paying himself very poor wages.
>>>>
>>>> So I have ended up with rocks that I would like to find a good home for. I have more than enough: small agates, nice sized dendritic agates that are most likely "Sweetwater agates" from Montana, thin slices of good quality nephrite jade, thin slices of black jasper with some sort of crystal inclusion, red jasper, and some of the biggest "Apache tears" that I've seen. I have both polished and unpolished examples of the Sweetwater agates and the Apache tears. I have some other stuff, but it would cost a lot more to mail it than it's worth. If you would like to give any of that a good home let me know. :-)
>>>>
>>>> Who knows what the "natural place" is for a rock? The oldest rocks here started out as island chains off the coast of Idaho around 20 degrees north latitude, 400 million years ago. They're now a bit north and south of the 45th meridian. and well inland. Everything gets recycled from rock to sand and back to rock again. I have rocks that are obviously on at least their second time of being a rock because you can see the first rock crushed up in the second rock.
>>>>
>>>> TB
>>> I also enjoyed the rock hounding part of it, back in the day. I'd take
>>> what I found - or acquired on ebay - and slab it up on my 16 inch rock
>>> saw. Then I'd take the slabs and sell them on ebay. Eventually, I
>>> realized that with all the time cutting, measured, weighing,
>>> photographing, advertising, packaging and shipping, I was lacking time
>>> for other things I also wished to do. Still, it was fun taking a rough
>>> chunk of rock and cutting slabs from it to see what it looked like
>>> inside. I still have a large chunk of Lapis Lazuli left over from those
>>> days.
>>>
>>> Somewhere, I still have a DVD about rock hounding in Oregon. It was from
>>> this site - http://orerockon.com/ore_rock.htm - I think. We went camping
>>> with that group in Central Oregon back in the nineties. Got to go to
>>> some local sites for geodes, another for some nice Jasper, petrified
>>> wood and agates.
>> Like the rest of the land, the rock scene here is obviously changing. Open sites are getting harder to find all the time. I consider it normal to find a locked gate where there used to be an open site. Some of the places that used to allow digging for a fee no longer allow anyone but employees to dig. Personally I'm not digging up anything. I get plenty of exercise from picking rocks up off the ground, and you can still find a lot of nice stuff that way.
>>
>> There's still at least one place where you can dig for sunstones for free. That's a lot more work than I plan to do for any rock. There's a place that will let you smash up their sunstone ore for $600/day. For an additional $50 they'll supply a table to smash your rocks on. After that you only pay half of the wholesale value of anything that's gem quality and over 10 carats. I accidentally acquired a small jar of small stones and bits and pieces of sunstone. That's more than enough sunstone for me. I've always liked museums. I have my own little natural history museum.
>>
>> Some guy out here bought 6 mining sites that were producing semi-precious stones, with some mixture of: wholesale, retail and digging for a fee. One of them was producing "polka dot" agates. He put the whole operation into bankruptcy. It's all fun, but it's a hard way to make a living.
>>
>> TB
>
> Years ago, a prison guard who worked for me, wanted to build a rock BBQ in his backyard... His friend, another guard, said he'd help him... So, they hitched a trailer to the 4X4 P/U, and drove up into the hills, East of Fresno, until they found a turn out with lots of rocks laying around, & began to fill up the trailer, when along comes another LEO, working for the BLM, or Forest Service, who asked, "Why are you stealing all these rocks?"
>
> There was an unpleasant confrontation, & the two prison guards ended up getting arrested for stealing rocks from BLM, or the national forest .... I don't recall the final outcome of the situation, but both had to hire lawyers, and it caused them grief at work, as well.... Neither of them, would admit, nor could believe, that they'd done anything wrong, which only made their plight worse! Guess they felt their Rights were being violated, because they couldn't pick up stray rocks, & put them to a better use?
>
> A word to the wise should be sufficient! HawHawHaw!
>
> Johnny Cockren Jr.
>
I don't have to be wise - I've never wanted a rock BBQ.

