I spent the whole second day on the wall. I made quite the talus piles by the end of the day. I found a couple in there that I really like!! I will post some pics when I get them unpacked tomorrow. It was nice to finally meet Thomas and his son. Once inside though me and this one older gentleman tried to team up but he had to go down the long easier way and I went down the hard but fast way and that was the last we saw of each other except for a quick "having any luck?" in the afternoon. I have never got so wet and dirty rock hounding before but I figured the more messy I got the better job I was doing at moving some rock. Anyway, I had a blast!!

Thomas Gordon

My son and I got to the gates an full hour before 8... We were about the 4th car in line... I saw three people by the Sheriffs's car -- You were there? Anywho, we took a brief detour back to "downtown" Ft. Drum to use the rest rooms and I needed a cup of coffee. When we got back we still were only fifth in line but I did meet up with Bruce and once inside the gates at the sign-in tent, I caught a brief "howdy" from Everett.

In the whole overwhelming excitement, I never caught back up with either Bruce or Everett... And the Pit site itself was overwhelming enough that I felt totally at a loss as where to begin. So, we elected to just meander down into the pits where we saw many hounders busy at work chipping away at the "wall".. It was about the second hour into our excavation where it seemed evident that to score out a nice whole clam was a bit of just hit and miss. So I came up with the plan to cut out a {{{Bigger"""}}} chunk of that matrix and about three hours later, Warren and I had our Rock!! . . . About an hour later, we had finally got it up out of the pit - it weighed in at 110 pounds.. Yeah, and we both played our guess that it would be around 60 to 65 pounds.. It is nice to have a Partner!!!!!! Anywho, after we had our rock loaded in the car, I asked Kiddos if he wanted to go around the surface and see about picking up some more samples - he just kind of looked at me and I could read he was spent.. I told him that if he was too tired that we could call it a day - he chose to call it a day. So, we were leaving the pit around 3:30-ish-ish,,, And we got back to town around 5.. We got some nice individual specimens and a really nice matrix piece too. It was an excellent dig opportunity and as much as I was leaning to go back today (( Sunday )),,, when I heard my alarm go off at 5am this morning - well,, lets just say I decided to skip school..!

I feel to apologize I missed to catch up with everyone to any real extent - perhaps another time.. I feel a little disappointed about that.. Yet, this dig was more for me to have a special visit with my son. He keeps busy with his school and work and at least we got something different this round from just the routine movie or throwing darts..

I will give a Two Thumbs-UP for Ruck's Pit.. That was spectacular.. I only wish I could have had my camera to document the layers of shell conglomerations and strata - very Awesome to behold in person!!

KOR...!!!

Thomas & Co. {^:^}

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