As we dug and accumulated treasures, most would be packed right after they'd been cleaned and separated, however, there were a special few which were pulled aside for our personal enjoyment, these special treasures were placed into our "Museum". The Museum was an area in the trailer where we could spread out some of our best finds as silent testimonials to the efforts we'd expended and as inspiration for things to come. We always had something killer here, how long it stayed on display, that was up to Jon, that and a higher power yet, the power of Noni! Noni is Jon's wife and everyday after we'd collected, Jon would make a selection of the finest we'd found and take them home to show Noni in hopes of receiving her blessings. Noni was tough on us a time or two, in fact, my big ten pounder, the only comment it received was that it was big! I'll definitely have to work harder!! Thankfully, we did mange some treasures worthy of Noni's highest ratings of approval and on those days, we all celebrated! The girl was an angel and she helped keep us all focused and aspiring.

Additionally helping to keep us focused and aspiring, we had Scott's midas touch when it came to cooking. Now truth be told, this was about as far away as I've ever gone from my own typical cooking routine of Cup O Noodles, cold chicken and a coke, but did I complain... oh no! Scott is an awesome BBQ'ing master and most every night we had his grill fired up and cooking something incredible and mouth watering. This wonderful fun began the first day I'd arrived in Reno when Scott informed me that he'd picked up dinner, a two pound porterhouse steak and king crab legs for each of us, yum, yum, yum! And rather then rushing to hamburger for the rest of our time together, we kept at this same over indulgent level and enjoyed many nights of rib-eyes, filet mignons, T-bones, king crab legs, shrimp, chicken and yes, I must confess, we even had one evening of hamburgers! When not eating on the mountain, we were indulging ourselves during our town runs by dining at the Atlantis Casino buffet or my other favorite dinner place, Sushi Boat. For early morning town runs, nothing beat the International House of Pancakes!

One day while on our way into town during a long multi day stretch where we were unable to mine because of the many forest fires burning all about us (Jon works as a member of the Reno Fire Department and during one intense week of thunder storm activity, there was over 60,000 acres burning in sixteen different forest fires, with his experience required to combat these blazes, we lost him until things settled down), we took a spur of the moment side trip to a spot where Scott had heard arrowheads had been found. Having never seen an actual arrowhead out in the wild, I was keen for the experience. He took us to a very nondescript area and there we branched out, searching among the bushes for treasure. We never did find any, though it was cool to see small chips scattered about here and there. With our water running low, I snapped off a couple photos and then we headed back to the truck to continue our town run.

Later, after escaping from the hustling, bustling insanity of the "real world" and back on the mountain, Scott and I enjoyed a quiet evening under the stars. There were times when the whole sky seemed filled with sparkling pin points of light. Seemingly static planets and stars, slow wheeling satellites and rare, shooting stars streaking across the heavens. We saw them all to varying degrees dependent on the moons cycle and the amount of light illuminating the night sky. And for me, it was wonderful, where I live, less then a hundred feet above sea level, I never get to see so many stars and until sleepiness called me away, I very much enjoyed gazing at their ever changing spectacle. Scott excelled here and where I'd head off to sleep earlier, always cursed to awaken first in the morning, he'd often stay awake longer and would each morning tell me of the things I'd missed. But, for all I missed, I did get to see the absolute coolest thing. I even took pictures to show Gloria. It was during the evening as the sun was beginning to set that two clouds became lit with beautiful green and red coloring. They were so wild looking all puffy and white and lined with colored bands, I'd heard of clouds with silver linings, but this was something completely different, something I'd never seen before and as close as I've ever come to a northern lights kind of experience. I can't tell you what was happening, but I can tell you that it was really neat and yes, it did show up in the photographs!

During the course of our dig, we really had some wonderful crystal collecting experiences...

Jon was working in the backhoe one day when from the cab he noticed a large, clear termination in the muck. With no one about, he used the bucket to retrieve the crystal. As he drew the bucket forward, the material surrounding the crystal seemed to rotate and the crystal disappeared. When next it showed, it did so as a smoky shaft rising up from the muck. Intrigued, Jon got out of the machine and happily retrieved his crystal, a nice scepter four and a half inches long. The scenario of clear over smoky is quite common and over the years, crystals of this type have been nicknamed "candlesticks" by collectors.

Gun Lap! One of Jon's pet terms that always produced a smile for both Scott and I. Gun Laps happened at the end of the day and often caught Scott and I by surprise. One second we'd be thinking we're finishing up and the next Jon gets that wild twinkle in his eye and starts getting all excited until finally he bursts out "Gun Lap", and Scott and I are off and running as the muck really starts to fly. One of the more memorable Gun Laps occurred back at camp after we'd shut down for the day. There, Scott and Jon set the bucket up with its first set of heavy duty "rock teeth". These vicious looking two pronged teeth when installed were just too much for Jon and no sooner were they in place then he was revving up the engine and shifting the tranny and heading right back up to the pit, that magic Gun Lap twinkle filling his eyes!

