Labor Day

Ah, so we approach the Labor Day Holiday! I had originally planned on going out backpacking near Yellowstone, but since there were multiple things going on during the weekend, I will save that for later. I got out of school pretty late due to a number of assignments that had to be turned in by 5pm. I got home sweaty, and tired. Nonetheless I had to pack my things, take a shower, and go pick up some firewood for our campout. Since the next morning hosted the Aurigid Meteor Shower around 4-6am, Dave and his kids, Bryan, Trevor & Brandy, along with others all were planning on going out into the desert out by Dougway to watch the skies. After transporting a healthy load of firewood to Dave's car, we piled in and blasted out west. We met up at Simpson Springs campsite which was a gamble in getting a campsite on the Labor Day weekend…. (ha! We were the only ones there!) Shortly after arriving, I got a blazing fire going and we walked around sightseeing in the night illuminated by starlight. There were many interesting ruins of the old station along the Pony Express trail, and it was fun goofing off in the perfect temperature of a summer night. Soon Trevor and Brandy showed up, and we all gathered together and roasted food over the fire, and muched & belched to our hearts content. In a few hours, the moon rose above the distant ridge, spilling light over the entire desert valley. It was like daylight, so I couldn't help myself in going out exploring in the big playground. I ended up finding someone's gloves about a half mile from our campsite too! :D



When people started to settle down some, we rolled out our sleeping stuff and gazed up at the sky. The moon had polluted most of our prime viewing, but there was a fair amount of meteors that streaked across the sky. The clouds began to move in, and we didn't think we'd see much more. Instead, we found interesting and bizarre figures in the clouds and harassed each other of their imagination. I set my alarm for about 4:45am, and I got a little less than an hour of restless sleep. As soon as I awoke, I saw several meteors, and stirred the rest of the snoozing bunch with my shouts of enthusiasm. Thereafter, the sun came up, and everyone but me, Dave, and his kids remained. Everyone else departed to go to their various obligations. After breaking camp, we headed out towards the Dougway Geode Beds. The labyrinth of sketchy roads in a low clearance vehicle only got us so close to the beds, but I bailed out of the car, and ran up and over the ridge to the GPS location to find a better route. After scaring a heard of antelope, I was able to find an alternate route. There at the beds, we dug for about a half an hour, and retrieved several large rocks resembling uncut geodes.



On the way back, we were rather low on gas, and this unsettled Dave fearful of getting stranded out in the middle of nowhere w/ his kids in the car. We stopped by some ATV'ers and offered to purchase a few gallons of spare gas. This old guy Dennis generously gave us about 5 gallons, and refused our money. Even more strange is that after Dave had talked to him and we were departing, this guy called me by name, and said to have a nice day. It took me a few minutes to play back the entire encounter and conversation… but I am sure that nowhere was my name ever mentioned. How he knew my name… I have no idea, and it was slightly disturbing. Strange indeed. During the weekend, I scrubbed off a few of the recovered geodes, and found several already broken, but caked with a thick clay and sandy substance. There are a few that are going to be rather interesting to cut into.
******************UPDATE********************

I got some of them cut Tuesday on campus. Apparently they will cut them for free, with the understanding that "IF" they find something "interesting" they have dibs on one half of the Geode. Mine were all uninteresting, so I got to keep all that were cut. (some that I brought in weren't worth cutting into apparently)

These pictures are of the ones that are worth looking at. I have a few more, but they are.... meh. so-so quality. They look better when wet, or polished.

I also got a chance to see these ones under a blacklight. Under UV rays, these crystals will emit an eerie green glow from the scarce Uranium content in the crystals/rock. (red one below is using a laser pen just for kicks)