On Friday, July 28, 2023 at 9:40:23 PM UTC-7, film...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Friday, July 28, 2023 at 4:39:27 PM UTC-7, Technobarbarian wrote:
> > On Thursday, July 27, 2023 at 7:16:22 PM UTC-7, kmiller wrote:
> > > On 7/26/2023 7:27 PM, Technobarbarian wrote:
> > > > On Tuesday, July 25, 2023 at 8:38:47 PM UTC-7, film...@gmail.com wrote:
> > > >> On Tuesday, July 25, 2023 at 11:48:52 AM UTC-7, Technobarbarian wrote:
> > > >>> My main reason for going to Klickitat WA was that I had never been there before. You hear that word frequently on this side of the river, but that's mostly because of the county and not the town. It also sounded like it might be a good place to collect a few unhoused rocks.
> > > >>>
> > > >>> I found out that the reason I had never been there is that there is really almost nothing there. The town is mostly there because of what used to be there.There used to be a sawmill, and a railroad, and a dry ice plant, and a mineral springs. Except for the springs that's all gone. What they left behind is a lot of small houses on small lots. Many of them are right on the highway. They have a big school house, along with the usual assortment of churches, bars, and other small businesses. It looked like most of the traffic was motorcyclists who were drawn to a highway with a lot of curves and very little traffic. I had to look it up on the internet to figure out why the town is there. "It's mostly a bedroom community." A third of the population is children. That percentage drops steeply after they turn 18.. The median age is reported to be 30 there. The town's main draw is that they have a lot of relatively inexpensive houses left behind by the mill workers.
> > > >>>
> > > >>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klickitat,_Washington
> > > >>>
> > > >>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klickitat_Mineral_Springs
> > > >>>
> > > >>> It's a pretty area and we enjoyed our visit, but we didn't find a lot of rock that looked like it needed a home. Washington state was probably only 2 or 3 pounds lighter when we left.
> > > >>>
> > > >>> When we get somewhere near it the Saint John's Monastery Bakery is an irresistible draw for us. It looks like they're doing well. That place is always busy. It looks like they've completed 2 of their 3 building goals. If I read their sign correctly it looks like they want to expand into a full service restaurant. It should do well. They're already selling a lot of food and other stuff. I picked up a big tub of Greek "chili" from their freezer, along with our usual assortment of coffee and pastry and stuff.
> > > >>>
> > > >>> https://stjohnmonastery.org/
> > > >>>
> > > >>> After scouting out some other rivers on the Oregon side of the Columbia river I finally figured out that one of the best places to find pretty rocks near me is the Columbia river itself. The trick is finding places where you can easily get to the river and yet don't draw huge numbers of visitors. We found a nice day use area that, for the Columbia gorge, doesn't get a lot of traffic. By the time we left we had been the only people there for over a half hour. There had only been one other couple there when we arrived. Several families came and went while we were there. By comparison, the much bigger parking lot at the Multnomah falls just a little further down the freeway was absolutely packed.
> > > >>>
> > > >>> We found some agates and some jade and other pretty rocks, but my best find was a nice chunk of carnelian agate that has been badly beat up by the river. It was the first time I found a piece of carnelian that was just out wandering around without any supervision. My specimen is at least 3 times bigger than what this guy has.
> > > >>>
> > > >>> https://www.etsy.com/listing/1181934113/jelly-deep-red-tumbled-oregon-carnelian
> > > >>>
> > > >>> TB
> > > >> Do you engage in "rock trafficking", or just hoard the formerly unhoused rocks, far away, from where nature placed them?
> > > >> Mr. Natural Jr.
> > > >
> > > > I'm mostly a rock hoarder, but I have my limits. I don't need huge piles of rocks. I just like having nice specimens of this and that. Just about anything that's pretty or pleasantly ugly, that will sit still without rotting or making a mess. The economics of rock trafficking discourage this activity. With a small collection I bought cheap I could sell a thousand dollars worth of rock, without putting a serious dent in my personal collection. By the time I converted those rocks to cash I would have put over a thousand dollars worth of work into them.
> > > >
> > > > I saw a video by a crazy rockhound in AK. Nephrite jade is actually pretty common. This guy was regularly finding jade stones that weighed 40 pounds or more. He was looking at one of those rocks out by some river and says that sitting there it's not worth anything. But, he can take that rock home and cut it into 10 pieces and sell those pieces for $20/each. So he thinks that's a $200 rock. I think he's paying himself very poor wages.
