Today we headed North to Spencer Idaho - the Opal Capital of America! At least that is what the sign said and there are at least 4 large Opal Mines near the town. We chose the one named the “Spencer Opal Mine” for our adventure this day. Every week or so they bring a load of blasted rock from there mine in the hills to the back of their store/restaurant so people like us can try our luck.
We all worked hard trying to find the elusive Opal within the plain looking rocks. My Sister, Dee, and her Husband, Larry, had much more luck than we did - maybe cause they have done this several times before or they were just lucky? I think it was just an evil plot to get us to break all the big rocks into gravel for them!
This was my “find” - might be useful for something? The light strip running perpendicular to the black/tan stripes on the top smaller rock is the Opal. It was very beautiful in the sunlight - not so much in this picture. I guess someone who works with rocks and gems might be able to tell me if it is really worth anything - I will just give it to my Sister and let her figure it out.
After we got tired of breaking rock, we had to sort the "good" from the "not worth it" rocks and weigh them. Each admission of $10.00 allowed us to take one pound of rock from the pile. It doesn’t matter if there is Opal in it or not - if you find something good you get to keep it. According to my Sister, people find good stuff every day - not much happening today. Between the 4 of us we barely kept 4 pounds - and most of that was just trash rock!
We all had a wonderful day in the clean fresh air and sunshine that is Idaho!
1 comment:
So many things that I never knew existed right under my nose all those years.
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