They call it "ROCKHOUNDING" (lol) Part 1 part 2 et

WHAT! :nono:

"WE'RE HERE!"
We had made good time! Mostly because we hooked into a group that felt 85-95mph was the correct cruising speed between "Agua Caliente" casino and Blythe. I was seriously happy that our relentless CHP had other things to do than break up a speeding convoy!

Bro-in-law: "Whats THAT?"
I made the right turn on Wiley Well road.
Sis: "THAT is a prison!"
B.I.L.: "Oh."
Me: "On the left will be the prison FARM!"
Wife: "And don't pick up hitch-hikers"

After the stop the dirt road begins. KiNdA bumpy. Bumpy enough though, and right on cue both the girls had to pee. (sigh) Well the energy drinks I had been swilling had conspired within, and I too heard nature's siren. Funny, it was really wailing now!
A trip to the biffy, usual warnings about snakes and thorns, a good stretch and... and,

Me: "ARE YOU GIRLS LOOKING FOR ROCKS?"
Girls: (giggling) "Uh...NOOOO...
Me: "For CRYIN' OUT LOUD"
BIL: "I think he's waiting for you two"
Wife: "OOOH! look at THAT one"
Me: "I HEAR you...!"

And as I light a cigarette, the girls appear, BIL in tow, and they are OBVIOUSLY trying to hide a small fortune in hastily grabbed rocks.

Me: "Seriously? some of the most valuable Fire Agate a little drive away, and you gotta have rocks you grab without even LOOKING?"
Wife: "I saw them when I was peeing! Thats why I grabbed them!"
Me: "Get...in...the CAR PLEASE?

The girls actually look for rocks at rest stops, the T.A. parking lot, and down EVERY dirt road. The clucking, "oohing" and "AHHing" along with "OMG LOOK AT THAT ONE...CAN WE STOP?" You would think they were spotting fist size nuggets of GOLD! Back when I was gullible, I would drive 50 feet stop. Drive 50 feet stop. Drive 50 feet and STOP! More often than NOT, the girls were unhappy with what they actually found, but they would also begin to WANDER in search of that elusive magic rock! NOW, I am the ogre, the grinch, and "NO FUN AT ALL" but we manage to GET to our destination while it is still LIGHT!

Back in the car, we blaze towards Fire Agate Heaven. The group has a good laugh as I seemingly attempt to get the car airborn at the "HUMPS". I am not going that fast, just fast enough to get me and the BIL grinning, and shreiks from the two in back who can't decide if they like the humps today.

BIL: "Is there a...campground? I see R.V.s over there.
Me: "Coon Hollow. Nomadic old-timers and retired people spend cooler months here and head north when the hot comes back.


Then with all the authority of a grizzled veteran rockhound, I decide to fill the BIL in on the geography beyond the car.

Me: "Thats the turn-off to the geode beds"
BIL: "Oh."

After that informative and enlightening oratory, I crack another AMP, take a drink to slake my thirst, and start looking for my left turn. A left turn I passed about a mile and a half back. A left turn I was NOT going to find any time soon, and if I DID find a left turn, it CERTAINLY would not be taking me to a guaranteed source of fire agate.

Me: "Keep the eyes peeled for a left."
Wife: " Where are the co-ordinates?"
Me: "In the book."
Wife: "I'll program them in."

I was now busy with a road that deteriorated at a moments notice, and I managed to get caught by one rut that gave the car that "BAM!!!" sound. You know, it's that BAM that causes everyone to suddenly look at each other nervously, and it somehow causes one or two or everyone to SWEAR, CUSS, or CURSE. Yeah, THAT kinda BAM. I break the tension by shrugging and saying "Hey! It's a rental." A female voice muttered "Glad we got the LDW"
The steering was straight, the tires were holding, and I was becoming quite concerned with all the snakelike turns this road was providing. It was a sinuous twisty kinda road I did NOT recall seeing on the sat. map the night before.

Wife: "GOT IT!"
Me: "Yeah? I told that joke back at the wind farm..."
Wife: "We still have a ways to go."
Me: "To the TURN? Opal Hill Mine?"
Wife: "Yep! I put those coordinates in, and we have to keep going south. This is Wiley Well Road right?"
Me: "Wait. We should have turned left aways back. We passed it"
Wife: "Not according to this. I put the coordinates in and it is telling us..."
Me: "Coordinates for Opal Hill Mine?!?!?"
Wife: "YES! OPAL HILL MINE! IF WE ARE ON WILEY WELL ROAD WE HAVE TO KEEP GOING SOUTH!"
Me: "ALLRIGHT!!! But I DON'T think that is right!"

