Rock Hound Adventure Club
 

So, maybe it's not swanky, but I'm into the whole idea of treasure hunting. At this point, not for profit, and I certainly have a LOT to learn about it, but I'm definitely in the mode for it.

Here are some pics from our latest adventures in opal mining. We intended to take more pics, but goddamn it, we were just so into doing it that we kind of forgot to take a lot of pictures, and our video camera went unused.

The view we arrived to. Quite splendid. Though I admit we actually took this picture well after our arrival, during another 'event'.


Here's a picture of J inspecting some of the tailings from what we'd picked off the side of the mountain. There were a couple of other pics, but none nearly so good...


Our campground. Can't see it here, but there's another pond back there, and the toads, crickets, and birds sang us a soothing tune as we sought sleep after a hard day's mining.


A blow'd out tire we got on the way out of the Sheldon Natural Wildlife Reserve. Fun? Not so much.



Luckily, we make such a great team!


So, there's our trip.

I have a feeling that turquoise in Utah may be in our somewhat near future, as well as other trips in California, Oregon, and Arizona.

Very cool! We love to go on adventures like that.

But, did you find any gems?

Am I the only one seeing completely empty spoiler boxes (except for the last one which has text but no picture)?

The second picture is of me hoping to find some of my pride, which was getting lost in the rocks as eight year old boys and girls were shouting, "Look dad! Black Opal!" over and over again. While in the meantime I was finding dirt in my eyes and rocks in my knee pads.

All in all though, adventurous and fun. I'd do it again.

I see wonderful pictures.

I watch some show on the Travel Chanel about finding treasure.

On the coast, there is a place called 'Jade Cove' and you can actually climb down the cliffs to a beach where you can find jade. It doesn't look like an easy climb nor can you take more than you can carry but it does look interesting.....

http://www.hikinginbigsur.com/hikes_jadecove.html

http://www.campone.com/

It seems the first link gives guidelines about what you can and can't take and.....we missed the turn off last time we were on the coast but we do intend to go someday....

Hrmm... I am seeing all of them on a different computer. If anyone else is having this problem, I can give some linkages. They were posted on photobucket first....

Yes. We'll be cleaning some of it up this weekend.

As it turns out, it takes a bit of doing it before you get the hang of it. As of the time I took that pic of J looking at a specimen, we still really weren't sure what we were doing. In fact, it was only at the end that we had a full grasp of it, but by then we were exhausted.

A few hours into it, I realized I was tossing items that were actually a kind of opal that's brownish. I didn't realize that to get some of the fire out, you need to soak it a bit... yikes! I did, oddly enough, find a pretty good sized milky rose-colored stone in some old tailings from who knows when that had been pushed off to the side. I can't wait to get some shine on it, to see what I really have with some of the stones. I got mostly pinks, taupes, a little white, and I think a green specimen (which I'll determine whether or not it's opal after we clean it up).

We'll definitely be going again.

I think we're talking about the same show... Cash and Treasures. We found out about the opals on that show and have been jonesing to go for the past year and a half because of it. Hopefully we'll get to do some of the others. Maybe we'll even have to hook up with our Aussies and do some hunting down undah!

Totally cool! Please do post pics of your cleaned up finds. Opal is my birthstone and I love em!

Count me amongst the group wanting to do this. I also saw the same show on the Travel channel (tourmaline mines near San Diego) and I was itching to get some knee pads on and start digging.

excellent. yeah, Im hoping to do this at some point. where or looking for what Im not sure, but yeah...I think I gotta do this.

thanks for the pics