Connecticut gems and minerals from an abandoned mine locale near Trumbull, Connecticut, and garnets from a location that is now closed off for rockhounding and the public, in Roxbury, Connecticut.
Here are Connecticut Gems and Minerals:
Texas Fossils
Texas Fossils
Petrified wood, fossilized wood from Houston, Texas and from Hempstead, Texas.
New York Fossils
New York Fossils
Tentaculites from Upstate New York, outside of Schoharie.
Rockhounding ABCs – “Food of the Rockhound Gods”
“Food of the Rockhound Gods”
From many different rockhound trips, each one longer than we had originally planned, we developed a strategy for food and water that helps preserve space in your pack, and to reduce and avoid waste. Rockhounds follow the creed to leave an area in the same, or better shape than how you found the area. Remember that after rockhounding, you are leaving with more, and quite a lot heavier material than at the beginning of the day. Rockhounds always carry out their trash, but there are tips and strategies to minimize trash, and to work with the environment, not against it.
- Food that requires no packaging, and that discards itself in the woods is ideal. Oranges, bananas, and apples are ideal because they leave behind rind, peel, and core that will degrade in the woods.
- If you bring snacks like nuts, raisins, other dried fruit, bars, or event meats and cheeses and place them beforehand in plastic bags, you can use those same plastic bags for the crystals and stones you collect on the trip.
- Instead of bringing a number of small water bottles, we bring a gallon jug per rockhound so that afterwards you are recycling one plastic bottle, instead of a dozen plastic bottles.
- Wet naps! Rockhounding is dirty business, you no that going into this hobby or obsession, but wet naps can save the day, and we always appreciate a fresh wet nap, so stock up on them, and be sure to carry them out with you.
The strategy is to consume all the food you bring, with minimal plastic waste to return by repurposing any plastic bags. We always make it a tradition after every rockhounding trip to plan in advance where we will celebrate with a steak and a baked potato.
Rockhound, and eat, drink, and be merry!
Flea Market Memories from the Hell’s Kitchen Flea Market
With December 30, 2018 closing of the Hell Kitchen Flea Market, American Geode wanted to share some stories about our time at the famous flea market.
The buyers, early birds really, start arriving at the flea market around 6am, just as the flea market dealers are unloading. This way the buyers can get good deals, and ask for a discount in return for buying a piece before the dealer ever has to set up their table. One time American Geode was setting up, and a dude dressed all in black, who looked like he was returning from being at one of the clubs all night, walked by our table. I think the guy was tripping, or wigging, or rolling by the looks of his eyes, and his acute fascination with geodes.
He asked dozens of questions, and followed our answers by replying “Cool!” Finally, he said “How much?” We said $20, and he grabs a wadded up, rolled up $20 out of his pocket, hands it to us, picks up a golf ball sized Indiana geode, and continued down 39th street, to 10th avenue. I am fairly certain that when he woke up early that evening, and he found a round rock in his pocket, and a missing $20, he is going to wonder what the hell happened.
At another flea market day, we had something special in addition to our classic Indiana geodes for the crowds. We had a large taxidermy bear, intact from the waist up, with both paws extended in “attack form,” and a growl on the face of the Cinnamon Bear from Canada. A gentleman came by, interested in it, and started telling us that he recently broke up with his boyfriend, and he wanted to complete remodel his apartment to look like a Victorian England parlor. The Victorian England parlor style is filled with many different objects of curiosity and rarity. Think the parlors where Sherlock Holmes lived and worked on cases!
The gentleman had no way to carry it back to his apartment however, so we figured we had shared a fun, and funny conversation with a nice New Yorker, and left it at that. About an hour later however, the gentleman returns with one of those giant blue plastic and fabric bags from Ikea. He was able to fit the bear halfway through the bag, enough to sling it over his shoulder, and we watched him proceed to walk down 39th, toward 9th, with a growling bear sticking out of his bag over his shoulder!
American Geode will always remember our time at the famous Hell’s Kitchen Flea Market, a memorable, historic institution that we are sad to see close down, but thankful for the memories, and the help getting American Geode’s gem, mineral, geode, fossil, and curiosity business off the ground!