As a matter of fact, I KNEW it wasn't right. BUT I was in a vehicle with three people who had no reason to doubt the best technology in GPS. I suddenly learned that the car actually had SEVERAL GPS sources in it, and sister too started punching coordinates in. My authority had suddenly evaporated like a tinkle sprinkle on hot sand. I was now a driver, and under direction from not one but TWO women clutching GPS units. I could be tactful, and I'll proove it!
I did NOT tell the story about how we used GPS to direct us to San Manuel Indian Casino one evening when (apparently) we had GAMBLIN' MONEY! I did NOT start harping about how the GPS took us off the freeway 2 exits early, or how THAT set of directions was pushing us south when, due to a moment where I had glanced at the map online while getting the address, I KNEW THE CASINO WAS NORTH!
Finally I did not FINISH the story where GPS took us to an industrial park 5 miles from the freeway and in a VERY suspicious (DANGEROUS) looking neighborhood. Deep within the industrial park where folks with bandannas walked casually about the obviously CLOSED businesses, GPS BURPED "You have reached your destination." Like it had done what no mere human could. As my wife tried to figure what the heck happened, I casually, albiet QUICKLY, drove us back the way we came.
See? Tactful.

Sis: "Are you seeing these ROCKS? OMG! Can we STOP? Ten minuets. I'll set my alarm!"

Like we have EVER kept to a timer where no threat to life and limb was a ringin'.

Me: "I GUESS so..."

I wasn't happy. I knew we were getting bad directions. Ah well, we would drive the GPS way. Then after a couple miles and obvious incorrect location realization, I would grumble quietly and sternly "I told you." Then YANK back the authority and put our traveling band of "clowns on a rockhunt" on track to our destination. Jeeze' it was almost 10:30 am!

Sis: "O.K. ALARM! TIME TO GO!"

Wife: (barely audible due to considerable distance from the group. Her CLASSIC M.O.) "o.k."

We amble back to the car, everyone has found some pretty decent stuff. I had a HUGE chunk of lacey agate. Sis and her man have a nice pile, and the wife... well where the heck...?

Wife: "Help!"

No, she hadn't fallen. She wasn't bleeding out, or dragging a coon rattler by the fangs with her butt. No heart attack or medical emergency. Never-the-less, sis ran like a superhero to the rescue! And rescue WAS needed. True to form, the wife had somehow managed to build a rock cairn across her upper body with about 40 lbs of rock, and was struggling the last 30 yards to the road. She can't help it, and I clue the BIL in to what is not apparent to his untrained eyes.

Me: "She's also toting another 15 pounds in her pockets."
BIL: "How can you tell?"
Me: "Wait for it..."

I hold my hand in the air. Pointing at the sky.

Wife: (explaining through hard fought gulps of air) ...so many! and I would pick THAT one up. Then ANOTHER one...
Sis: " OMG! You should see these rocks she found!"
Wife: "...and they kept getting bigger, but I didn't have a bucket, and my pockets were already full!"
Sis: "I KNEW you had SOMETHING good, thats why I ran, I could see you smiling even though you were struggling!"
Me: "Pockets not big enough?"
Wife: "They were packed! Not like Lavic but..." My hand came down. I looked at the BIL and said "You'll learn."

Women look for rocks differently. They just do. Not a darn thing agin' it, the girls have pretty impressive finds, and when big game rock is spotted, they'll come close to "DESERT INFARCTION" dragging thier kill back to the vehicle! Today would be no different. The girls had TASTED mineral, and there would be NO sanctuary for ANY rock they might fancy!

Back in the car and rolling south, I was irate, but holding. GPS was directing us further away. I could hear them saying stuff like "...circle around, cos' sometimes it takes you out-of-the-way getting you there" I just lit a cigarette and took advantage of a quite sandy little road GPS had realized we needed to turn onto...

I KNOW I am gabbing you folks to tears, but the GOOD stuff is coming. the story so far is pretty standard stuff for our "rockhounding" trio. The BIL has dove in headlong and with gusto, and soon the four of us... Well Part three will explain THAT whatever it is...lol

;D Part 3 already? As it stands, it is as though I have just returned from this trip. There was a lot of "as usual" but like those voices warned... Voices in the head are a double edged sword. Too late to listen, and I was in it up to my belly button by now... Lets see... AHH yes. Driving down a sandy road...

