HALLOWEEEEEEEEEENNNNN

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!!!!

I know this isn't a real post or even related to my blog at all but I had to do a Halloween post. 

So umm random halloween stuff...

Pumpkin carving

Costumes

And most of all... CANDY!!!

so that was my halloween with my friends :) ok umm 

~~~Rockhound Out~~~

Geocaching

If you don't know what geocaching is, you are just.... a muggle. That is the literal term for it I kid you not. So basically, geocaching is an online/outdoor treasure hunt. you download coordinates from this site geocaching.com onto a GPS (or the geocaching app if you have a smartphone) and follow the coordinates to a location. They are all over the world. There is even a geocache in the International Space Station! So once you get to the location, you have to look for a container of some kind, whether it be an ammo can or a thing we call a "nano" which is this really super tiny container that is smaller than a dime around, cylindrical, and like a half an inch long.
So inside these containers, there is a log, which people who visit and find the cache sign, and depending on the size, there may be SWAG (stuff we all get) which is just little toys or trinkets that you can trade inside the caches.
When you find a cache, the first thing you should do is sign the log with your team name, which you make at the website. this keeps track of all your finds and places (if you decide to place any) and tells you where new caches are that you can find. My family and I have found over 300 caches, which may seem like a lot, but there are some people who have over 25,000 finds.
pic of geomate
How I first got started on this was one Christmas my family got me a Geomate Jr., a GPS designed especially for geocaching. We went to the park next to my house immediately after we finished opening, me with my new GPS and my younger sister with her new bike.( I live in Arizona, so there wasn't any snow.) We found two caches that day just at the park. The next day we left for Quartzite, a small town in the middle of nowhere in the desert in AZ. There are a ton of caches there, since there are tons of places to hide even bigger caches in the desert. We climbed "Q" Mountain in search of one, before realizing that the cache was actually down the other side near an abandoned mine shaft entrance. We didn't find it, since my mom thought it wasn't safe for my sister, 4 at the time, and I, 9 at the time, to be near an open abandoned mine entrance. Ehhh, well now I kind of see her point, but at the time I was pretty disappointed. It was my first DNF (did not find).
While we were in Quartzite, we also tried gold panning in the desert but had no luck where we tried.

So that's this week's story, hope you enjoyed!

 

~~~Rockhound out!~~~

Amazing Agate

What up crystals! so this post is gonna be about this week's "featured rock" which is Agate! I love how it looks when its polished but its even more awesome when its just rough and hasn't been polished or cut or anything.

This is one of my favorite agates that I have. My grandparents got it for me as a Christmas present last year and I was so excited! (I know, who gets excited about rocks for Christmas? Answer: Me) but I got these and a few smaller polished ones and I was so excited!

These are called fire agates because of their fiery red color and the pattern of the stripes on them. I got these along with the bigger agates above.

this is another way that you see agates, and its a lot more common than the other two. Personally, it is my least favorite of the three.
What do you think? comment below which one you like best!

Another random one that I love is called snakeskin agate because of the color and pattern on the outside.

Sneak peek into next week: they look like a rock and are one, but didn't used to be. They now dwell on land but used to live in the sea.

 

~~~Rockhound out!~~~

You had what?!?!

Hey there crystals! Ok so this post is gonna be personal experiences that are semi relevant :) Ok so last year when I went to the tuscon rock show (I know I talk about this too much but I go every year for a weekend since I was 6 so I have lots of experiences there) and when we (me and my mom) were at the gas station at COSTCO for goodness sake there was a guy in a jeep in front of us. That wasn't the weird part though. What was weird was what he had in the trunk of his car. It was a Tyrannosaurus Rex skull. Like an actual fossil dinosaur head in the back of his jeep. Me and my mom were just cracking up at this and I wish I had taken pictures but I didn't cuz my phone was dead :/. So when I told my stepdad first my mom was upstairs unpacking and then he was like I don't believe you so I just said ask mom. And he did and she said it actually happened and I was just sitting there like I TOLD you it happened... Seriously. Ok sorry this post didn't have any pictures I promise the next one will.

 ~~~Rockhound out!~~~

Volcanoes and Vacations

Hey everyone its the crystal chick! ok so I'm pretty sure you guessed from the title, but this post is about lava. Well, its cooled forms anyway. Once it is cooled, lava can take on many different forms, such as various crystals, a type of glass called obsidian, and pumice or basalt.

This is what you generally think of when you see a volcanic rock right? well that's not all there is to volcanic rocks.

This is one of my favorite volcanic rocks. Its either called olivine or peridot, and is the birthstone of August. It is normally green with black pieces in it. I actually almost went to a place in Hawaii that had a beach entirely made of olivine. ALMOST. Well, I wish I did. It was "too hard of a hike" for my 8 year old sister with asthma, and since I couldn't go down the mile long, extremely steep hike alone, I didn't get to go.

This is volcanic glass, also known as obsidian. I actually did go to a beach made of this on my trip. it was called Punalu'u Beach and the entire beach was pitch black.

See what I mean by pitch black? This was a picture I sent to my best friend when I was at the beach sitting in the sand. I was watching the sea turtles sleeping on the sand and when the tide came up, they let the water carry them back to the ocean.

Ok, little off topic there, but I just thought I would share my relevant experiences on Tuesdays and have my "featured rock" on Fridays. This post is combined because sorry I was busy on Tuesday (too much homework ugh) and couldn't find time to post.

Sneak peek into next week: it's striped,curly,curvy,or straight and it comes in all the colors of the rainbow!

~~~Rockhound out!~~~

Perfect Pyrite

What up crystals! Ok so this post's featured rock has got to be one of my absolute favorites of all time. Even though it is normally called by its more common name "fool's gold" it is actually its very own kind of rock. You guessed it, its Pyrite!

One of the things I love about this so much is how many different shapes it can take and still be the same rock! These pictures of cube pyrite occur like this in nature all on its own, and it wasn't carved or anything!

So this is a picture of one of my favorite rocks that I have in my collection. It's fluorite(purple) with quartz(white) and Druzy pyrite(gold) on it. Druzy just means it is a bunch of small crystalline structures bunched together. 

 Sneak peek into next week: Its black, grey or green, or somewhere in between, and can be rough or smooth all over. Try to figure that one out! See you next week I post every Tuesday and Friday!

~~~Rockhound out!~~~