> > > >
> > > > So I have ended up with rocks that I would like to find a good home for. I have more than enough: small agates, nice sized dendritic agates that are most likely "Sweetwater agates" from Montana, thin slices of good quality nephrite jade, thin slices of black jasper with some sort of crystal inclusion, red jasper, and some of the biggest "Apache tears" that I've seen. I have both polished and unpolished examples of the Sweetwater agates and the Apache tears. I have some other stuff, but it would cost a lot more to mail it than it's worth. If you would like to give any of that a good home let me know. :-)
> > > >
> > > > Who knows what the "natural place" is for a rock? The oldest rocks here started out as island chains off the coast of Idaho around 20 degrees north latitude, 400 million years ago. They're now a bit north and south of the 45th meridian. and well inland. Everything gets recycled from rock to sand and back to rock again. I have rocks that are obviously on at least their second time of being a rock because you can see the first rock crushed up in the second rock.
> > > >
> > > > TB
> > > I also enjoyed the rock hounding part of it, back in the day. I'd take
> > > what I found - or acquired on ebay - and slab it up on my 16 inch rock
> > > saw. Then I'd take the slabs and sell them on ebay. Eventually, I
> > > realized that with all the time cutting, measured, weighing,
> > > photographing, advertising, packaging and shipping, I was lacking time
> > > for other things I also wished to do. Still, it was fun taking a rough
> > > chunk of rock and cutting slabs from it to see what it looked like
> > > inside. I still have a large chunk of Lapis Lazuli left over from those
> > > days.
> > >
> > > Somewhere, I still have a DVD about rock hounding in Oregon. It was from
> > > this site - http://orerockon.com/ore_rock.htm - I think. We went camping
> > > with that group in Central Oregon back in the nineties. Got to go to
> > > some local sites for geodes, another for some nice Jasper, petrified
> > > wood and agates.
> > Like the rest of the land, the rock scene here is obviously changing. Open sites are getting harder to find all the time. I consider it normal to find a locked gate where there used to be an open site. Some of the places that used to allow digging for a fee no longer allow anyone but employees to dig. Personally I'm not digging up anything. I get plenty of exercise from picking rocks up off the ground, and you can still find a lot of nice stuff that way.
> >
> > There's still at least one place where you can dig for sunstones for free. That's a lot more work than I plan to do for any rock. There's a place that will let you smash up their sunstone ore for $600/day. For an additional $50 they'll supply a table to smash your rocks on. After that you only pay half of the wholesale value of anything that's gem quality and over 10 carats. I accidentally acquired a small jar of small stones and bits and pieces of sunstone. That's more than enough sunstone for me. I've always liked museums. I have my own little natural history museum.
> >
> > Some guy out here bought 6 mining sites that were producing semi-precious stones, with some mixture of: wholesale, retail and digging for a fee. One of them was producing "polka dot" agates. He put the whole operation into bankruptcy. It's all fun, but it's a hard way to make a living.
> >
> > TB
> Years ago, a prison guard who worked for me, wanted to build a rock BBQ in his backyard... His friend, another guard, said he'd help him... So, they hitched a trailer to the 4X4 P/U, and drove up into the hills, East of Fresno, until they found a turn out with lots of rocks laying around, & began to fill up the trailer, when along comes another LEO, working for the BLM, or Forest Service, who asked, "Why are you stealing all these rocks?"
>
> There was an unpleasant confrontation, & the two prison guards ended up getting arrested for stealing rocks from BLM, or the national forest .... I don't recall the final outcome of the situation, but both had to hire lawyers, and it caused them grief at work, as well.... Neither of them, would admit, nor could believe, that they'd done anything wrong, which only made their plight worse! Guess they felt their Rights were being violated, because they couldn't pick up stray rocks, & put them to a better use?
>
> A word to the wise should be sufficient! HawHawHaw!
>
> Johnny Cockren Jr.

On Saturday, July 29, 2023 at 4:51:56 PM UTC-7, Technobarbarian wrote:
> On Friday, July 28, 2023 at 9:40:23 PM UTC-7, film...@gmail.com wrote:
> > On Friday, July 28, 2023 at 4:39:27 PM UTC-7, Technobarbarian wrote:
> > > On Thursday, July 27, 2023 at 7:16:22 PM UTC-7, kmiller wrote:
> > > > On 7/26/2023 7:27 PM, Technobarbarian wrote:
> > > > > On Tuesday, July 25, 2023 at 8:38:47 PM UTC-7, film...@gmail.com wrote:
> > > > >> On Tuesday, July 25, 2023 at 11:48:52 AM UTC-7, Technobarbarian wrote:
> > > > >>> My main reason for going to Klickitat WA was that I had never been there before. You hear that word frequently on this side of the river, but that's mostly because of the county and not the town. It also sounded like it might be a good place to collect a few unhoused rocks.
