1. Hunt for your rocks wisely and safely. Keep your wits about you. Falling down a hill could really hurt! Keep drinking water. By the time you're thirsty, you're already well on your way to being dehydrated. ALSO, follow the rock hunters rules to the letter. They are really little more than common sense, and we all have common sense!
2. Make piles of items that you find. Dig here, dig there, collect a lot. Then sit in the shade of your vehicle and separate the keepers from the leaverites. One time we brought home about 12.5 lbs of leaverites because we were so excited to have found anything!!
3. If you're a beginner, don't run out and buy hundreds of dollars of tools. We, right now, use what we have around the house--as we are very new to all of this!! The tools will make for some nice Christmas and birthday gifts.
4. Keep looking down, you never know when you're going to find "the" rock!
5. I can't stress safety enough. Safety and common sense. If something just doesn't feel right, don't go!
My Best Places to Find Cash and Treasure
1. Colorado
2. Minnesota--Lake Superior beaches
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More about me... How I first got into treasure hunting...for years, Dave (my other half-some say better half) and I would pick up "pretty rocks", bring them home, and then immediately forgot where we put them! One time, we put some rocks in a big glass jar, put in water and bleach, and within the month, had the most beautiful green slime all over the rocks. Last September, we were camping along the Arkansas River in Colorado, and the gorgeous campground had all kinds of beautiful rocks as road 'gravel'. We picked up probably two and a half pounds of them, and then didn't know what to do with them. In the middle of November, 2008, Dave remembered that we had purchased a rock tumbler from Hobby Lobby many moons ago. Yep, ya got it, one of those cheap, cheap, all plastic ones. We put rocks, water and grit in, and turned it on. HOW NOISY!! We turned it off, took it to the back of an unused bedroom, set it on a towel, shut the door, and could still hear the thing as if we were in the same room. Four weeks later, our first batch was done. All the stones turned out so lovely!! The granite, and others that I have no idea what they are glistened and shone from deep within. Christmas 2008, Dave got me a Lortone 33B, and that's been it. Except for two weeks for my mom's funeral and two weeks vacation, that thing has run continuously!!
My treasure hunting obsession(s): Lake Superior Agates are my/our number one passion. The promise of fairburn hunting in 2010 ranks right up there. I am also having a blast meeting other rockhounds!!
My most exciting find: 1. A small bunch of clear quartz crystals on limestone. Since I (oops, I mean we) are new to this, we haven't had the opportunity to really go many places yet. 2. While we were hunting feldspar, Dave hit on a vein of pretty good sized chunks of black tourmaline. 3. 5 Small pieces of Lintonite-a greyish-green jellybean sized stone, related to Thompsonite, found on the North Shore of Minnesota! Where I found these were close to 200 miles away from their usual hiding spot!
My favorite places to look for treasure: Anywhere that I am at the time!
My favorite treasure hunting techniques:Dig, whack with a hammer, and dig some more!
My treasure hunt toolkit contains...Water, a couple of brushes, sun screen, a big floppy hat, 2 hammers (one for me and one for Dave), a big screwdriver, water, a rock scooper for me, and large and small fabric collecting bags, plus bottles of water. I am disabled, thanks to a messed up back surgery, and can't walk very far. We always bring an extra cane and crutches. This limits our rock hunting to places that don't take too much walking. Walking up hill and down hill should be out of the question, but sometimes I can be really stubborn.......
I'm presently hunting for...When we're in minnesota, we keep our noses to the ground looking for Lake Superior Agates. In Colorado, I'd love to find beryl, amazonite, flourite, barite, and decent sized pet wood. My dream would be to find out where in eastern Nebrasaka Lake Superior Agates can be found. If I could, it's not a far drive....
Recommended treasure hunting resources: Any books that tell us where to look in Colorado, and we have two books at present. For Minnesota, for hunting down Lake Superior Agates, there are soooo many books and booklets, I think we only have about half of them, and use them all!