The sandy road was angled more or less east/west. If you are familiar with the Hauser location, there is a ridge of tiny mountains that more or less run east to west, and primarily to the south of the road to the Hauser beds. My dead reckoning told me we were to the south of that ridge. That ridge, if you follow it hooks south, that range ends, and further west, another begins.
Wiley Well road becomes Milipitas right after the Hauser bed turn-off. Milipitas cuts through the mountains to a sandy flat, and if you check a Sat. map, Milipitas continues to somewhere in Columbia or Brazil.
Looking at the map, WE took that first right. THAT is the long sandy road I was daring to try and sink us.

IF you take a family sedan and manage to get this far back into the desert, note the homesteading that has taken place! With a family sedan, there is a chance you will join those who call this wonderful yet God forsaken area home. The subaru would be the least "sedan" for the area. But it was doing a pretty darn good job, and the the average speed was really putting some distance to the odometer.
The long straight gets to a point where it tacks W by NW and angles right, right back into the mountains. I had said something about the mine being in a crotch well within some hills/mountains, so the gang was getting excited, as the GPS units were indicating the mine was just a little bit further, SOMEWHERE in the mountains ahead. I had already resigned myself that I wasn't going to be rolling in buckets of Fire Agate ripped from the rock with tools and teeth, and there was a good chance we wouldn't even see the mine. But GPS had convinced others that we would see the promised land. I could have played the three with BETS and I would STILL have them waiting on me hand and foot, prodding or reminding them about "The BET" if there were complaints, but I am not a TRUE s.o.b. at heart, and the desert has a way of tickling me with it's complete lack of, well, PEOPLE!
More specifically, people in cars designing traffic jams, people who conspire to make me wait in long lines at every store I go into, you know, people in what I believe they call "population centers" The desert works hard to keep people at the fringe. Blythe, with it's stubborn and hardy lot of pioneering types, have been chewing away at the desert, getting further and further away from the Colorado river. Pumping water for miles, they have actually turned a valley to the east of Wiley's Well into a massive little farm community.

::)I digress! I am heading bit by bit towards the elusive "Opal Hill Mine"... (I can't WAIT!) Over some hills, and sure enough, we are going north now, GPS ANNOUNCES (I swear I heard it trying to stifle a laugh) "You have reached your destination."

Dead silence. I am smiling. Everyone is looking around, as though some crusty bandy-legged prospecter is going to bounce out of a creosote bush and sounding like "Festus" from "Gunsmoke"...

Prospecter: "Why HOWDY folks! Welcome to the OPAL HILL MINE! Glad you could make it! HEEHEE! Gonna try yer hand at some real mining t'day???"

But Festus didn't appear, nor Ms. Kitty, or Marshall Dillon. NOBODY and of course NO MINE!

The girls are checking and re-checking the coordinates, and now THEY are pissed that the BOOK HAS ERRONEOUS INFORMATION! They wonder if maybe just a bit further... I drive on. NOW! I am not blind with rage, I am not snooty with the "I TOLD YA SO" I have been distracted. I am realizing the unmistakeable evidence of digs! Wherever we are, people have dug here. and they have dug more than just test holes. It is quite apparent that this is/was/will be a productive site. Probably geodes, (DUH!) never-the-less! We have found a close second to Fire Agates, so the day won't be a total loss.

We get onto a parking lot, (desert pavement) and we all get out of the car. We start to do some preliminary poking, but knowing we are on the south side of the more well known Hauser area, I want to get my bearings, and check the roads. One veers off left and up a doable hill. The other branches north and immediately goes into some rutted washed out spots that alternate with nice well worn typical desert dirt road. My THINKING is: If we can drive through to the Hauser Bed Proper, we can utilize THAT road back to Wiley Well road and VIOLA' Opal Hill it that afternoon.

There I go THINKING again.
BzzzzZZZzzz...
Ahh! freeking MEAT bees. DO NOT pull out a sandwich, or ANY food in these mountains.
bzzZZZZzzz... ZZZZZzzzzzzzZZZZ
The daughter was bitten on the Hyundai trip when she refused to turn over her PBJ samwich to a meat bee.
BZZZzzzzzzZZZzzzz...ZZZZZZ...zzzzZZzzz
BIL and I head up the east fork, the girls have BIG GAME ROCK to hunt. The geodic scent is intoxicating, but for the girls, they are in FULL PREDATOR MODE, God help you if you get in thier way. It is unique to watch.
BzzzZZzzzzzZZzzz BzzzzZZzzzZZzzz
Me: "FRICK-A-FRACKIN BEES!"
I wave my hat. First warning.

From the hill BIL gets a good vantage for watching the girls, and, as the road becomes a cliff at the top, or forks right to head into a dubious and less traveled trail, watching the girls becomes the reason we hiked up there for after all.