> > > > >>>
> > > > >>> I found out that the reason I had never been there is that there is really almost nothing there. The town is mostly there because of what used to be there.There used to be a sawmill, and a railroad, and a dry ice plant, and a mineral springs. Except for the springs that's all gone. What they left behind is a lot of small houses on small lots. Many of them are right on the highway. They have a big school house, along with the usual assortment of churches, bars, and other small businesses. It looked like most of the traffic was motorcyclists who were drawn to a highway with a lot of curves and very little traffic. I had to look it up on the internet to figure out why the town is there. "It's mostly a bedroom community." A third of the population is children. That percentage drops steeply after they turn 18. The median age is reported to be 30 there. The town's main draw is that they have a lot of relatively inexpensive houses left behind by the mill workers.
> > > > >>>
> > > > >>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klickitat,_Washington
> > > > >>>
> > > > >>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klickitat_Mineral_Springs
> > > > >>>
> > > > >>> It's a pretty area and we enjoyed our visit, but we didn't find a lot of rock that looked like it needed a home. Washington state was probably only 2 or 3 pounds lighter when we left.
> > > > >>>
> > > > >>> When we get somewhere near it the Saint John's Monastery Bakery is an irresistible draw for us. It looks like they're doing well. That place is always busy. It looks like they've completed 2 of their 3 building goals. If I read their sign correctly it looks like they want to expand into a full service restaurant. It should do well. They're already selling a lot of food and other stuff. I picked up a big tub of Greek "chili" from their freezer, along with our usual assortment of coffee and pastry and stuff.
> > > > >>>
> > > > >>> https://stjohnmonastery.org/
> > > > >>>
> > > > >>> After scouting out some other rivers on the Oregon side of the Columbia river I finally figured out that one of the best places to find pretty rocks near me is the Columbia river itself. The trick is finding places where you can easily get to the river and yet don't draw huge numbers of visitors. We found a nice day use area that, for the Columbia gorge, doesn't get a lot of traffic. By the time we left we had been the only people there for over a half hour. There had only been one other couple there when we arrived. Several families came and went while we were there. By comparison, the much bigger parking lot at the Multnomah falls just a little further down the freeway was absolutely packed.
> > > > >>>
> > > > >>> We found some agates and some jade and other pretty rocks, but my best find was a nice chunk of carnelian agate that has been badly beat up by the river. It was the first time I found a piece of carnelian that was just out wandering around without any supervision. My specimen is at least 3 times bigger than what this guy has.
> > > > >>>
> > > > >>> https://www.etsy.com/listing/1181934113/jelly-deep-red-tumbled-oregon-carnelian
> > > > >>>
> > > > >>> TB
> > > > >> Do you engage in "rock trafficking", or just hoard the formerly unhoused rocks, far away, from where nature placed them?
> > > > >> Mr. Natural Jr.
> > > > >
> > > > > I'm mostly a rock hoarder, but I have my limits. I don't need huge piles of rocks. I just like having nice specimens of this and that. Just about anything that's pretty or pleasantly ugly, that will sit still without rotting or making a mess. The economics of rock trafficking discourage this activity. With a small collection I bought cheap I could sell a thousand dollars worth of rock, without putting a serious dent in my personal collection. By the time I converted those rocks to cash I would have put over a thousand dollars worth of work into them.
> > > > >
> > > > > I saw a video by a crazy rockhound in AK. Nephrite jade is actually pretty common. This guy was regularly finding jade stones that weighed 40 pounds or more. He was looking at one of those rocks out by some river and says that sitting there it's not worth anything. But, he can take that rock home and cut it into 10 pieces and sell those pieces for $20/each. So he thinks that's a $200 rock. I think he's paying himself very poor wages.
