I've been busy since I got back. In addition to RV and car repairs, there have
been movie nights, bingo nights, and even a night being entertained by a truly
excellent Elvis impersonator. Lynda and
I tried our hand at geocaching which, in Yuma, can be a tad tricky. There are snake holes everywhere! And not nice snakes either! They are supposed to be hibernating but I don't
think they would take kindly to being poked with a walking stick. I'll just bet they wake up grumpy.
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| Dumortierite rock |
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| Polished Dumortierite |
The latest quest was for a stone called dumortierite which,
according to the book, is a bright vibrant blue. Maybe that's true after you've polished it
for several weeks but, in the wild, dumortierite looks exactly like every other
rock on the desert floor: grey,
featureless, kinda lumpy. It is slightly
heavier than the other grey, featureless, lumpy rocks but the only way to
figure that out is to pick up 2 identical rocks and compare them. There were lots of green rocks but Syd just
wanted blue ones. He and Lynda had no
trouble spotting them, but the only way I would have found one was if someone
had chucked it at my head. After a
couple of hours though, I started spotting them and even (accidentally) picked
up a reasonably nice specimen.
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| Kyanite - easy to spot |
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| Kyanite polished |
I also found some kyanite which is a gorgeous light blue
and at least it's easy to spot - especially the one I saw, which was the size
of a football.
Then we went to a small mining museum where they had huge
BOULDERS of these dumortierite rocks just laying around all over the place. I mentioned that we should have just driven
up and taken one of them but, apparently, that would not be what a true rock
hound would do. Who makes up these
rules?!
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