[Rockhounds] Santa Barter Faire: cheap rocks!

[Axel Emmermann]

Don,

Thank you for sharing. I enjoyed this one immensely ;-)))
I'll look up Johnny Maestro on i-Tunes. I've been wielding cows on this list
but never before have I even considered playing music for them.
Please keep us posted if the music of this artist has any effect on the
quality of dairy products in Idaho.

I've been in a similar situation in Austria. Noticing that you are in the
wrong valley after climbing 1200 meters in 8 kilometers of wading through
cow dung is not relaxing. Did you know that it's always the cow wearing the
large bell that attacks you? (It is, really!)
If memory serves me, we went looking for the same locality the day after and
found ourselves (after misleading directions from a local farmer) on the
wrong side of a gorgeous but DEEP gorge on a cattle trail. Did you know that
cows have no fear of heights? They won't cross a bridge unless it has a roof
and walls (hence Madison County) but they do not hesitate to tread on a
narrow ledge protruding from a near vertical cliff of several hundred meters
high. My wife decided there and then that no mineral is worth dying for so
we returned empty handed.

Cheers
Axel


> -----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
> Van: rockhounds-bounces at lists.drizzle.com 
> [mailto:rockhounds-bounces at lists.drizzle.com] Namens DonH
> Verzonden: zondag 9 september 2007 2:16
> Aan: Rockhounds at drizzle.com: A mailing list for rock and gem 
> collectors
> Onderwerp: Re: [Rockhounds] Santa Barter Faire: cheap rocks!
> 
> John Siebel wrote:
> 
> > For anyone who may be in the neighborhood this weekend, the Santa 
> > Barter Faire is happening Friday 9/7 through Sunday. Santa 
> is about 20 
> > miles SE of St. Maries, Idaho
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> Being about 1.5 hrs. from Santa, and likely the only person 
> on the list besides John able to go, and not having seen the 
> Siebels for a while, I decided to take a ride.
> 
> The day started in the cool 60's with no clouds.  I had a 
> nice ride up to Santa.  Despite John's directions I wasn't 
> sure where to turn off, but I saw a Sheriff's dputy helping a 
> disabled vehicle so I asked him. 
> He said, "oh, you must want the Barter Faire, here's where 
> you go...." 
> and off I went.
> 
> The road was unpaved and dusty, and I was behind two other 
> vehicles, so the car got nicely floured.  Windshield wipers 
> are good for fine dust as well.  As I got close to the spot, 
> I could not believe the number of cars parked along the road. 
>  As I walked up, there were two large hand-painted signs: "NO 
> ALCOHOL"  "NO DRUGS".  People were camped everywhere.  John 
> was not exaggerating, in fact he understated the case: 
>   there were more tie-dyed clothes, pot-leaf t-shirts, and 
> water pipes 
>    in sight than has ever been at the accumulated total of 
> all Grateful Dead concerts.  I was certainly the only one 
> there clean-shaven with a crew cut, though there was a few 
> college kids out to see the sights (or at least I assume they 
> were; they had on clean jeans and t-shirts and had caps on 
> backwards).  Forgive me ladies, but I also saw more bra-less 
> women in peasant halters than I've ever seen in my life too.  
> A number of people were playing conga drums, none of them in 
> rhythm with each other.  I should note at this point that, 
> after looking very hard, I never did find John Siebel, and 
> was disappointed!
> 
> Back to the important part: there were about three vendors 
> with rocks to barter or sell.  One fellow had some nice loose 
> euhedral and subhedral garnets up to 1 cm in a dish, along 
> with some nice broken chunks of the lavender/purple star 
> garnet rough.  Not being inclined to try to orient and cab 
> some star garnet rough, I picked some nice sharp crystals, 
> including some twins, eight of them in all.  When I started 
> looking he had said "we can do a deal if you get a bunch of 
> stuff," but given how things are in the world today, I was 
> expecting the original price to be typical retail.  I also 
> bought a few pounds of knapping obsidian for one of my new 
> neighbors who said he can't find anything to knap around here. 
>   I braced myself as I asked, "what is the total for all 
> this?"  It was ten dollars!  That was a very fair price for a 
> bag full of stuff.
> 
> All in all, there was more rough than anything else; some 
> picture stones, and some lacy agates (good lord don't ask me 
> all the colloquial names of rocks).  However these things 
> were going for pretty low prices, with bulk discounts, and 
> any local lapidary would have done well to stock up.  Except 
> for the garnets, there wasn't much worthwhile in mineral specimens.
> 
> After buying a nice bag of rocks, I got some Chinese ginger 
> candy and a yak sausage and yak jerky.  Then I took the dusty 
> road back.  It was quite an experience, and now I know a 
> little bit of what Woodstock must have been like.
> 
> On the way home I stopped at the Elk River Country Cafe (in 
> Elk River with a population of 170) which, believe it or not, 
> has been voted for the best hamburger in the region, and even 
> better, was featured in the New York Times travel section on 
> July 1 for having the best huckleberry cobbler in the 
> northwest!  Well the fine fellow who owns the place was proud 
> as a peacock over that one, waving the paper around.  Of 
> course that's why I made the detour, and I nodded in 
> agreement as I rapidly spooned the tart purple cobbler into 
> my mouth as fast as I could swallow.
> 
> On the way there and back it was open range day--cows 
> chilling in the road everywhere.  While waiting for them to 
> decide what to do, I played my music and sang songs for them. 
>  I had my Johnny Maestro CD.  For the record, they seem 
> annoyed at "The Worst That Could Happen," but are msemerized 
> by "Welcome Me Love."
> 
> Well, sorry that 95% of this was NOT about rocks, but people 
> seem to like the colorful trip reports that others post.  So 
> there is mine!
> 
> Best,
> Don
> 
> 
> 
> 
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