Digging at Dugway for Geodes

Last year my friends and I went and dug for Trilobites.  Well, their daughter was disappointed because she thought we were gathering geodes - oops!   So, it was time for another ROAD TRIP to satisfy the budding geologist! 

We headed out to the sticks.  Well, not exactly the sticks..more like ticks (we actually passed a place called Tickville and it looked to be abundant with ticks!).  From Lehi you follow the road west until it ends and then go another 50 miles on a good dirt road.  This road traverses the old Pony Express route which is something I had wanted to see but didn't want to go out just for that so it was a great opportunity to kill two birds with one stone or tick.

The Pony Express station we stopped at was Simpson Springs.  You hear so much about the Pony Express but what I didn't realize was that it was only functioning for 19 months!  For how much it is apart of the "Old West" I wouldn't have imagined.  The Pony Express ran from Missouri to California in just 10 days thanks to some fast riding cowboys and changing mustangs often.  Heck, the mail sometimes can't beat that now!  Thanks to the telegraph however it was short lived.  On the rest of the route there are stone markers quite often along the dirt road.

After several more miles and a few "I think we turn here" places we arrived at the Dugway area for digging Geodes.  There is a large concentration of geodes in this area because apparently it was a shoreline for the ancient oceans and the geodes washed up there.   You start digging with your shovels (bring all your own equipment) and find these bubble shaped lighter weighted rocks somewhere between 2-6' deep.  Luckily, in this location they already had done some of the heavy digging with an excavator so the shoveling wasn't nearly as tough.

Unlike the trilobites which took several hours to find good specimen it only took about an hour to have more than our fill of geodes to take home and open.  There are many larger geodes that are already broken open for various reasons but even softball sized pristine geodes aren't too tough to find.  It is a good thing that it didn't take long because it got really hot really fast with all the dusty stone reflecting the sun.  And, as the afternoon wore on a lot more people showed up.  The area isn't that large so too many people could be a bit cumbersome.

Once home it was rather fun to take a hammer and chisel to the geodes to see the surprises inside. I'm sure if I was a little more refined I could have taken them to a rock shop to cut in half carefully and polish them but it was a lot more fun to just whack 'em!

Flashback February - Black & White

I figured for this post I would show off a few off my black and white photographs that I recently came across.  These pictures are from trips past but bring back some fun memories.  Someday I'll get ambitious and do some posts of my past trips - Germany, Austria, Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland, Botswana, etc.  For now, here's a taste - in B&W.

San Francisco, CA

Ruette, Austria

Columbine - Alpine, UT

 

Storm over Paris

Ruette, Austria

Matterhorn, Switzerland

Burr Trail, UT

 

 

 

A Bite in (or is it out of?) the Big Apple

It was a blitzkrieg of an evening but I had the chance to go to "the city" in New York.  I happened to be in Queens for some work and had one evening free to do something.  I have a motto to never miss out on an opportunity if at all possible.  I had not been to Queens and asked several people before my trip, during my flight there, and once landed about things to see in Queens.  They all said the same thing, "nothing."  I couldn't believe how unenthusiastic people were - even about their own borough.  When you research Queens interestingly most items are NOT in Queens so maybe Queeners (?) have just accepted the facts.  The two most notable items actually in Queens are Flushing Meadows (1964 World Fair and more famous is a scene from Men In Black) and the Mets stadium.   

Let me back the horse up just a bit speaking of the flight over.  I have flown a million times to Newark and JFK but I had never flown into LaGuardia.  The flight route went from Atlanta to LaGuardia and it was a beautiful sunny day.  The first excitement (after the disappointment of a delayed flight) was the fact that Woody Harrelson was on the flight.  He came in late to the plane in first class but did sign a few autographs for the smaller kids.  My question is...why do smaller kids know Woody Harrelson?  Isn't he in mostly R rated movies?  I guess Hunger Games are for a younger crowd but not this young of kids. 

The approach took us low right over the Statue of Liberty, past Manhattan, the bridges, the Mets stadium and I could have spit on the tower (just for you Dad) in Flushing Meadows.  It was great, although I now had seen everything anyone thought was of interest to Queens and I hadn't even officially arrived. 

