Our drive was going to plunge us right into the Rabbit Hills desert flats so we looked forward to warming up. Going down Hart Mountain to the desert was a scenic steep drop and I was astonished that I could see lakes and more lakes!

10 years ago I’d been down in that country and it was dry as a bone but now I understood “Lake County”. It warmed up quick as expected and we figured out from all my 4 maps just which roads were the quickest. The final sunstone road was another that was 10 miles of 100% washboard! Ugh. We passed Dust Devil Mine(the biggest)and stopped at the Public area first. Not one person has EVER recommended the public area to me but I wanted some “wild” sunstones, not every darn one from someone’s claim! (I’m odd that way).

What a BLAST! Due to the rain and wind the day before, sunstones glittered all over the surface and no digging required. Before I knew it I’d walked around for 2 hours! Bigger stones were out by the perimeters (marked by stakes on the roads). I didn’t stop for the tiny ones so I got a real good lot although most are the clear/straw color not pink schiller. A perfect temperature day of 70 degrees and sun to See by! Wonderful Fun! Next was Spectrum Mine. Finding some color from screening there was “the plan”. Well, all I can say is we hit a bad day for them. Only two workers in the whole place and 100% involved with paying customers. Our short day was burning up waiting to just be signed in! In that time we couldn’t even “look around”(insurance waiver rules). I watched the stones coming off the conveyor to the paying customer on and off three times out of boredom. FINALLY the very nice worker got us set up at a dumped pile he said was “new” and took off. We screened for an hour and got chips smaller than the Public area and no colors at all and I felt we were wasting our precious time.

The very nice worker did check up on us and I complained the chips weren’t even facet size, and he said he’d move us. He went back to the paying customer and half an hour later I saw him eating lunch prior to starting the Second paying customer and I told Rick I’d rather go back to the Public Area than waste any more time. He said AMEN to that. We left without saying goodbye. I UNDERSTOOD those two poor guys were overworked that day, but it was still a bad experience. We couldn’t look at finished stones, rough or jewelry either cause the showcase trailer was locked. The place was Not set up That day for the Free digs they made Such a Big Deal out of all over their internet site! I’d been hyped for Nothing! I WILL say the Payer got his money’s worth though. Looked like a gallon jar’s worth of stones with a dozen huge and plenty of schiller. BUT Spectrum Mine makes a BIG deal out of their reds in all the ads and his run didn’t have any! Bad timing for us at that mine! EVERYONE else just Loves them though! DO NOT Avoid them because of OUR experience or my ‘tude!

Back at the Public area we had fun again and I found a big sunstone to have faceted some day! I also found what might be the area’s knapping rock. Basinite is akin to black jasper but I’m just not sure if this rock is glossy enough to be that variety.

I was happy with the finds and Rick enjoyed collecting something so different than our usual agates and woods too. I decided “before the end” I wanted to go to Dust Devil Mine after all. I was originally going to skip them because I considered having to pay for a GOOD find as a potentially threatening policy. No way to know ahead of time what would be charged! Scary to a person that often has good luck like me! WHAT IF I found a huge bicolor sunstone and they charged me $1000?!?! If I had to leave something like that behind I’d cry for a month! It turned out that we were all alone there with one of the owners, Steve. A nicer, more soft spoken ‘Desert Rat’ miner you could never hope to meet! He signed us in immediately. Since Rick was too tired to hound, Steve sat picking rocks and chatting with him, while I surface hunted. The huge piles were fun to climb all over! I asked if I could take “matrix chunks” and Steve said he wouldn’t charge for them. I found a cracked up but nearly whole crystal on matrix I’m SO proud of !

I yelled at Steve about it, but then put it in my pocket for safety and forgot to show it to him! That makes me mad cause I wanted his opinion of it and I was also humiliated later wondering if he SAW that lump in my pocket! Damn, I hope he didn’t think I was hiding something! It may have slipped MY mind but I doubt if that owner misses Anything! I also found a BIG cracked up but colored beauty that had red and green in it! I was ecstatic! I had a real “keeper”. That’s when I ran over to Steve and Rick with my prize and I told them I was happy as I could be. I told Rick we could go back to camp now. Bless his heart; Steve didn’t charge me a thing for my prize! He just said I could probably get 3 faceted stones out of it if I had it cut. I’ll never cut it ‘cause its my “BIGGIE Specimen” though!

He handed me a matrix chunk with dark pink schiller in the sunstone he’d picked while chatting with Rick too! I was so HAPPY I went in the office and bought a faceted really red AAA stone as a “thankyou” as well as for my collection! Being uptight about possible charges at Dust Devil was sure an unfounded fear of mine!!! That owner is generous and I’m sure he is fair with his all day screening customers too that get a bucket full! I LOVE DUST DEVIL MINE! The PERFECT end to hounding on our trip, prior to a day driving home!

We got to camp and did our last hot springs experience. I shed a tear because I love these trips so much and it hurts when they are coming to an end. I vaguely wished we’d had time to look for Hart Mountain’s agate and jasper in the gullies too but was satisfied we’d found the two varieties I planned our trip for. It rained hard up on Hart Mountain all night long and flapping made it hard to sleep again. The morning was a cold soggy mess packing but no more downpour. Rick said he wasn’t willing to spend ONE more mile on a gravel road with a trailer so we went the longgggg way back to highway 395 through Plush (south, the wrong direction) instead of straight across the sunstone area. 50 miles out of our way to avoid gravel but No regret!!! (I’m laughing as I type that).

Rick had never been on the route we took through Plush and beyond(until we hit Riley) and it was fascinating out there for me too. Once we got going north again I’d forgotten (like everyone else) that Oregon has a sort-of “great salt lake” out there. The beaches were lined with seagulls and a slight stench was in the air of alkaline minerals, dead brine shrimp and rotted algae. It’s Lake Abert (no “L”) and there’s not a boat ramp or picnic area along the miles of ocean bay looking beaches. Too smelly I guess! Looking out at the huge expanse of non commercialized water was actually rather pleasing to us. Nothing at all but choppy waves, rocky beaches and a few birds. No agates or fossils on those beaches though. Rats.

On we drove to familiar ground ; the several highways to home. We were really tired from the nights of stormy noisy half sleep and extra work that bad weather makes when camping, but also really pleased about our adventure. After much trial and tribulation we’d found the Steen Thundereggs and we’d finally gathered our State Gemstone, the Oregon Sunstone, from three locations including some Keepers from the Public area.

I’d learned a lot, the kind of learning that doesn’t happen at familiar places and that made me really happy. I’d hiked off 5 pounds too! Now I was content to let the season change and end our over-nighter hounding for 2006. Just a few day trips to go before winter. It has been a truly fulfilling summer of new additions to our collections!

And for me, even better this year, was finding the McRocks website that allows me to share my enthusiasm of these travels!

KOR,

Rhonda & Rick