[Rockhounds] Accommodations

[Carol Carter-Wientjes]

I'd love to hear your Pet. Forest story! This isn't an accomodation story, 
but earlier this year my husband Hans & I escorted his 2 Dutch tantes 
(aunts) who were visiting from Holland on a trip thru the southwest. One 
afternoon included a stop at the Petrified Forest (so awesome!!) and after 
we passed thru the park entrance Hans told us under no circumstances were 
any of us, looking at ME the rock freak in particular, to pick up any 
petrified souvenirs off the ground or we were all going to JAIL. Had a 
wonderful time ohhhing & ahhing at the colorful logs along the tour trail 
and then piled back into the car. Almost to the checkpoint to leave the park 
and hubby jokes, Ok nobody picked up any rocks did they!? ha ha ha (eyeing 
me in the rear view mirror). Then a tiny voice from the back of the van, 
Yaaaahhhh..... followed by the sound of screeching brakes....

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jeanette Wimpee" <geenet at centurytel.net>
To: "Rockhounds at drizzle.com: A mailing list for rock and gem collectors" 
<rockhounds at lists.drizzle.com>
Sent: Thursday, November 29, 2007 7:38 PM
Subject: Re: [Rockhounds] Accommodations


> Pete, you can send me a few of those sunrise pictures. I'd love to see 
> them.
>
> Glenn wants ME to tell the story of our night in Zion NP. Although not 
> officially a rockhounding trip (I'm not saying we ever took rocks out of a 
> PARK), it did involve rocks.
> We drove out to Utah in '93 to take our girls to BYU for a youth event. We 
> left them in Provo and took off for our first tour of Utah.  Before we 
> left home, we'd stowed our smallest tent in the car, just in case.  We 
> first went to St. George where we spent the night at the Holiday Inn then 
> in the morning, visited Feller Stone, a wholesale aquarium rock outfit 
> which supplied the pet store I worked for. Our sales rep there loaded me 
> up with rocks for my personal use, especially petrified wood. then we left 
> for Zion NP.  Somewhere, too far from St. George to turn back, we realized 
> we'd left our pillows at the Holiday Inn, so we called the motel from 
> Zion's visitor center and made plans to go back the next day to get them. 
> Hey, I love my down pillow!  We spent the afternoon exploring Zion and 
> since we wanted to do at least one of the hikes, AND...we had a pup tent, 
> we decided to spend the night in Zion.  We picked out a nice campsite 
> under a big cottonwood tree, and proceeded to set up our tent. Apparently 
> somebody, namely one or more of the girls, had used to tent to camp out in 
> the back yard, and didn't repack the tent with all the equipment. We had 
> one three of the four required poles, no stakes, and no ropes.  So we made 
> do with a ball of string out of the car's toolbox, a couple of 
> screwdrivers for pegs, and rocks in the corners to hold it down, and 
> arrrgggh no pillows.  Well, evidently a thick bed of cottonwood tree down, 
> and clothes for pillows makes good sleeping because that was one of the 
> more comfortable nights of camping we've ever had.  At least until just 
> before dawn....I awoke out of a sound sleep to the sound of distant 
> roaring.  I lay there wondering what the heck it was when the wind hit the 
> tent. Evidently there is something about the air heating up down in the 
> desert that sends a morning blast of wind up the canyon.  It only blew a 
> few minutes, just long enough to pull the "stakes" out and blow the tent 
> down on our heads, but the rocks kept it from blowing away.  We crawled 
> out and watched the most incredible dawn as the sun lit up the west side 
> of the canyon walls.  I grabbed the video camera and got about a minute of 
> the sunlight racing down the walls before the battery died....
> Remind me someday to tell what happened when we drove thru the Petrified 
> Forest later with a van full of petrified rocks from St. George....
> Jeanette
>    and Glenn
>
>
>>>  ...weirdest, most primitive (or high-end), most dangerous or coolest
>>>  place that members have camped, boarded or otherwise racked out during
>>>  a rockhound trip.
>>
>>
>>
> .  In the morning I was treated to about  the most magnicent
>> sunrise I'd ever seen; clouds and colors kept changing as the  sun moved 
>> up
>> toward the various hanging clouds and fog banks down low in the  valleys 
>> to the
>> south, and I took "gazilions" of pictures with my digital  camera.
>>
>> Pete Modreski, Denver CO
>>
>
> -- 
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