The girls swoon, as one has found a young geode, abandoned by its mother.The girls are moving about in some instinctive technique only they know, thier eyes glued to the ground, and they communicate with curious squeals and calls of "luuke. Luuuke at thissss."
Due to the quart of energy drink I have guzzled, the very ground seemed to undulate, I was sure that geodes were digging themselves deeper to escape capture.
The wife now "postures" she will be oblivious to everything!

"Postures" is a stance that causes rocks to reveal themselves, mesmerised by fear. The stance is, in effect, a half person. Legs and butt. Not unattractive in the least, and if you circle, you see where the other half went. My wife can actually touch the ground, hands flat, without bending her knees. She takes advantage of this skill, and the reason becomes obvious. It leaves her 6-8 pockets (combat pants) loose enough to maximize thier capacity! in less than a half an hour, the pockets will bulge at approx 20 pounds.
If she cannot tear away from the rock hunt then within an hour she will have stuffed 30 pounds of rocks into her pockets, and you will have to haLARious fortune to watch her as she attempts to get back to the car. With the determination and stubborness of a pure Irish will, she waddles towards the vehicle, spray bottle abandoned (unnecessary weight) arms loaded with rock her pockets cannot hold. The rocks in her pockets are WILD and they want to escape! They begin to work her pants down. To prevent their escape, she has resorted to using her top as a carry all.

Here is the total picture of her past EXTREME, to which I swear, have VIDEO, AND have a witness to, and it happened not once but TWICE!

A shillouette in the distance. Bowlegged, with legs that are HUGE. It waddles, either with injury, or handicap, a caracature of a gunslinger, bowleggedly strutting into town. The figure stops, then continues, closer, closer, it's... HUNNY BUNNY!

Me: " What... the... fuuuuuzzzz? (or something like that)
Sis: " OMG LOOK, LOOK!"

The wife has poured her armloads of rock (arm LOAD doesn't capture the scale) into her top to free a hand, to hold her pants, that have worked a third of her butt out of the way and threaten to take the hill and win the battle. The pockets have seams that you almost hear SCREAMING in agony, and one more rock in ANY of her MANY pockets will cause an unstoppable ripping. Her pants are the best made, but they have their limits, and the wife feels obliged to test those limits.
ANOTHER problem! Deserts are hot, skimpy tank tops become the top of choice to keep the heat tolerable. Skimpy tank tops rate just above wet paper bags in a rainstorm for rock transport. Rocks will test every and ANY weak spot to effect an escape.
Her tank top is now stretched and to the point where rocks might fall through the very weave of the fabric. On a more erotic note, her boobs are exposed, but one tends to overlook THAT point as the complete picture boggles the mind. I think to myself, "Had the SOUTH showed THAT kind of determination during the civil war, GRANT would have been the loser!"
She gets close enough to the vehicle, and lets go of her top and a cascade of stone seems to take several seconds to pour to the ground. a small bit of relief dapples her pained expression, but by now I am freaking out trying not to laugh.

Me: (screaming) "GET THE CAMERA! GET THE FRACKIN CAMERA!"

Sis is already there. Where the whole thing is comical PERIOD to me, sister is laughing but she also beams with pride that one of the hounds has brought back every last GRAIN AND GRIT from her hunt, and better still, there is VIDEO PROOF! Video with no sound, but it is video GOLD to rockhounds and hunters alike.

BzzzZZZZzzz...

Oh yes. So we amble back down and sis is in some very promising digs. I can see that we might just end up blowing out the day here. Still, one more road to check. The rest of the hounds are busy, I head up the north fork.
BzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZ...
zzZzzZZzzzzzzzzzzzzz...BzzzZZZZZZZZZZZZ
I light a cigarette to back the bee off, he backs up, I keep walking. At 50-75 yards and four rutted areas where it would be necessary to do some "leveling" with loose rock, I reach a conclusion that the road is for high clearance, fat tire'd, four wheel low equipped trucks and jeeps. I also found what a violent runoff had exposed.
BzzzzZZZZzzz BzzzZZZZZZz BzzzzzZZZ
BzzzzZzzZZzzzZZzzzZz
BUZZ BUZZ BUZZ
The possible motherlode seemed to be close to a bee hive. NO THANKS! I hiked back, and I was shaking my head, realizing why I had that "feeling" the night prior. Hopefully,
BzzzZZzz BZZZzzzZZZzz
HOPEFULLY, I would score some blue agate geode, along with some that were bladed with angel wings!
BzzzZZzzZZZZZZZZzzZZZ BZZzzZZZzzz
JEEZE LOWEEZE! I was getting close to the car, and the bees were sure taking an interest in the new neighbors!
I met up with the wife in the gulch by the car, she was excited about the location, but she to was getting annoyed at the 10 or twelve persistant bees. Beyond the car on the hillside, sis and hubby were busy, BZZZzzZZZZzzzZZZZ BZZzZZzZZZzZZzZZ!
BUSY and working the digs.

