On the drive up, my wife Litha was slightly concerned about the amount of snow we were seeing, but I assured her it would be ok. I had been watching a website that showed snow cover in the area for a few weeks, and now it showed less than an inch (sure, in places). I had talked to someone on the phone in Rapid City, Michigan who said they still had two feet of snow in places. I had so much faith in the snow cover map, that I told Litha, if there was two feet of snow on the beach I would bare my hiney and sit in that snow! Well, it's a good thing she didn't "hold" me to that statement. Near the water's edge, the ice and snow pack was two feet thick and more in some places. I um, told her the ice and snow pack doesn't count.

Dispite the snow, there were still plenty of rocks exposed. Unfortunatly most were covered with last year's algae, an it was hard to tell one from another. As far as Petoskey Stones go, Cathead Bay was a bust, but I did find one specimen I thought was pretty darn cool. It's a large intact fossil coral colony.

It measures 13.5" long by 11" wide and 6"thick, and weighs 48.6 pounds. I probably carried this rock a quarter mile back to the van through rocks and snow.

Our next stop down the beach was Peterson Park.

My atlas showed a swimming beach here, but when we got there it was a fairly sheer cliff with no easy way down, and if we did get down safely, how would we get back up carrying rocks? It looks like a back pack will be next on my list of rockhounding tools. This park had a beautiful view, but we moved on south to more promising locales.

Our next stop was the municipal beach in Leland. Here there was much less snow than at our previous stops. There is a small public parking area with access to the beach.

I decided to wear my hip boots this time, and I'm sooo glad I did. This beach turned out to be so productive that we spent more time there than we intended.

I also learned what hypothermia must feel like, continually dipping my right arm in the ice water.

We started finding these "stones" that had the nicest shades of blue from turquoise to almost a lapis blue. After talking with some very nice local ladies (themselves rockhounds) we learned they were called "Leland Bluestone", and thanks to Mike Streeter's prowess with the Google search engine, we learned that this is actually a man made byproduct of the iron foundry that built the Leland Dam. Not a true stone, but very pretty and could be made into some nice jewelry. I think it's also an interesting part of local history.

I also found some nice pieces of red jasper and what I think is Unakite.

But the order of the day was Petoskey Stones, and I'm happy to say we weren't disappointed. We didn't find large pieces I was hoping for, but what was lacking in size was made up for in quantity. We even found some small Petoskey Cousins that are made mostly of white Calcite.

This natural Petoskey cabochon (below) has a fairly distinct image on it to my eye, but I don't want to influence the reader's impression, so I won't say what I think it is quite yet. I asked Litha what she thought it was, and she came up with something completely different, so let's see what you think.

And finally all my Petoskey Stone finds.

We left Leland around 3:00 and took the lovely drive across Lake Leelanau and through Orchard country. If I had known then what I know now, we would have stopped for some cherry wine tasteing. I wanted to get back to Traverse City before Davidson's Rock Shop closed, but we were too late. The Saturday hours closed at 2:00.

Oh, well, I had to work the next day, and we had a long drive ahead, so we set our sights for home, arriving shortly after sunset, providing a nice sort of symmetry to the the day's beginning.

It was a wonderful roadtrip to a unique part of the state we'd never have gone to if it weren't for my newfound obsession. My thanks go to Mike Streeter for his help with identification, and having this website to begin with.

KOR

Jim Adams