Well, as you can see from my page, I am staying quite busy again this past year with the Rock Guide work in southeast Missouri. I currently have about ten locations I can take groups of rockhounds to collect at on a bucket fee basis, $ 30 per five gallon bucket a rockhound fills to take home, paid to the landowner. I have a guide fee of five dollars, payable to me by donation only, and many tip me as well for my Guide Services…I will take you to areas where you can surface collect pretty rocks, or dig out pretty rocks, and I will even help you dig if requested, or show you how to use your tools to dig without damaging the pretty rocks. However I don`t  lift filled buckets into transport Utility Vehicles like Side by Sides, or Razors…most of the Landowners will do that for you and transport you back to your vehicle as well.

I hurt my lower back on a Rescue Call many years ago one snowy night when only 8 firefighters showed up to look for two young men lost on the river. We had to slide the steel rescue boat and motor down a hillside to the waters edge to launch it, and then afterward, pull it back up the hillside and put it back up on the trailer. Pretty sure all of us hurt our backs that night.

I did manage to drive out to New Mexico this year and several in my personal group of rockhound friends went with me again, with a few new folks joining us this year including 2 newbies to rockhounding. Somehow, still not sure how, but I picked up a stomach bug on the second day out there, was able to shake the fever that night, so I wasn`t contagious at least, but the side symptoms stayed with me til the evening before I headed home. I wasn`t able to eat any solid foods til that evening. I also wasn`t drinking enough water to stay hydrated, gatorade was about the only thing I was taking in during the day and maybe a banana or two each day. I was able to take my crew out each morning, and sometimes able to collect with them, a few days I stayed in the truck with Onyx and catnapped. Managed to make it back home the last day of the trip with a 14 hour drive and brought back about 600 lbs of crystals and minerals. Blanchard Mine was once again the highlight of the trip. I will post a separate story on it later today complete with photos.

Next trip will likely be the Central Kentucky trip, if it doesn`t get scrubbed or replaced, in early September.

The Missouri Trip which is normally this first week of April, has been rescheduled for October this year.

The Arkansas trip scheduled for the 2nd week of November, is still on and should be pretty good, have information that we will likely be able to go to a new claim that has blue and green wavellite and a privately owned quartz mine or two, might have to make it a 3 day weekend of collecting opportunities. Hope to have more info on it by end of July.

I no longer have my red Tacoma four door pickup…it served me well for the past ten and a half years, I managed to put about 309,432 miles on it during that time of driving it. It had 80,000 miles on it when I purchased it in 2015. I drove it up to an Indianapolis suburb end of November 2025 to look at a 2019 Tacoma TRD Pro pickup at a Toyota dealership on a very cold day, turned out to be their Black Friday sales day, but they were going to receive a foot of snow a few days later. Onyx went with me, as they are a dog friendly dealership, and we were up there nearly all day, but I drove home with it that evening…it is blue in color, Toyota calls it Voodoo Blue. 🙂