As I stroll up to the lot, I notice about thirty bees in the air. I decide to close up the car's two doors and hatch back, and as I get closer, (excuse my french please) "OH SHIT!" The back of the car has become the latest BEE SPOT! and there were about 200 bees socially exploring our car while we explored their yard!

ME: "HEY! WE HAVE GOT A BEE SITUATION HERE! THEY ARE SWARMING THE CAR AND WHATEVER IS IN THE TRUNK! WE NEED TO ADDRESS THIS NOW!!!"

When hundreds of bees begin to punk you and take your car in the middle of frickin nowhere, you begin to worry. You can't just wish them away, but you do NOT go and provoke them either. If they are africanized, you are going to get stung, and really bad. Regular honey bees can be reasoned with, but if anyone is allergic, THEY better start walking and quick.

Me: "We HAVE to get them out of the car; they want whats in the back, but what? Did we leave jam from the sandwiches out?"
sis: "No..."

I take my trusty water bottle and begin to lightly spritz water in an arc 10 feet to the car. (maybe it will back them a bit) a number of drops land on the outside of the car on the brake lens, and like a bee magnet the bees hit each drop 2-3 bees each until all the drops were covered.

(Please note the words will be changed to keep the PG rating, and preserve taste in this thread. The actual language with respect to exclamations was QUITE salty, and perhaps approached the language of trapped demons from Hades. At the exclamation points, it shouldn't be too hard to recognize the much more raw and colorfully created swearing that evolved, from the playful subsitutes)

Me "FROSTY STICKS! Did you see that? DON'T SPRAY WATER! DON'T SPRAY THE BEES! Everybody come here..."

We would each start towards the car, then back away, but the others were doing the first big no-no with bees, do NOT swat at them, it will cause them to get defensive, and then all bets are off! I was aware I would need to direct this scenario because I have the most knowledge of their behavior. I had no man to bee hanging with the bee keepers experience, and I wasn't a self taught bee whisperer, but I had done extensive reading in case africanized bees came around our neighborhood, after seeing several news stories about attacks.

Me: "We need to get the stuff out of the car and move it. We'll have to get in and pull whatever they are after. BUT! If they sting or you hear the buzzing suddenly raise walk, WALK AWAY QUICKLY. Do NOT breathe from your mouth! Bees home in on CO2
so if you run, huffing and puffing, they follow you, CO2 also agitates them! SHAVING! these frolikers are in the energy drinks too!"

Every organization needs men of action. I figgered we would be here for awhile, we would each take hits in the form of stings, but if we used a bit of stratagy, devised a multi point plan to start taking back real estate, we might keep our injuries to a minimum, and maybe salvage SOME part of the day...

Me: "We need SMOKE, not just cigarettes, we need a lot. Smoke will back the biggest part of these bees back."

It was right about here that it began to unravel. By unravel I mean heroes were born in all of us in large and small ways, but I'll be DARNED if how we took on the bees could have looked anything but COMICAL in what took place next!
BIL was the biggest hero, in that whether he found it thrilling, or he just said "FUDGESICLES IT!!!" he began to go in and pull whatever he could grab out of the car and set it 10 or so yards away. The open energy drinks got tossed from the front of the car, and the wife was wading back in to grab something else. I was about to grab my share when I saw something terrifying, the bees were beggining to swarm around my wife.

ME; "Honey, (Yeah bad choice of words) walk away from the car, they are swarming your jacket, be calm, don't breathe out of your mouth. The bees of the desert could smell water through a sealed glass container, the wife was sweating, making her jacket a wonderful green water station. Her jacket, by now, was on the ground, and I worried they would land on her. She takes excellent care of her skin, and sweat has no problem beading on her.

Everyone is starting to make those swatting motions again, but I am transfixed by BIL who appears to be doing a tiptoe sneak up to the car. He grabs another bucket and runs with it. Funny as heck and effective at the same time.

Me: DON'T SWAT! Take your hat and just slowly wave it. We're going to have to move the car!
Sis: " I'll move the car"

There are now about a thousand bees, a few hundred in the air, small swarms around each item taken out of the car, and about a hundred still hovering in the back.

Me: "WhoEVER drives, leave the back open. Get a good run down the road to blow the bees out, then stop and close it up. We'll regroup and try to get the stuff back in the car."
Sis: "I will drive it!"