> > > > >
> > > > > So I have ended up with rocks that I would like to find a good home for. I have more than enough: small agates, nice sized dendritic agates that are most likely "Sweetwater agates" from Montana, thin slices of good quality nephrite jade, thin slices of black jasper with some sort of crystal inclusion, red jasper, and some of the biggest "Apache tears" that I've seen. I have both polished and unpolished examples of the Sweetwater agates and the Apache tears. I have some other stuff, but it would cost a lot more to mail it than it's worth. If you would like to give any of that a good home let me know. :-)
> > > > >
> > > > > Who knows what the "natural place" is for a rock? The oldest rocks here started out as island chains off the coast of Idaho around 20 degrees north latitude, 400 million years ago. They're now a bit north and south of the 45th meridian. and well inland. Everything gets recycled from rock to sand and back to rock again. I have rocks that are obviously on at least their second time of being a rock because you can see the first rock crushed up in the second rock.
> > > > >
> > > > > TB
> > > > I also enjoyed the rock hounding part of it, back in the day. I'd take
> > > > what I found - or acquired on ebay - and slab it up on my 16 inch rock
> > > > saw. Then I'd take the slabs and sell them on ebay. Eventually, I
> > > > realized that with all the time cutting, measured, weighing,
> > > > photographing, advertising, packaging and shipping, I was lacking time
> > > > for other things I also wished to do. Still, it was fun taking a rough
> > > > chunk of rock and cutting slabs from it to see what it looked like
> > > > inside. I still have a large chunk of Lapis Lazuli left over from those
> > > > days.
> > > >
> > > > Somewhere, I still have a DVD about rock hounding in Oregon. It was from
> > > > this site - http://orerockon.com/ore_rock.htm - I think. We went camping
> > > > with that group in Central Oregon back in the nineties. Got to go to
> > > > some local sites for geodes, another for some nice Jasper, petrified
> > > > wood and agates.
> > > Like the rest of the land, the rock scene here is obviously changing. Open sites are getting harder to find all the time. I consider it normal to find a locked gate where there used to be an open site. Some of the places that used to allow digging for a fee no longer allow anyone but employees to dig. Personally I'm not digging up anything. I get plenty of exercise from picking rocks up off the ground, and you can still find a lot of nice stuff that way.
> > >
> > > There's still at least one place where you can dig for sunstones for free. That's a lot more work than I plan to do for any rock. There's a place that will let you smash up their sunstone ore for $600/day. For an additional $50 they'll supply a table to smash your rocks on. After that you only pay half of the wholesale value of anything that's gem quality and over 10 carats. I accidentally acquired a small jar of small stones and bits and pieces of sunstone. That's more than enough sunstone for me. I've always liked museums. I have my own little natural history museum.
> > >
> > > Some guy out here bought 6 mining sites that were producing semi-precious stones, with some mixture of: wholesale, retail and digging for a fee. One of them was producing "polka dot" agates. He put the whole operation into bankruptcy. It's all fun, but it's a hard way to make a living.
> > >
> > > TB
> > Years ago, a prison guard who worked for me, wanted to build a rock BBQ in his backyard... His friend, another guard, said he'd help him... So, they hitched a trailer to the 4X4 P/U, and drove up into the hills, East of Fresno, until they found a turn out with lots of rocks laying around, & began to fill up the trailer, when along comes another LEO, working for the BLM, or Forest Service, who asked, "Why are you stealing all these rocks?"
> >
> > There was an unpleasant confrontation, & the two prison guards ended up getting arrested for stealing rocks from BLM, or the national forest .... I don't recall the final outcome of the situation, but both had to hire lawyers, and it caused them grief at work, as well.... Neither of them, would admit, nor could believe, that they'd done anything wrong, which only made their plight worse! Guess they felt their Rights were being violated, because they couldn't pick up stray rocks, & put them to a better use?
> >
> > A word to the wise should be sufficient! HawHawHaw!
> >
> > Johnny Cockren Jr.
> I have taken rocks from Federal land without all of the proper permits, a time or two. Who cares about rocks? Well the Federal government for one. Who knew? You are allowed to collect rocks many places, but the limit is usually 50 pounds per day. I was working for a guy who decided to build a sidewalk next to a house he owned with big flat rocks from the desert. It came out pretty nice, but it's mostly just a border on the front lawn. If we had been caught I would have blamed it all on him. I suppose it could happen, but I've never had anyone checking my rocks. The Weyerhaeuser guy who was putting up no trespassing signs outside Sweet Home asked if I had found anything nice, but he really didn't care that I wasn't supposed to take anything.
