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Post by Condor on Apr 9, 2006 13:45:30 GMT -5
What kinds of adventures have you had while out rockhounding? A few years ago I had been hounding in the Woodward Ranch with a friend of mine and his son. This is known as Big Bend country. We were in the van I had at the time and had spent a couple of nights camping out. On our way back towards Alpine, a border patrol car is coming the opposite way. He then makes a U-turn and proceeds to follow us. After about five miles he turns on his lights and pulls us over. We were quite grungy looking as we hadn't bathed or shaved in a couple of days. He comes to my side and asks us our nationality and how many of us there are in the van. We reply "American" "and three of us." He asked where we were coming from and I told him from the ranch after collecting rocks. He didn't believe us. He asked why would anyone collect rocks. I showed him what we'd collected and even wetted them so he could see them. He still didn't believe us, so he goes to the back of the van and begins knocking all around it. During this time, his partner is standing at an angle with her hand on top of her gun. He finally makes his way around the van and just stares at me. By now I'm aggravated and ask him "find what you were looking for?" He tells me to get down, and walks me to the back of the van. He doesn't say anything, so I tell him "Sir, as you can see by those stickers on the window, I'm a former Army Airborne Ranger officer. I'm not a bad guy." He responds, "your military service means nothing to me." Oh boy, that ticked me off! I tell him "obviously not, since you look like the type who would quit on the first day." His partner stepped in, and I proceeded to answer her questions as to why we were out there all over again. They finally let us go. They must have thought we were drug runners. What's you rockhounding story?
Condor
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jerryb
spending too much on rocks
Member since January 2006
Posts: 408
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Post by jerryb on Apr 9, 2006 15:50:29 GMT -5
LMAO!!
i am imagining Condor with a van full of rocks and a big 'ole pair of ranger stones......
cheers jerry
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Post by stoner on Apr 9, 2006 16:09:30 GMT -5
Kinda the same thing happened to me in Maryland a few years back. I was by a lake in a park collecting rocks and a ranger truck pulls up. The two rangers get out and approach me, one with her hand on top of her gun and ask me what I'm doing. So I tell them I'm from Calif and just picking up a few rocks to bring back home. And he asks me, "haven't you got rocks in Calif?" So I told him I did but there were some cool looking rocks here that we don't have in Calif. The they tell me there's a lot of limestone around too and I made the mistake of saying I had no use for limestone. I proceeded to get a lecture on how all the great monuments and buildings in DC were built of limestone blah blah blah....Then they finally left looking at me like I was some kinda weirdo from Calif. Ha, little did they know, I am a weirdo from Calif!
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Post by krazydiamond on Apr 9, 2006 16:23:06 GMT -5
the only rockhounding stories i got are from the postal/UPS people that are so incredulous that i mail and receive rocks...... i'm like, "yo, who'dya think those flat rates boxes are FOR, dip stick?"
no, i'm kidding, i'm always polite to the mail peeps. i think sometimes they get back at me by cramming my mailbox so full i have to unload it like a chinese puzzle.....but, other than that.
as a sidebar, i finally got a chance to give the lady who gave me that whole box of rocks from North Carolina some of the polished rocks and jewelry i got out of the batch. she and her husband almost couldn't believe it..that they were the same old ugly rocks i'd got a few months back....needless to say, they were very happy and will be eyes to the ground the next time they go on vacation!
HA! hooked another one!
KD
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,472
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Post by Sabre52 on Apr 9, 2006 21:13:49 GMT -5
*LOL* Condor, that must be a Texas thing. My wife and I got stopped by the Border Patrol just north of Big bend Park when we were heading for the Woodward Ranch. Truck was loaded so heavy with rocks they thought we were smuggling Illegals *L*. Two other short favorite stories of mine:
We were hunting Plume Agate on the Bishop Ranch south of Marfa, Texas, when my wife came running up to me saying she thought she had been bitten by a rattler while squatting to relieve herself. The suspect wound was, as you might expect in an interesting place which I happily volunteered to examine. Sure enough, there were two bleeding punctures on her cute posterior but they looked rather large and dirty for fang marks. I had her take me to where she was bitten and found a Spanish Bayonet Yucca with two bloody spines. A rather painful lesson about watching what's buried in the wildflowers when you squat but at least not a snakebite.
Second fav story has a moral too. We were hunting rainbow pet wood near Woodruff, Arizona and were having so much fun it got dark on us before we made our tent camp. Well, we drove awhile in the pitch black looking for a flat non rocky spot for the tent and finally came upon a nice flat cleared spot on a cactus covered slope. Looked like it might rain so we set up the tent, dug a ditch around it etc and settled in for the night. Well, we woke up early the next morning and I crawled out to relieve myself against a cactus and looking around noticed to my chagrin, we had set up camp in somebodies front yard cactus garden! Needless to say we broke camp and blew the scene real fast! Moral is: Find your camp when it's still light stupid!...mel
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Post by Toad on Apr 9, 2006 21:42:56 GMT -5
No rockhounding yet. But my wife is the one at home to receive the boxes of rocks. One day the mail carrier asked her if we were getting car parts delivered. When Jan told her that it was just rocks, the lady just shook her head and walked away.