She gets in the car starts it and manages to turn around. I find a branch, and I figure it's perfect for making a torch and enough smoke to back the bees away. I look up and HERE COMES SISTER DRIVING BACK! OH shingles!

Me: "DON'T DRIVE BACK!!! GO, GO, GO, GET THE CAR OUT OF HERE!!!
Sis: "I have to turn around!"

She turns the car around, the bees seem to realize the car is back, and an obvious swarm moves over th hatchback. As it rolls on down the road, BIL and the wife chasing after it, I get busy finding dead brush to make a smoke torch, knowing I have to add a bit of green too, to generate more smoke. I start to angle down the road, HERE COMES SISTER AGAIN! I wave my arms, and stick, losing my collected brush. She turns and drives away again, BIL and the wife are passed, they turn to follow. I try to gather more brush. Sis turned around again, started to head back and I was losing it. (turns out she was just trying to blow the bees out, but having no luck.) I gave up, and got to collecting brush. I wanted to drive the largest amount of bees off with smoke. As far as I knew, nobody was stung yet. I headed towards the car. It was now closed up with sis and the hubby walking towards the lot.

Me: "Help me get some brush for a torch."

I am walking around the car. I look inside, and there is the wife inside. She pops the door quickly and shoves some paper at me.
AWESOME. Looking back in the car I am perplexed.

Me: "Are the bees out of the car???"
Sis: "NO! Shes smoking them out."

What...the... Inside the car the wife has TWO of her clove cigarettes lit, and she is puffing her gills silly! She is almost obscured by thick smoke. "Good grief" I think and I now have a halfway decent wad to burn on the branch.

HERE COMES BIL! He has a bucket! He is followed by bees who want to talk to him. He doesn't give them a chance. He opens the hatch, waves the worst of the bees, and drops the bucket inside. I can't get the wad lit. Dry brush, paper, middle of one of the driest deserts in the state, and I can't light a fire. I have sis wave the bees off while I kneel and try to light it. Every time I light the lighter it blows out. I feel a wind on my back.

Me: "HEY! just wave them off! Your blowing out my FLAME!"
Sis: "OH! Sorry"

IT LIGHTS! NOW... Two things happened. First, I realized I need to have the torch where, OH here comes the BIL with another bucket! I need to be smoking off the bees up where all the provisions are, a tenth of a mile back up the road.
SECOND, the torch really starts to burn, and then SMOKE! and then a breeze lifts the burningwad gently out of the branch, drops it down where it threatens to roll off and light the desert up. GREEEEAAAAATTTTT!
I give up. The BIL has the right IDEA, just grab, run, dump in the car and do it again. Sis and I head back up. Looking around I mention we can't leave wifey's jacket, sis picks it up and starts WAILING it on the ground, WAP, WAP, WAP, then she turns and bails out. There are still HUNDREDS of bees. I turn and the pile of energy drink cans are CARPETED with bees. THEY ARE REALLY excited about that stuff.
I grab and run, while thinking TERRIFIC! Bees hopped up with caffine. FREEKING SPEED BEES! Ah jeeze, I need a drink.

We gathered our stuff and one at a time we joined my green wife, who explained she had lit two MORE cigarettes. She said the bees were so choked out that when she would open the window, or we opened the hatch, those bees were happy to get out, and they wasted NO time. The bees who were smoked out got really lethargic, but when clean air hit them they followed it out of the bee hell they were stuck in. FINE. We had everything back, no bees, no stings, and we wasted no time getting our fannies out of there, escorted by ten or so hardcore bees outside the car. I knew they were taunting us in bee speak, but SEE ya!

We flew on out rally style wondering WHAT ELSE could go wrong?

OOOHH... bad question...
Answered in part 4!

This is awesome! Educational (I'm going to have to visit some of these places!) and entertaining. Keep it up!

I have tried posting pictures as attachments, but my pics are all over the size limit! Any way around that?

Dad_ohs, Perhaps you might dare to join us in the desert. Our rockhounding is about as different as it gets. Sis got video of the wife waddling up and dumping her rocks. BUT! The funniest part of THAT video is that my wife took the camera to video my sister who managed to work the video while HOLDING HER OWN TOP FULL OF ROCKS! The wife turned the camera on sis, who stands there pregnant with her own rock prey.

The MOST hilarious time came while at lavic, and we had parked north of the tracks. Wifey is waddling back to the car, top is full and stretched down, one hand is gripped onto her britches, and then off in the distance, a train wails the horn.

Me: "YOU BEST HURRY UP HONEY, OR YOU'LL HAVE TO STAND THERE AND WAIT FOR THE TRAIN!"

The trains running the desert up by 40 are long, long trains, with a couple EXTRA cars to prove a point.
So NOW Hunny Bunny is giving ALL SHES GOT! Another 40 lb load, her face red as a beet, huffing and puffing, boobs trying to hide in all the excitement but playing peek-a-boo more efficently, and I honestly thought she would get stuck on the berm. Then she has to actually LIFT her feet to clear each rail, while all I could do was laugh, she CUSSES by me something about SHE ain't gonna wait for no *^&*%%%&^&$$$#@# TRAIN...

Video? yeah we gots it, but you can watch the three stooges gathering in person, and see all the stuff I AIN'T writing too!
It's MAGIC every show folks...

The drives are unpredictable too! Like OOOH SUNSET/SUNRISE!!! where I have to slow down. Speed-up. Windows down at 75 and girls hanging from the car trying to get the perfect shot. Open the sunroof... probably 50 pictures each time. ya look at the pics on the computer... same picture, over and over every three or four... OOOH yet ANOTHER picture of the SUN!

I need a drink. Back tomo g'nite ;D

As for the story told by Cherdarock. Everyone has a story to tell about rockhounding. All I can say about They call it "ROCKHOUNDING" is that every word of the tale is true. The oddest part of the whole story is that is happened in one day, actually less than 12 hours. I lived it!

The videos will be up in the next day or so-The Wife!

OMG... I mean "shucks" - got to keep it PG ...lol. I am seriously bookmarking this thread. I can't wait to hear the rest of the story. This is better than any book I've read recently. Having had a few adventures in rockhounding myself I can believe practically anything when rockhounding is concerned. The narrative here is awesome, keep it coming please. I hope you're not like those tv blankity blanks who leave us hanging until "next season". I will hunt you down if that is the case and you will not like the rocks I throw (you know a good rockhound never throws the good ones, just the leaverite).

This is hilarious!!! What an ADVENTURE!!! But it sure sounds like you guys know how to do it, mishaps and all... because that's what life's about, the fun memories, even if they weren't all that fun at the time:).

Looking forward to part 4 too:).

HAH! Now sis and the wife are on board. heheheheheheheh ;D

Was I FINISHED? Trip planned, arrival...GPS and bees...

AH! Let me see. So we got completely punked by the bees. A real shame too cos' there was some potential at that spot. Sis proved that due to the fact that she kept her rocks, and the biggest suprise was that the wife wasn't loaded down with rocks, tho she too brought back a couple geodes!

I was happy that we were out of there. I got back to Milipitas and now, FINALLY, we could go to Opal Hill Mine. I just want to get a couple of chunks of Fire Agate, then whatever the girls want. We can hunt geodes at the patch with headlights but I want... Well you know.
We were driving up to the pass when I see a pickup coming at us. I stick my hand out and he stops and opens his window.

Me "How ya doin? Hey, do you know where the road to opal hill mine is?"
Pickup man: " Hmmmm. I'm not sure, but I think... that it's down that direction..."

Pickup man is pointing south. A lesser man would have cried. I JUST survived a bee onslaught, and I had so much caffine and adrenaline coursing through me I heard phones ringing and high tension wires humming.

Me "O.k. thanks."
We roll on, commenting that pickup man is new to the community. As we drive, I kinda don't stop at the spot we had stopped at earlier. (I had hastily agreed we would, earlier, hoping it would get the kids back in the car.) Now I am praying nobody recognizes where we...

Wife "HEY! Isn't this the place..."
Sis: "I thought we were going to stop at that spot!"

I keep driving while trying out various excuses our parents used when we were little. Protests started, but strangely enough, it died down somewhat quick. About a half mile further, I sensed something was up.

Sis: "OOH! You'll have to take it easy on those bumps, my bladder can only take so much..."
Me: "Are you...?"
Wife: "Yeah! My bladder TOO!"

Grrrrrrr. I roll around a long ridge, down to a gulch.

Sis: "This is a good place to pee..."
Me: "No, not here!"

They start working me again. As we roll through some red lava sand,

Sis: "Ooh, you said you needed sand for your sand casting! Heres some..."
Me: "Ah, no. Thats crushed lava, it's unsuitable for casting metals."
Sis: "Oh."
Me: "Do you really need to pee?"
Everyone: "OH! Yes!"
Me: "Grrrrrr"

I pull over, light a cigarette, and stay in the car. Pee maybe. But I had nobody to bet they would return with rocks. If I had a nickle for every rock they found while peeing, I would OWN the Opal Hill Mine!!! After 15 or twenty, I get out. I look, The BIL is following the wife, looking at what she has, helping her (AHEM) Pee? The wife is COMPLETELY out of sight.

Me: "WHERE DID SHE GO?"
Sis: "I'M NOT SURE, SHE WAS OVER THERE..."
Me: "WELL FIND HER AND LET'S GOOOOO!"

They FINALLY get back to the car, and they show me their rocks. I provide what I feel is an appropriate amount of enthusiasm, and try to stuff them back in the car. It was kinda like taking kids to the gates of Disneyland, then telling them it's time to go home. I get in, start it up, and all the while my brain is having an arguement, with one side laughing like a kook, and the other yelling but its all garbled. I weigh the chances that perhaps another energy drink? I shake the voices, (because they aren't there...) and begin to see everything in a surreal, wierd, wacky way.
It just began to seem like those dreams where you are trying to run but you can't make it happen. GOOD grief.

The three are talking, and I am half listening, they are talking about hiking to this rock formation in the distance. They toss it up to me, I lead it with the sights and, BANG! I shoot the idea like a clay pigeon. As we crest a small hill...

Sis: "Hey, theres a guy standing over there."
Everyone: "Where?"
Sis: "The tree is in the way now, but...over there."

I got a really weird feeling when she said that. REALLY weird. I got this picture of some guy and as I tried to detail it he was in a red shirt. The red shirt became like a button up silk shirt. His hands were clasped down in front of him like a minister standing in front of a church waiting to greet folks. But he had a hat on like Billy Jack if anyone remembers that movie. Suddenly he is an indian. Same garb and hat, but it becomes some kid in a red t-shirt as he turns and walks away... All in a split second, and I hope I just need a sammich cos' I was in no mood for deciphering visions. But I can STILL see that picture as I write. I am sure the red shirt must have had "STOP" written on it though. Rather I wish it had...

We start down one of the steeper washed out sections. The road leading down to the bottom of the gulch is actually worse than the bottom. Rutted, rock strewn, but one of the last few before Wiley road with it's deliciously sandy washboard. I slowly negotiate this one as the ruts are diagonal, and the wrong way, (in MY opinion anyway) causing drivers side to jounce first and passenger side to... PTOON! SSSSSSSSSSSSSssssssssssssssssssssssss...

BIL: "Yep, puncture, we're flat"
ME: .....we don't need to go into what I said...
BIL: "We can't change it here, too angled. Lets bring it down to the bottom."

But we could all see the level bottom was soft and sandy. Which made PERFECT sense, because it was also the only shady spot in the ENTIRE DESERT!!! Big tree that had... hidden...

Me: "Didn't you see some guy?"
Sis: "I can't see if he is still there..."

The surreal wierdness was suddenly thick. But reality provided BIL and the wife, both bringing me to a spot level enough to change a flat, with what seemed to be a whole lot of concern and direction, rolling me up, back, pull out a little, try to angle it because, and I was just getting numb. I was all there, but the day we had left was shot to peices. We dug out the spare but the spare had been replaced with what appeared to be a bicycle tire mounted on a sheetmetal disk. ARRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHHH! The bicycle tire/sheetmetal disk WAS the spare. Oh goody. 5-6 miles of road that had no reason or rules for being nice. At least when it came to spindly little spares. I was quite suprised actually. I mean in an AWD vehicle, you don't want to drive on DRASTICALLY different tire sizes. Just one tire sized next up or down can ruin the AWD and the difference here was stupendous.
Well our new mission was presented to us, and we tackled it straightforward and efficiently. I won't bore you with the details except to say the spare held to Wiley road, and we pretty much drove that part with little worry. We had cell coverage there, and tow trucks would tackle this far. We blaze the road, having passed the Hauser turn off. I was puzzled because still no turn-offs heading east! I am almost believing the road had been covered by gremlins and or bees, and whoever, whatever was torturing me with someone elses bad karma by mistake.
The BIL and I saw the turnoff at the same time. There are actually two, one that curves north and one south. As I slow and stop just past the north one, there is a little sign. It is for those going south, but turning and looking out the rear window it reads "Opal Hill Mine" with an arrow pointing east.
I am tempted. SOOOO tempted. I am angry. I laugh. I am so close to the edge, the voices in my head thought for a second I had gone over! Frick-a-frack. We head for Blythe. I provide some real world testing of that little 50mph spare too. It was quarter to one on a lovely, lovely day. Which means it was only HALF over...

SO! What will happen to our merry band of rockclown... ROCKHOUNDS? perhaps in FIVE? Do they make it to Blythe? THAT is a good question. Are they going to spend the night in the desert? JAIL? Will the voices in YOUR head tell you? You can consult a "Magic 8 Ball" until the crazy starts again... but I need to sleep!