>
> I was with a friend when he got his load of wood checked by a state highway patrolman. He was looking at permits for the wood and the weight. My friend was invited to drive over an otherwise closed truck scale a couple of miles the other way. He had his permits in order and we were close enough to the legal weight that the cop let us go with the usual cop talk. The Feds keep a close eye on their wood. They were putting video cameras in the forest before that became a popular thing to do. The hills really do have eyes.
>
> TB

film...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Saturday, July 29, 2023 at 4:51:56 PM UTC-7, Technobarbarian
> wrote:
>> On Friday, July 28, 2023 at 9:40:23 PM UTC-7, film...@gmail.com
>> wrote:
>>> On Friday, July 28, 2023 at 4:39:27 PM UTC-7, Technobarbarian
>>> wrote:
>>>> On Thursday, July 27, 2023 at 7:16:22 PM UTC-7, kmiller
>>>> wrote:
>>>>> On 7/26/2023 7:27 PM, Technobarbarian wrote:
>>>>>> On Tuesday, July 25, 2023 at 8:38:47 PM UTC-7,
>>>>>> film...@gmail.com wrote:
>>>>>>> On Tuesday, July 25, 2023 at 11:48:52 AM UTC-7,
>>>>>>> Technobarbarian wrote:
>>>>>>>> My main reason for going to Klickitat WA was that I
>>>>>>>> had never been there before. You hear that word
>>>>>>>> frequently on this side of the river, but that's
>>>>>>>> mostly because of the county and not the town. It
>>>>>>>> also sounded like it might be a good place to collect
>>>>>>>> a few unhoused rocks.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I found out that the reason I had never been there is
>>>>>>>> that there is really almost nothing there. The town
>>>>>>>> is mostly there because of what used to be
>>>>>>>> there.There used to be a sawmill, and a railroad, and
>>>>>>>> a dry ice plant, and a mineral springs. Except for
>>>>>>>> the springs that's all gone. What they left behind is
>>>>>>>> a lot of small houses on small lots. Many of them are
>>>>>>>> right on the highway. They have a big school house,
>>>>>>>> along with the usual assortment of churches, bars,
>>>>>>>> and other small businesses. It looked like most of
>>>>>>>> the traffic was motorcyclists who were drawn to a
>>>>>>>> highway with a lot of curves and very little traffic.
>>>>>>>> I had to look it up on the internet to figure out why
>>>>>>>> the town is there. "It's mostly a bedroom community."
>>>>>>>> A third of the population is children. That
>>>>>>>> percentage drops steeply after they turn 18. The
>>>>>>>> median age is reported to be 30 there. The town's
>>>>>>>> main draw is that they have a lot of relatively
>>>>>>>> inexpensive houses left behind by the mill workers.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klickitat,_Washington
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klickitat_Mineral_Springs
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
It's a pretty area and we enjoyed our visit, but we didn't find a lot
of rock that looked like it needed a home. Washington state was
probably only 2 or 3 pounds lighter when we left.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> When we get somewhere near it the Saint John's
>>>>>>>> Monastery Bakery is an irresistible draw for us. It
>>>>>>>> looks like they're doing well. That place is always
>>>>>>>> busy. It looks like they've completed 2 of their 3
>>>>>>>> building goals. If I read their sign correctly it
>>>>>>>> looks like they want to expand into a full service
>>>>>>>> restaurant. It should do well. They're already
>>>>>>>> selling a lot of food and other stuff. I picked up a
>>>>>>>> big tub of Greek "chili" from their freezer, along
>>>>>>>> with our usual assortment of coffee and pastry and
>>>>>>>> stuff.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> https://stjohnmonastery.org/
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> After scouting out some other rivers on the Oregon
>>>>>>>> side of the Columbia river I finally figured out that
>>>>>>>> one of the best places to find pretty rocks near me
>>>>>>>> is the Columbia river itself. The trick is finding
>>>>>>>> places where you can easily get to the river and yet
>>>>>>>> don't draw huge numbers of visitors. We found a nice
>>>>>>>> day use area that, for the Columbia gorge, doesn't
>>>>>>>> get a lot of traffic. By the time we left we had been
>>>>>>>> the only people there for over a half hour. There had
>>>>>>>> only been one other couple there when we arrived.
