We have discovered Nevada, and WOW.  LOVE IT.  It is the most unusual place I have been, perhaps ever.  I had always thought it was all about gambling…. and YES we did stop in Reno, but I am not going to talk about that.  Carson city, on the other hand was a very cool place. We learned LOTS about trains at the train museum.

AND…………

AND then we did the BLUE line walking tour past all the historic buildings, somehow THIS ONE, was most memorable

Which was Orion Clemens home…. and we all know who Orion Clemens was….

Ken and I are officially rockhounds now. We have the pick axes…… and well Ken even has a pick axe holder.  Of course we have the protective eyewear. We have maps and charts, and GPS. AND we are in Nevada.  Nevada is a state that is bursting with cool treasures, and also is mostly BLM land.  (bureau of land management), which means that it is public land. You can camp free on BLM, which we have been doing. You get the very best views and VERY private spots. Unfortunately ONLY KEN has a pick ax…. I lost mine yesterday, I thought I had found some GOLD, and just set down my pick ax and walked away. We spent a few hours looking for it… but….

We are not really sure of what all we have found,

but we have spent every day out hiking across the desert, looking for cool rocks. We have even found a teensy bit of turquoise.

We have found Obsidian, quartz crystals, agates, jasper,  at least we think. The place we have found the most stuff was just north of Beatty NV.

We were hiking for miles around, thinking we WERE In the middle of nowhere, and were wondering what was with all those large black helicopters, and then when we looked at a map, we were right next to  Nellis air force range, which is just next to Nevada test site.

Now if you want to do something interesting, go to google earth and look up Hawthorne NV.  I was trying to figure out where the campground was and looked at a satellite view.

Hard to know what all of those extremely symmetrical lumps that seem to go for miles….. could be. Turns out Hawthorne is the worlds largest munitions dump.  Very interesting and a little bit eery. Apparently private companies manage the dumps.

 

One of these rocks I found by the ocean and the rest the high desert of Nevada….can you tell which is which?

So while Ken and I try to figure out the best landscapes to find certain stones, Tucker is studying which types of plants do the Jackrabbits live under.  

But the Jackrabbits are MUCH faster than he is.