Since everyone was ba-humbug about Queens my friend and I decided to not waste a perfectly good evening and run down to "the city" or the Big Apple.  We grabbed a metro card from the hotel (much cheaper this way) and headed out on a blitz adventure.  After taking a bus through Queens to the trains we made it downtown just at dark.

Yep, we just missed the first train into the city...but it was a pretty wait!

First stop...some tasty New York style Pizza near Times Square and the Broadway district.  The place - John's Pizza.  There was a serious wait but that's what you get when you go to a good place, right across from the plays on a Friday night at 7pm.  It was definitely worth the wait however as the pizza was very good.  I love a good pizza.  This place was large with some personality and also 4 brick ovens going at once.  Wow! It was hopping. 

Yum...look at those pizzas

Next stop, now that my tummy was full and we could think better, we walked around the Big Apple seeing all the lights.  There weren't a ton of people around and the weather was half way decent (although the next day it turned FRIGID).  You can definitely tell what movies are going to come out next because of the huge billboards.  A striking observation is that as you look at all the glitz in a truly iconic American place (it is where the ball drops after all) shown around the world and everything you see is NOT American.  Toshiba, Hankook, Xinhua (with symbols and all).  It sort of made me sad. 

It was time for more food!  We hit Ellen's Stardust Diner right off of Time Square.  This is a really family friendly fun place.  They serve real diner food (which is much more American than the signage in Times Square) and all the servers sing.  And I mean sing!  They just continue to rotate through signing Broadway hits in a fun and interactive manner.  They indicated that in just the past year 5 of the servers are now on Broadway singing.   That's cool.  It is really neat to be so close to the performers in a relaxed atmosphere.  You don't have to worry about what your kids hear here either...I think it would be a great place to introduce kids to Broadway.  We had a tasty milkshake before heading back out.

The final stop was a walk to Radio City Music Hall.  I was bummed because the Rockettes didn't start their Christmas shindig for another 3 days (just after I left from my trip).  That would have been neat to see.  But, I did get to see Radio City decked out in Christmas lights.

So, not too bad of a blitz bite in (or out of) the Big Apple. We did that all in about 6 hours!   

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Fish On! in Washington

For the past couple of years I have been fortunate enough to head up to the homeland (well, one of my homelands) and go fishing for a weekend.  This homeland happens to be Tri-Cities, Washington where the mighty Columbia , Snake and Yakima Rivers all meet.  When people drive by the Tri-Cities they quite honestly don't think much of the city.  In fact, most people really poo-poo the whole region.  It used to really bother me growing up.  I'm okay with it now because the city is growing a lot anyways and more people means congestion and this hidden gem being found.  I realize there is a lot of sagebrush, rattlesnakes, and ticks (see picture below).  But hey,...my parents complain if you have to wait for more than 2 cars at an intersection!  It's a great place with lots of water activities and fertile soil thanks to Mt. St. Helen's blowing up a few years (decades) ago.  Heck, there's even deer and some really cool big barges that go up and down the river!

 An oil barge on the Columbia River

A few deer besides ticks and rattlers!

In October the weather was mild, sunny, and beautiful.  One of the fun things I always remember about this part of the world is that in the fall cobwebs float by all the time.  As a kid I didn't care for them, especially when walking home from school! But now, I think they are fascinating as they float and shimmer in mid-air.  I have never encountered this phenomenon elsewhere.  Well, the cobwebs were floating by all weekend! 

We fished not far from where I grew up on the Columbia River.  Most people go up to what is called "the Reach" at this time of year so you can catch a really, really big king salmon.  We've done that in past years but it is a long (but beautiful) boat ride up to the free-flowing part of the river and there tends to be a gazillion people.  Really, even in the small town with no more than 2 cars at an intersection.  Instead, everyone is out in the same small area of the river.  So, we took a more laid back approach and hit McNary Dam.  The fish aren't as big but they are more plentiful.