Boomerangs boxes, ever heard of them? No, me neither, that is until one day when Scott mentioned a very strange thing that had happened to him. As he described the event, I quietly shook my head and wondered if he'd been in the sun too long and never thought another thing of it until about two weeks later, the same crazy thing that had happened to Scott, happened to me. We were both up in the pit when those crazy "Zephyr" winds began to gust and blow. In the dictionary here beside me, one of the descriptions for a zephyr is "a gentle breeze", not the case here! In Nevada they call their fierce crazy winds Zephyrs, here in Washington, we call them Chinooks, and either way, when they show, they do so with a vengeance! First it happened to Scott and then, exactly as he described it, the same thing happened to me, we experienced boomerang boxes! It was crazy, all of a sudden, out of nowhere, the world would explode in fierce whipping winds that caught up dust and rocks and anything else that wasn't held down and flung them about in a fury. While digging in pockets, both of us had an empty specimen flat ripped away and we watched amazed as the box danced and twirled and then whip, and it came right back around to us, darn near to the places they'd originally flown from and then as quick as I can write and you can read, the wind died away and we were left stunned and open mouthed the boxes back beside us. Weird, cool but weird, boomerang boxes!

Jon had a couple of quotes which I very much enjoyed, one of these happened when I showed Jon the big ten pounder. He was working in the backhoe and spotted me coming towards him from the corner of his eye holding that big glassy crystal high and smiling like a crazy man. He shut down the machine and with his eyes wide, he opened the cab door and said in a hushed voice, " I couldn't believe what you were showing me was a crystal, it was just too big!" Yes, that's what I'm talking about! Another great quote happened one afternoon under the blazing sun as he held up two incredible amethyst crystals Scott and I had found, one from the other day that he'd brought back up the hill to show off and one that had just been found, he said, "I don't think I've ever held two nicer amethysts on the hill, one in each hand!" These were good days!

And finally, what's a little blood? I hate working with gloves. I abhor the loss of feeling and would rather just be careful and use my bare hands. Of course, using this strategy, it's only a matter of time until the rock or a splintered quartz shard gets ya and that's when the blood flows. No problem, a little blood often equates to lots of crystals and most days, that's a good swap one for the other! I had occasion to take this to a whole new level when on two different evenings, while walking the pit before dinner, I located and worked into pockets using just my bare hands. Oh, for a bar or a screwdriver, but alas, with none to be had, I began working, prying and wiggling. On both occasions I found crystals, the need for bandages and the opportunity to smile broadly as afterwards, I enthusiastically showed Scott my new treasures and war wounds all the while heroically proclaiming my sacrifice. We're having fun now!

A hundred other little things marked the course of our days and unfortunately, some of these experiences were less then inspiring, like gloping on sun lotion for the millionth time or visiting the "Angry Chair" or confronting folks, "Snipers" we called them, who came up to dig on the claim without permission.

Other things made me sad, like missing Gloria, or missing our Anniversary and Fathers Day. Others things were incredibly annoying, the beep-beep-beep of the backhoes back-up alarm, being a perfect example, beep-beep-beep... Arrg! Thankfully, at least in this one instance, I had the makings for a better day, I had my CD's and listened to all my favorites for a little peace of mind. Some music, some dirt under the ol' finger nails and a good crystal pocket yawning before ya and you've got all the makings of an awesome day! And near unsung, everything was accompanied by our sweat, the thawing of our ice, and the beauty that surrounds.

And we dug and we dug and we dug and the days went by, one followed by another in much the same way as one crystal pocket often followed another. Some days were absolutely intoxicating, so much treasure was found and then there were other days, days that drug slowly by, excruciating hour after sun-blasted hour. Still, always, we kept our spirits high and worked as hard as we could, enthusiastic for the opportunity of being there. Mucking and hoeing and prying and probing to hopefully, with a bit of luck, produce a pocket or worthy crystal.

Jon worked his way into some really exceptional pockets while in the machine and afterwards while probing the walls after a good scraping, and if not in a pocket myself, it was fun to just sit back and watch him recovering treasure. I enjoyed this experience with Scott too on dozens of occasions, I might not have found their pockets, but I could sure share in the experience of collecting it! I found it fascinating to watch their differing techniques as they'd peel open the wall, extracting a treasure riddled assemblage of loose dirt, crystals and crystal fragments from an ever widening black space.

The appearance of many of these collapsed and crushed pockets upon their first exposure as mentioned previously was often less then inspiring, but with further efforts, from among the rubble, beautiful treasure would often appear and specimen by specimen, the first flat would fill followed by the next and the next and one crystal would become ten and ten a hundred and a hundred a thousand and it was good and it was very satisfying! We worked and we toiled and we enjoyed the fruits of our labor, cherishing not just the specimen, but the entire experience.