Yesterday we went to our friends in Joshua Tree.  Kevin has been getting shipments from Mexico.  Really needed to check out the new stuff and new material he has from his claim in the Cadys.  He also buys up old collections.  

We started the morning going thru a huge trailer loaded to the brim with the old collection.  Things I have never seen. Like most old timers they slabbed everything which was a little disappointing.  Did pick out some small pieces of Medicine Bow agate, slabs of Indian Paint rock, a killer polished cube of Petrified Palm.

While wandering around his back acre I came across large pieces of Lepidolite!  How exciting is that?

Kevin's claim in the North Cadys is producing narrow pieces of beautiful plume agate.  Got 4 narrow chunks of that.  None will make spheres, but maybe we can go with him when the weather cools to actually dig for larger pieces.  

Then there is the Graves Mountain material.  I first saw this 3 years ago when we were there to go to the Cadys.  It was an unfortunate trip.  Kevin tripped while putting  his quad into his truck and broke his wrist.  We ended up up using  his hammer drill to bust up some massive pieces of this material.  Had to bring home another 100 pounds!

We did get Minbres Jasper from Mexico.  Beautiful but small pieces.  

The most exciting thing to happen, we learned how to gold plate the Magnetite that grows in the Black Jade that came from Stoddard Wells, Ca.  It is so fun to do!

Thanks for reading......