>>>>>>>> Several families came and went while we were there.
>>>>>>>> By comparison, the much bigger parking lot at the
>>>>>>>> Multnomah falls just a little further down the
>>>>>>>> freeway was absolutely packed.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> We found some agates and some jade and other pretty
>>>>>>>> rocks, but my best find was a nice chunk of carnelian
>>>>>>>> agate that has been badly beat up by the river. It
>>>>>>>> was the first time I found a piece of carnelian that
>>>>>>>> was just out wandering around without any
>>>>>>>> supervision. My specimen is at least 3 times bigger
>>>>>>>> than what this guy has.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> https://www.etsy.com/listing/1181934113/jelly-deep-red-tumbled-oregon-carnelian
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
TB
>>>>>>> Do you engage in "rock trafficking", or just hoard the
>>>>>>> formerly unhoused rocks, far away, from where nature
>>>>>>> placed them? Mr. Natural Jr.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I'm mostly a rock hoarder, but I have my limits. I don't
>>>>>> need huge piles of rocks. I just like having nice
>>>>>> specimens of this and that. Just about anything that's
>>>>>> pretty or pleasantly ugly, that will sit still without
>>>>>> rotting or making a mess. The economics of rock
>>>>>> trafficking discourage this activity. With a small
>>>>>> collection I bought cheap I could sell a thousand dollars
>>>>>> worth of rock, without putting a serious dent in my
>>>>>> personal collection. By the time I converted those rocks
>>>>>> to cash I would have put over a thousand dollars worth of
>>>>>> work into them.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I saw a video by a crazy rockhound in AK. Nephrite jade
>>>>>> is actually pretty common. This guy was regularly finding
>>>>>> jade stones that weighed 40 pounds or more. He was
>>>>>> looking at one of those rocks out by some river and says
>>>>>> that sitting there it's not worth anything. But, he can
>>>>>> take that rock home and cut it into 10 pieces and sell
>>>>>> those pieces for $20/each. So he thinks that's a $200
>>>>>> rock. I think he's paying himself very poor wages.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> So I have ended up with rocks that I would like to find a
>>>>>> good home for. I have more than enough: small agates,
>>>>>> nice sized dendritic agates that are most likely
>>>>>> "Sweetwater agates" from Montana, thin slices of good
>>>>>> quality nephrite jade, thin slices of black jasper with
>>>>>> some sort of crystal inclusion, red jasper, and some of
>>>>>> the biggest "Apache tears" that I've seen. I have both
>>>>>> polished and unpolished examples of the Sweetwater agates
>>>>>> and the Apache tears. I have some other stuff, but it
>>>>>> would cost a lot more to mail it than it's worth. If you
>>>>>> would like to give any of that a good home let me know.
>>>>>> :-)
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Who knows what the "natural place" is for a rock? The
>>>>>> oldest rocks here started out as island chains off the
>>>>>> coast of Idaho around 20 degrees north latitude, 400
>>>>>> million years ago. They're now a bit north and south of
>>>>>> the 45th meridian. and well inland. Everything gets
>>>>>> recycled from rock to sand and back to rock again. I have
>>>>>> rocks that are obviously on at least their second time of
>>>>>> being a rock because you can see the first rock crushed
>>>>>> up in the second rock.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> TB
>>>>> I also enjoyed the rock hounding part of it, back in the
>>>>> day. I'd take what I found - or acquired on ebay - and slab
>>>>> it up on my 16 inch rock saw. Then I'd take the slabs and
>>>>> sell them on ebay. Eventually, I realized that with all the
>>>>> time cutting, measured, weighing, photographing,
>>>>> advertising, packaging and shipping, I was lacking time for
>>>>> other things I also wished to do. Still, it was fun taking
>>>>> a rough chunk of rock and cutting slabs from it to see what
>>>>> it looked like inside. I still have a large chunk of Lapis
>>>>> Lazuli left over from those days.
>>>>>
>>>>> Somewhere, I still have a DVD about rock hounding in
>>>>> Oregon. It was from this site -
>>>>> http://orerockon.com/ore_rock.htm - I think. We went
>>>>> camping with that group in Central Oregon back in the
>>>>> nineties. Got to go to some local sites for geodes, another
>>>>> for some nice Jasper, petrified wood and agates.
