SUMMER VACATION & FUN IDEAS
Vacation and Fun
What Is A Ghost Town?
At your Summer Ideas you can get a variety of ideas for you Summer Fun. Do you like hiking or adventuring? Ever wonder what a ghost town was? Have you always wanted to explore a ghost town and see how the old occupants use to live? Ghost town exploring can be fun and educational, sometimes even good exercise if you have to hike into it. If you ever wondered about where they are or what they are....just keep reading. Good Luck and Happy Hunting. Take a look at the photo gallery for Ghost Town Pictures and Rock Hounding Pictures.
What is a Ghost Town? 
A ghost town, is any historical town or site that leaves evidence of a town's previous existence. This could be in many forms -- all businesses closed, municipal services at a minimum, rubble and old nails strewn about, ruins of former buildings, and so on. Some places that are categorized as ghost towns; however, still have people living in them and though sometimes they don't want to be called a ghost towns, most historians will continue to reference them that way if the reason or purpose for it's original "boom" is gone. This would include places like Tombstone, Az., Cripple Creek, Co., Madrid, NM and many other's.
Some Ideas on what to look for to identify a Ghost Town:
Scattered rubble or site where nature has reclaimed the land
Roofless buildings or partially demolished buildings
Boarded up or abandoned buildings, no population
A community with many abandoned buildings and a small population of residents
Historic community or town, functional, but much smaller than in its boom years
A restored town, state park, or replica of an old town, community or fort
Ghost Towns DO have a CODE of ETHICS
I WILL NOT
Destroy, damage or deface any buildings or other structures.
Disturb any structures that are locked or appear to be occupied.
Remove anything from the site other than obvious trash such as candy wrappers, soft drink cans, etc.
Enter a site that is posted as "No Trespassing" without permission.
Take in a metal detector without the permission of the owner. These are often the badge of a vandal to local residents.
Some Information on Where To Find a Ghost Town
There are many ghost towns, or semi-ghost towns in the American Great Plains, whose rural areas have lost a third of their population since 1920. There are more than 6,000 abandoned sites of settlement in the state of Kansas alone. Thousands of communities in the northern plains states like North Dakota, South Dakota, and Montana became railroad ghost towns when a rail-line failed to materialize. Hundreds more were abandoned when the US Highway System replaced the railroads as America's favorite mode of travel. Ghost towns are common in mining or old mill town areas: Washington, Colorado, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Montana, Minnesota, and California in the western United States and West Virginia in the eastern USA. They can be observed as far south as Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Georgia and Florida. When the resources that had created an employment boom in these towns played out, eventually the businesses ceased to exist, and the people moved on to more productive areas. Sometimes a ghost town consists of many old abandoned buildings (like in Bodie, California), other times there are simply structures or foundations of former buildings ( Graysonia, Arkansas). Even some of the earliest settlements in the US are or have been ghost towns, such as Jamestown, Virginia and the Zwaanendael Colony in Delaware, and the famous Lost Colony in North Carolina.
Old mining camps that have lost most of their population at some stage of their history, such as St. Elmo, Colorado; Central City, Colorado; Aspen, Colorado; Virginia City, Montana; Marysville, Montana; Tombstone, Arizona; Deadwood, South Dakota; Park City, Utah; Crested Butte, Colorado; or Cripple Creek, Colorado are sometimes included in the category, although they are active towns and cities today.
Click The Link Below To Find A Ghost Town Near You
Ghost Town Pictures
See my pictures of my recent July 2008 trips to Ashwood, Antelope, Horse Heaven ghost towns and mines in the Photo Gallery
Rock Hunting For Fun
At your Summer Ideas you can find a new hobby. Rock hunting is a great form of exercise and if you know where to go you can find some real treasures. Rock collecting is like mushrooming or bird watching. There is something of the treasure hunt in going out into nature with the purpose of finding rocks and minerals. Once hooked - it's hard to stop.
If you are interested in some hands on experience collecting rocks there are books with maps and descriptions of rock collecting sites within a given geographical location. Often abandoned quarries on public land, or locations that offer good examples of rocks formed from a particular kind of geographical event are hard to find places off on dirt roads or on old untended trails. It's often hit or miss but the finds can be truly remarkable. Today we will cover the THUNDER EGG.
According to ancient Native American legend, when the Thunder Spirits living in the highest recesses of snowcapped Mount Hood and Mount Jefferson became angry with one another, amid violent thunder and lightning storms they would hurl masses of these spherical rocks at each other. The hostile gods obtained these weapons by stealing eggs from the Thunderbirds' nests, thus the source of the name "Thundereggs."
A Thunderegg is not actually a rock. It is a structure, sometimes a nodule, sometimes a geode, occurring in rhyolite, welded tuff, or perlitic rocks. However, without question, the Thunderegg is by far the most popular "rock" in Oregon.
Scientists do not agree on the processes forming Thundereggs. Some insist that the characteristic and unique internal pattern of typical Thundereggs is due to expansion and rupture of rock by gases. Others claim the pattern is due to desiccation (drying) of a colloid or gel. Whatever the process, after the cavity that contains the egg is formed, further development is extremely variable in the amount of time needed to complete the egg, degree and type of infilling, and physical characteristics.
Thundereggs range in size and weight from less than an inch and under one ounce to over a yard in diameter and over a ton in weight. Most eggs collected are between two and six inches in diameter.
Typically, an egg has a russet-colored outer shell that is often knobby and often has a characteristic ribbed pattern. Frequently, the inside of the outer shell has a relatively thin intermediate or transitional lining. This is sometimes composed of an iron or manganese compound, often with a thin coating of opal or chalcedony. Sometimes only opal or chalcedony is apparent. Finally, the center of an egg is usually filled with chalcedony or opal and may or may not have inclusions, pattern growth, or crystals. In some variants, the egg may be hollow or may have a thin layer of chalcedony coating the interior.
This layer sometimes is topped with a coating of small quartz crystals. Growths of algalike tubes, or plumes, or "moss" of manganese or iron compounds or of clay may be free standing or partially or wholly embedded in chalcedony. Some eggs with plumes ("flowers") in chalcedony are among the most valuable specimens. