I can hardly believe that August is gone and I had not posted anything all month. At the end of July I was looking forward to many posts since I had plans for many rock hounding adventures in August. Some of the adventures happened but along the way life threw every curve ball possible at me and my family and when I had moments to stop and catch my breath I just didn’t care about writing anything.
The adventures for the month started with a trip through Yellowstone National Park on the way to a gem show in Billings, Montana. The family had a great time seeing the animals and geysers. We even got to see both a brown bear and a black bear. That was my favorite part because I had been places where carrying a gun was advised because of the likelihood of running into a bear but I had never seen a bear in the wild before. My son really liked the Buffalo.
Yellowstone Buffalo
We left the park at 8:00 that evening form the Northeast entrance. We wanted to be out of the park earlier but with the max speed limit being 45 mile an hour it took longer than planned to get to the exit. Originally we planned on leaving from one of the North entrances but the map that the park ranger gave us when we entered the park stated that Billings was only 125 miles from the Northeast Exit.
A few miles out of the park we came to an intersection with a sign pointing the direction to Cody, Wyoming. We assumed that Billings was the other direction; there were no other signs to assure us that we were going the right way. This route led us through Bear Tooth Pass. The road was very steep and rough from construction. Every time we thought maybe we are reaching the top we would do another hairpin turn start climbing again. We later learned that this pass was over 11,000 feet in elevation. Around 10:30 we finally reached the town of Red Lodge, Montana, half way to Billings. We stopped to buy gas and confirmed that we were on the right track. The last couple hours were defiantly stressful with our white knuckle ride. As we got out of the car you could almost see the pucker marks on the car seats. It was good to know for sure that we were heading the right direction which allowed us to relax a bit.
The next day in Billings we attended a wonderful gem show. The displays were terrific. The first thing that caught my eye when I entered the show was some sculptures of fish and buffalo by Robert Sahli. These were my favorite displays. It was very hard to choose a second favorite display because there many with new materials that I had not seen in person before and outstanding craftsmanship of the items displayed.
Rock Salmon by Robert Sahli
After about 45 minutes of looking at the displays my wife came up to me crying. When I asked why she was upset she informed me that my two year old son started acting up and one of the vendors yelled at her telling her to control her kid and get him away from his displays. I understand a vendor wanting to protect his displays but they need to understand that many people consider a gem show to be a family event and the best of parents can’t always control a two year old. If he wasn’t such a jerk and waited a few seconds before going off I am sure my wife would have either got the kid under control or removed him from the show without his interference. If that vendor reads this and remembers the incident I have one thing to say to him. “You lost a sale moron! My wife was about to purchase a necklace from you.”
After the bad vendor issue my family returned to our motel room. I told my wife that I wanted to return to the show and try to get a deal on some tools and soon as I was done we could go to lunch. I returned to the show by myself and talked with Don Depue from Diamond Pacific about purchasing a paleo-pick and an Estwing rock hammer. He told me that he could only sell it to me at full retail because it would be unfair to his dealers to give me a discount but he could connect me with a dealer at the show that would be happy to give me a discount. He then pointed to a dealer setup nearby; it was Gerald Scarrow from Jerome, Idaho. I laughed because I often see the Scarrow family at local rock shows in Idaho and I often go by their shop. I drove 650 miles to buy tools from a local guy. Gerald sold me both tools I wanted for less than $80.00. This was a fantastic price. I sure if I would have order them at home it would have cost much more since shipping and taxes would have to be added and it would have taken more time to order the tools.
The new pick and hammer made the day for me. Actually it was the high point for rock hounding the whole month. Before these tools I used a small hammer that I purchased from an army surplus store almost three years ago. This hammer was so worn out that my friends continually laughed at it. One friend even referred to it as John’s Shawshank hammer after the little hammer that was used to break out of prison in the movie Shawshank Redemption.
Shawshank Hammer, New Rock Hammer, Paleo-Pick
After lunch I returned to the show one last time. I purchased a few rocks and looked at the displays once again. Before I left I looked around for a necklace for my wife since she missed out on getting one earlier and deserved to get something for putting up with me taking her 650 miles to see a gem show. I ended up returning to Scarrow’s booth where I purchase a Forest Fire Plume Agate necklace.
Forest Fire Plume Agate Necklace
Later that evening my family decided to go to dinner and that’s when things turned for the worse. We had a dead battery. I called for roadside assistance and they came and gave us a jump. We then went to the Wal-Mart store down the street to get a new battery. They ended up not having a replacement battery but told us that they tested our battery and it was fine. I could not believe what they were telling me; acid was oozing out the side of the battery. It defiantly was not fine. We then went to a couple of auto supply stores and none of them had a replacement either. One of the stores called around to other stores to see if anybody had a battery. Nobody had a battery for us. The next morning we had a dead battery again and again called road side assistance. We decided that we needed to get back to Idaho where we could find the needed battery. That was a bummer because we wanted to stop and look for agates on the Yellowstone River and return to the park before going back to Idaho.
The only other time I got to do any rock hounding was a few weeks later. My friend Jason and went to Reynolds Creek to collect petrified wood. I should not have this because my son had surgery a few days earlier and my wife wanted me to stay home in case there were problems. Andy was doing very well that weekend so I decided to go rock hounding anyway and made my wife real mad. I wonder how mad she would have been if I went a week later as planned. Andy was not doing well by then.
There were a few other trips planned for August but they got canceled due to rain or people being sick. Hopefully September will be better. There are trips already planned for Labor Day weekend and later in the month.