Fishing was really good.  We caught many fish each day.  Steelhead and salmon tend to be a one or two per day sort of event so it was great to reel in a lot!  The only problem is that we had a few issues with the pole setup and had to let several go (ok, we lost them but hey you can't land everyone of these bad big boys) on the first day.   Thereafter we did much better.  The freezers are full.

Ya!  One of the many...

Fishing goes on until dark and the sunsets on McNary Dam are truly spectacular.  I've put several in the picture gallery for viewing pleasure or purchase (CLICK HERE -SCROLL to "UNITED STATES"). 

Trilobites and Topaz

TRILOBITES

There's a lot of T's in that title!  My friends and I went on a local adventure to one of the least populated places in the US and if you can believe it, it is right here in Utah!

This journey started by traveling about 3.5 hours southwest of Salt Lake City out into the sticks.  Well, I'd say sticks but there aren't even many sticks out there!  There is a great big lake - Lake Sevier with an oasis type view through the dessert.  The one cool feature along the ride is the "shoe tree."  This is a dead tree along the road that passerby's leave their shoes.  It's kind of funny and neat all at the same time.  If you take the time to look there are a ton of varieties from tennis shoes to red high heels.  It's definitely a unique feature along the rather boring drive.  As I did some quick research I found that there are actually a few of these shoe trees in Utah.

The Shoe Tree

Driving past Delta, Utah about 30 miles and then taking a well maintained but gravel road another 20 miles you end up at the U-Dig fossils.  While there are apparently a few dig sites this site seems to be the best.  The curators (if that is what you call them) are an extremely friendly husband and wife team and they provide you with buckets and hammers.  Even better is that after you collect your finds they polish and cut them for you! 

The Vista from the dig site

The U-Dig Office

When we first arrived there was a family from Switzerland.  They had skipped Zion's, came straight from Bryce and slept in their campervan just outside the gates to be the first ones in for the day!  They spent a total of four hours chipping away.  The two young girls seemed very excited about their finds.  I'll have to admit that I would not put this on my foreign trip agenda (there is just so much driving in the desert and out of the way) but we met more foreigners and apparently the site has a ton of foreigners during the week.  I would have never thought!  At the same time I guess it is pretty cool to find fossils ~500 million years old - that's old!

Anyway, my friends and I scaled back to a two hour session which we deemed plenty long.  The site takes a back hoe and digs out of the side of a shale rock area which has a ton of trilobites in it.  You simply go up and start hammering away at rock.  You can get out some good aggression this way!  Maybe it was my too strong of hammering but I seemed to only find half of fossils or no fossils at all.  My friend, on the other hand, seemed to crack a rock and find several trilobites each time.  I found that walking along the dig area and turning over rocks was more productive for me. This may not be as exciting as Indiana Jones archeology but it's fun to play an archeologist for a morning! 

Indiana Jones' for the day!

Way nice curator measuring my find

So here is the funny part...novice TrekkingTrego, I, found two different very large trilobites.  I thought they were cool because they were big but apparently they were some of the biggest found this summer.  The name of this fine fossil is Asaphiscus and it measures 2.5" long!  Typically they are only 1.875" long so mine is huge!  Apparently they are worth up to 150$US.  I'm not sure where the market is for these types of items so I'm not sure how to realize that amount other than to brag to people about it when I show it to them. 

The big trilobite!

All in all we had a good time.  The curators are just so friendly and amazingly helpful.  Its easy enough for any age child to do it so if your child is interested you should go for it - just know that it is a seriously long and boring drive.

TOPAZ

To round out the day and since we were already out in the sticks, I mean near Delta, we drove over to Topaz.  Topaz is one of the ten interment camps for the Japanese during WWII.  Online there is indications of a museum and that parts have been renovated or rebuilt.  I'm here to tell you that it hasn't happened yet.  I was so glad this wasn't the only reason we drove out here or we would not have been happy campers.  After driving through the weed field (literally) for the Topaz site we found on the far corner a nice monument with a little information. 

The monument

The historical site, or lack thereof...

It was a stark reminder that we take for granted many freedoms and beliefs now days.  I hope that someday this site is restored to a more historic area where we can all be reminded of our past and how we can learn from it.