Kentucky trip, day two. Finding the two faced rock.

After some much needed rest it was time to return to the creek. I don’t remember if I mentioned it in the first blog, but I was running on about three hours of sleep that first day. With my wife joining us this time, we also had another set of eyes. The weather was perfect, 72 degrees, sunny, with a nice cool breeze. The birds were singing, and the wild roses were in bloom.

Like I said, it was a perfect day, but I did have one concern. Agate is very heavy. It adds up pretty quickly, and I still had to drive out of the mountains to get back to Alabama. I wasn’t sure how much weight my SUV could handle, but I knew that I certainly didn’t want to break an axel while driving down the side of a winding mountain road. Not to mention, there were severe storms forecasted for the ride home. Good times.

We had found so many rocks and fossils on that first day that I suggested we only keep smaller ones that I could cut on my saw. That sounded like a good idea to everyone, and we gathered our gear and headed up the creek. We decided to begin where we had left off the day before.

I should explain something else. You are probably imagining us carrying heavy rocks down the mountain, but we were lucky, because we were able to drive most of the way along the side of the creek. So what we would do is walk up the creek and make piles along the bank as we went. After we were done, we would drive along and pick them up. We were not limited to only what we could carry by hand. Only by what I could carry back without destroying my vehicle.

We spent the next couple of hours making small piles along the creek bank as we went. I was being pretty good about only keeping smaller samples, but I have to confess that there were a couple larger ones that I just couldn’t leave behind. There did come a point when we stopped, and I declared that I had more than enough. We were all three standing in the creek looking around at the beauty of the place when I looked down. I was standing on a good sized rock, and I could see just a little orange on it. I looked a little closer and noticed that it was a rather large smooth looking agate bubble.

The rock was half buried in the mud on bottom of the creek. Kind of jokingly, I said to my brother that this rock would be a good one to bring home. To my surprise he asked me if I wanted it. Now I was fully aware that I was pushing the weight issue but being a Marine it’s not unusual for me to push the limit every now and again.

Now from what I could see there was really nothing special abut this particular rock. I could tell that it was heavy also, and it would add quite a bit more weight, but it was talking to me. This rock was putting off energy. Telling me that it wanted to come home with me. Before I realized it, I told him that if he wanted to dig it out that I’d take it. He had a small pry bar with him and he put it to use.

Let me tell you, this rock wasn’t giving up easily. Not to mention the fact that my brother isn’t in much better shape than I am. After a few minutes of him working on it, I began to feel a little bad. I was just to the point of telling him to forget about it when the suction broke. The rock slowly turned up and I saw the underside of it. I have to admit, I wasn’t impressed.

The rock just looked like a big muddy rock. Not much different than all the others that were laying around. I suppose most people would have left it there, but after all the effort my brother put into getting it out, I wasn’t about to suggest that. Instead I loaded it with the others, and we headed back to his house. I had brought my rock saw with me, and that evening we cut a few of the smaller ones open. Not one of those disappointed me. Kentucky has beautiful agate and quartz. It is truly a rock hunting paradise.

Early the next morning, with the SUV loaded, and its ground clearance reduced by a few inches, my wife and I began our trip home. The vehicle felt heavy, and I have to say that I was a little worried. It turned out that I was worried about nothing. The extra weight actually turned out to be a blessing. Remember the forecasted storms? Well we were lucky enough to skirt them entire drive home, but we did not avoid the wind. It was extremely windy, but the extra weight helped with that. For that reason it didn’t slow me down all that much. Fourteen hours later we pulled into our driveway and we were home.

For what ever reason I thought about that large muddy rock setting behind me all the way home. There was just something about it. When we arrived home the first thing I did, after unloading the vehicle, was to bring the rock to the wash rack. I had to know what was up with it. By the way, the wash rack is a wash rack when I clean rocks on it. When I clean fish, it’s a fish cleaning table. It’s nothing fancy about it. I placed the rock on the table, and the table wobbled a bit. I briefly thought about moving it somewhere else to clean it, but I had already waited too long. I had to know what the mud was hiding.

The obvious place to begin was to clean the side with the visible orange showing. I turned the water hose on, and adjusted it to the strongest stream possible. I aimed it at the top of the rock, and as the mud began to stubbornly dissolve, I couldn’t believe my eyes. I saw a pocket in the rock that was covered not only in large orange to yellow agate bubbles, but they had blue lines running through them. The agate looks like it has blood vessels running through it. It has the appearance of a living creature. Most people who have seen it say it reminds them of a brain.

Now this clay covering the rock was some sticky clay, and when I say sticky, I mean sticky. I had to break out the stiff bristled brush. It took around twenty minutes to clean that first side. When I was through I could see that the large bubbles transitioned into smaller ones. It was just beautiful.

After looking at the front for a few minutes, I reasoned that the other side must look pretty much the same. Boy was I wrong. As the mud began to reveal what it had been hiding for all this time, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. The rock tapered down into a wedge shape. The wedge was full of sparkling citrine crystals. Perfect beautiful yellow crystals.

Having Parkinson’s Disease it takes a lot of effort to smile. Needless to say, I don’t smile all that often. I wasn’t standing in front of a mirror, but I felt the biggest smile form on my face when I realized how special and beautiful this rock is. Like I said, I wasn’t looking in a mirror, but I believe I was smiling ear to ear. Even now, while writing this blog, I’ve smiled the whole time. Ideally the rock should be on a rotating stand, and shown off.

This next statement that I’m going to make probably doesn’t make a good salesman, but I must be honest. I don’t care if this one sells. I made a deal with myself though that I would give people a chance no matter what I find. This is one though that I wouldn’t be upset if it stayed in my collection. On the other hand, I would be just as happy if it went to somebody who gets just as much joy out of as I do. I do feel like there’s a reason I hauled that big muddy rock all that way.

It weighed in at 44 pounds. I’m not sure, but I feel like a couple million years ago this was a living coral. I say that because it was found on the ancient reef that this creek cuts through. Regardless, it is beautiful. I did just lower the price on it. The first time I priced it, I think I over priced it a bit. Subconsciously, I’m sure I was hoping nobody would buy it. I realized that, and didn’t feel all that good about it. Damn this conscience. Whoever does end up with it will be a very lucky person.

Thank you for reading. I’ll blog again soon, Tom.