We have had so many field trips this Fall! We've found so many rocks. More rocks than any one family could ever need…and yet are we satisfied? We are not. We never are. I heard about a cool rockhounding spot near Fallon, Nevada, and I started thinking about ways we could manage to get there. There's a nice area for finding agates that I've been wanting to visit near Wendover, so we could go there on the way. If Daisy skipped her Friday class…and we found a cheap motel to stay overnight…and we found a weekend Sam didn't have too much work…
The thing that finally decided it for me was when I remembered that my friend Montserrat lives way out on a ranch somewhere there near Winnemucca. I emailed her to ask if we could possibly meet up, and she said we could! With such a fun thing to look forward to, the 7-hour drive (one way!) suddenly felt worth it.
The first place we stopped was on the other side of the Salt Flats, the Silver Island Mountains. It was so stark and barren out there! We drove up a very sketchy dirt road (I would never have attempted it without Sam there) and just let the kids loose! They loved clambering around on the rocks, running through the sagebrush, and climbing up huge cliffs. They're an adventurous lot!
Spot Goldie and Daisy!
Spot Teddy (in the crack of the rock)
Spot Junie and Clementine! (Junie later told me she slipped and thought she was going to die as she climbed down from this perch, so…let's all be glad that didn't happen.)
Sam and Teddy found a HUGE red agate and they loved it so much. They wanted it for our yard, but it was far too big to carry back to the car…or was it? No. For Teddy and Sam, it was not. They lugged it all the way across the wilderness like the ark of the covenant. The girls ended up helping with it at the end too. It probably weighed 120+ pounds. But they got it in the car at last!
We also saw a tarantula—good news for some and bad news for others! Junie didn't want to get anywhere near it, but Daisy and the little boys were delighted. Then Goldie saw a desert horned toad, so that was pretty cool too!
After finding lots of beautiful agate, we got back on the road. We got out at the new Elko Nevada Temple to stretch our legs for a minute.
I'm so sad we didn't get a single picture, but we were having such a good time we didn't even think about it! We were planning to meet Montserrat and her family at a park, but since it was dusty and windy and they had a key to the stake center, we met there instead. We set up our picnic dinner in the gym, and her kids brought their unicycle and skateboards, and everyone played while Montserrat and Joseph and Sam and I talked. We had the best time! We hadn't met in person before and it was so so good. I'm always so happy when I get to spend time with friends and kindred spirits. I wish we could have driven all the way out to see their ranch! She showed me pictures and I was marveling at it. Her everyday life is so different from mine, and yet in so many ways it's also the same.
We were sad to have to leave, but we had to push on a couple more hours to Fallon before dark. There was a beautiful sunset as we drove across that last salty stretch of desert!
We haven't stayed in a motel for a LONG time. Some of these kids never have. Luckily we found one with a big room so we only had to get two rooms for us all! The kids were packed in as snug as can be.
In the morning we set off for Wonderstone Mountain. There's always a little excitement over whether we will be able to find the places we're looking for at all. People's directions always seem to leave things out. But after traversing dirt roads for a while we found this beautiful big hill, semi-correctly called "yellow mountain," which was right next to the Wonderstone spot. Of course the kids immediately set off to climb it.
To our delight, there was wonderstone EVERYWHERE! It was not every single rock. There was still a satisfying feeling of accomplishment when you found it. But there was so much of it that you could go almost anywhere and find the most beautiful pieces. Everyone was so anxious to show me what they'd found, I could barely take a step to find any myself! I didn't mind. I love seeing everyone's finds.
Alert readers may recall that we have found wonderstone before. It's welded tuff really, made from volcanic ash which later had minerals seep into it and leave beautiful bands of color. In fact, our other wonderstone spot is a lot closer to home, only a couple hours away in Vernon Utah. So why go to Fallon? Interestingly, the wonderstone near Fallon is a lot harder. It's more rhyolitic and sounds almost like ceramic when pieces of it clank against each other. Our Utah wonderstone was so sandy and porous, it wouldn't polish in our tumbler. Still very beautiful of course! But we were excited about the idea of getting some harder material that we could actually tumble and polish!
Junie found some cool crystals too. We aren't sure what they are. Gypsum, maybe? Selenite?
Every piece of wonderstone is so different. So many colors. So many patterns. How does one ever bear to stop collecting it? It's like in Millions of Cats where the old man tries to choose the prettiest cat and before he knows it, he has chosen them all!
Sometimes you'd find a rock that didn't seem as colorful on the outside. But that didn't mean it wasn't pretty. Look at this one above after someone (was it me? I can't remember) split it. The arrow is pointing to the line it cracked along.
Green-hand Goldie (wearing her rock hunting gloves)
Because of its greater hardness, this wonderstone also seemed to have more vibrant colors than the other. Some of the rocks we found in the washes had been smoothed so much by water, they were practically polished already! Like these! Junie and I both a took a liking to the lower one ("Stripey") and have been trying to take it from each other ever since.
These huge boulders of wonderstone were so cool!
Sam wearing the appropriate shirt
You can see all the intricate swirls and patterns in the places where the rock has broken or chipped off
It was very hard to decide when we'd found enough beautiful rocks and we should leave. We kept finding just one more…but we had a seven hour drive home so we finally tore ourselves away. (Not without Sam leaving a rock hammer behind, alas!) I wonder if we will ever make it back to this interesting and unique spot?
We had a quick brunch in Fallon, luckily having the restaurant to ourselves
Gus looking adoringly at Junie
Junie and her twin Aztec Mask
Yum yum
Driving across Nevada and Utah's west desert is not exactly like driving through Oregon. But…
…it has its own beauty.
And we reached the other side of our own Oquirrh Mountains just at the prettiest time of evening.
And the full moon was waiting for us when we got home at last!
What else was waiting for us? THIS sinister scene! Makes the blood run cold! Abe had stopped by the house to pick something up while we were gone, and though he denies all knowledge of this meeting I can't help but be suspicious of the timing. What on earth is Thunk drawing on the clipboard over there? And you know Bendigo can't be rallying all the bally animals to any good cause…
Favorite wonderstone pieces. We have already started lots of these in our rock tumbler!
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