>>>> Like the rest of the land, the rock scene here is obviously
>>>> changing. Open sites are getting harder to find all the time.
>>>> I consider it normal to find a locked gate where there used
>>>> to be an open site. Some of the places that used to allow
>>>> digging for a fee no longer allow anyone but employees to
>>>> dig. Personally I'm not digging up anything. I get plenty of
>>>> exercise from picking rocks up off the ground, and you can
>>>> still find a lot of nice stuff that way.
>>>>
>>>> There's still at least one place where you can dig for
>>>> sunstones for free. That's a lot more work than I plan to do
>>>> for any rock. There's a place that will let you smash up
>>>> their sunstone ore for $600/day. For an additional $50
>>>> they'll supply a table to smash your rocks on. After that you
>>>> only pay half of the wholesale value of anything that's gem
>>>> quality and over 10 carats. I accidentally acquired a small
>>>> jar of small stones and bits and pieces of sunstone. That's
>>>> more than enough sunstone for me. I've always liked museums.
>>>> I have my own little natural history museum.
>>>>
>>>> Some guy out here bought 6 mining sites that were producing
>>>> semi-precious stones, with some mixture of: wholesale, retail
>>>> and digging for a fee. One of them was producing "polka dot"
>>>> agates. He put the whole operation into bankruptcy. It's all
>>>> fun, but it's a hard way to make a living.
>>>>
>>>> TB
>>> Years ago, a prison guard who worked for me, wanted to build a
>>> rock BBQ in his backyard... His friend, another guard, said
>>> he'd help him... So, they hitched a trailer to the 4X4 P/U, and
>>> drove up into the hills, East of Fresno, until they found a
>>> turn out with lots of rocks laying around, & began to fill up
>>> the trailer, when along comes another LEO, working for the BLM,
>>> or Forest Service, who asked, "Why are you stealing all these
>>> rocks?"
>>>
>>> There was an unpleasant confrontation, & the two prison guards
>>> ended up getting arrested for stealing rocks from BLM, or the
>>> national forest .... I don't recall the final outcome of the
>>> situation, but both had to hire lawyers, and it caused them
>>> grief at work, as well.... Neither of them, would admit, nor
>>> could believe, that they'd done anything wrong, which only made
>>> their plight worse! Guess they felt their Rights were being
>>> violated, because they couldn't pick up stray rocks, & put them
>>> to a better use?
>>>
>>> A word to the wise should be sufficient! HawHawHaw!
>>>
>>> Johnny Cockren Jr.
>> I have taken rocks from Federal land without all of the proper
>> permits, a time or two. Who cares about rocks? Well the Federal
>> government for one. Who knew? You are allowed to collect rocks
>> many places, but the limit is usually 50 pounds per day. I was
>> working for a guy who decided to build a sidewalk next to a house
>> he owned with big flat rocks from the desert. It came out pretty
>> nice, but it's mostly just a border on the front lawn. If we had
>> been caught I would have blamed it all on him. I suppose it could
>> happen, but I've never had anyone checking my rocks. The
>> Weyerhaeuser guy who was putting up no trespassing signs outside
>> Sweet Home asked if I had found anything nice, but he really
>> didn't care that I wasn't supposed to take anything.
>>
>> I was with a friend when he got his load of wood checked by a
>> state highway patrolman. He was looking at permits for the wood
>> and the weight. My friend was invited to drive over an otherwise
>> closed truck scale a couple of miles the other way. He had his
>> permits in order and we were close enough to the legal weight
>> that the cop let us go with the usual cop talk. The Feds keep a
>> close eye on their wood. They were putting video cameras in the
>> forest before that became a popular thing to do. The hills really
>> do have eyes.
>>
>> TB
>
> In the mid 70's, I worked for a guy in Topanga Canyon, just
> outside Santa Monica, CA, who used lots of rocks, on masonry
> jobs... We gathered tons of them from creekside turn outs...
> No-one complained... Lucky thing I was so blissfully ignorant
> about just what might have happened, if I'd been pinched, for
> rock theft! I might not have been hired due to my criminal
> past....
>
> A reformed rock snatcher
>