Day 96: More years have passed than I care to count since I dug these specimens out of a hard-rock quarry in northern Washington. They are a few of the better examples of the material which my husband and I collected from Walker Valley. I am given to understand that the site is still open, but my days of swinging a sledge and prying open cracks are long past, and I still bear a few scars inflicted by flying shards and slivers of dark basaltic matrix. Amethyst and citrine as well as clear quartz crystals were the rewards we sought, my husband hoping for facet-quality pieces (we found a few) while I pursued plates for a mineral display. The calcite roses were a surprise to us both. We had not heard that they were present. To me, they were a greater prize than the quartz, having survived truly brutal extraction methods. Although rockhounding at this level is beyond my reach now, the fascination with minerals remains. Like most kids regardless of their chronological age, I still come home from outings with my pockets full of rocks.
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