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stefan
Cave Dweller
Member since January 2005
Posts: 14,095
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Post by stefan on Apr 10, 2006 13:53:18 GMT -5
Sorry nothing too exciting- Just fun times at Herkimer Diamond mines- well there was the time I was digging along the mine wall- tlking to a nice feller from conneticut- we gabbed and gabbed all the time he was teetering back and forth on some rock- he finially kicked (well actually shoved) the offending rock into my work area (no biggie as I was pretty busy working a crevise I had found) he goes on about how he was standing on that dang rock for a couple of hours- Well I went to move it but flipped it over first- there were 3 Wonderful Herkimers- in a sweet little pocket- just waiting to go home with me- when I showed the guy what he missed- he just got real pissy- grabbed his laughing wife- and left in a huff (jeeze- I was even gonna offer them to him)
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MalStone
starting to spend too much on rocks
Underwater Rock Hound
Member since January 2006
Posts: 221
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Post by MalStone on Apr 10, 2006 15:17:03 GMT -5
LOL! Great tales everyone! I've nothing really to add - just that there have been folks REAL interested in what I'm picking up at times (they probably think I'm getting artifacts and that isn't legal!) but when they learn I'm picking up ROCKS they walk off with that certain look that I know we've all seen - ("Who let that person out of the loony bin?") Around here, one MUST be REAL careful about fire ants - they are out and active now and they are anything but friendly when you accidentally flip over a rock that WAS the roof to their entire ant nest! Ah yes, the tiny but mighty fire ants!
Deb
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Duckbean
fully equipped rock polisher
Looking for rocks in all the wrong places
Member since February 2005
Posts: 1,072
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Post by Duckbean on Apr 10, 2006 19:58:32 GMT -5
Since I do all my rock hounding on the internet, You might guess that my most exciting adventure was on Ebay! Yaa I know sad but what can I say. It was like the six or seventh time I had bid on Ebay and forgot to get rid of the other numbers and just hit enter. I almost had a heart attack when I saw what I had done. Instead of $19.99 I had put $19999.59 Thank God it only went to $28.00 Needless to say I'm a lot more careful about checking before I hit enter now. Condor what airborn division were you in ?
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inflight22
has rocks in the head
Member since January 2006
Posts: 710
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Post by inflight22 on Apr 10, 2006 20:22:30 GMT -5
I haven't done a lot of rockhounding, but I've already noticed that if a group of people stands around peering at the ground or in the water, the authorities get curious. When I went on a field trip with Greenmann, Hawke, Conib and Xena, I got interested in looking at some rocks, and found myself about 100 feet behind them. That's when I guess it was a park ranger or cop or something came along and asked me what we were all doing. He seemed satisfied enough with my answer, and I don't think any of the others noticed this going on.
jj
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Post by Condor on Apr 10, 2006 21:17:58 GMT -5
Duckbean, I went through Infantry, Airborne, and Ranger Schools at Benning in '84. From there I went to Ft. Sill and was a Recon Platoon Leader. Didn't serve in an Airborne unit. Did you?
Condor
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Duckbean
fully equipped rock polisher
Looking for rocks in all the wrong places
Member since February 2005
Posts: 1,072
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Post by Duckbean on Apr 11, 2006 11:38:38 GMT -5
Not me! I'm not jumping out of any plane unless it's going down. My little brother that just passed away did, He was in the 82nd airborne and got to be part of the team that helped to developed the delta force training program back in the 70 s. You just sound like him when talking to the border guard.
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MalStone
starting to spend too much on rocks
Underwater Rock Hound
Member since January 2006
Posts: 221
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Post by MalStone on Apr 11, 2006 15:08:16 GMT -5
I'm with you, Duckbean. No jumping out of airplanes here! If a plane is about to crash and a person were to jump up in the air a split second before it hit, would you land safely? I mean, if you are suspended in air when the plane crashes . . . . .
Deb
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Post by deb193 on Apr 11, 2006 15:43:34 GMT -5
I'm with you, Duckbean. No jumping out of airplanes here! If a plane is about to crash and a person were to jump up in the air a split second before it hit, would you land safely? I mean, if you are suspended in air when the plane crashes . . . . . Deb Good one deb. Unfortunatley you are not suspended, but only falling slightly more slowly than the plane. Shortly after the plane hits ground at 300 mph, your slower-fallling 295mph body will catch up with a big smack. Funny though. IAt 10 I used to be afread of elevators falling and used to wonder if it would help to jump up right before it hit.
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Post by Cher on Apr 11, 2006 16:56:28 GMT -5
My daughter and I (and grands) were rockhounding out in the boonies in an old gravel pic pit when we found some bones. You could tell they were skull bones and they had the lines (suture lines I think they are called) in them. Then my granddaughter found this bone that looked like a finger bone, which made us really flip out. We took a few pieces to a neighbor of hers who is a state trouper but he didn't know for sure so he called the sheriff. We had to wait for them and go back out there to show them where it was. Turned out to be deer bones but they were really happy that we took the effort as there were 7 missing people from our area at that time.
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Post by xenaswolf on Apr 12, 2006 7:47:00 GMT -5
I haven't done a lot of rockhounding, but I've already noticed that if a group of people stands around peering at the ground or in the water, the authorities get curious. When I went on a field trip with Greenmann, Hawke, Conib and Xena, I got interested in looking at some rocks, and found myself about 100 feet behind them. That's when I guess it was a park ranger or cop or something came along and asked me what we were all doing. He seemed satisfied enough with my answer, and I don't think any of the others noticed this going on. jj Doh you didn't say anything! Was this BEFORE or AFTER my attempt at making a campfire???
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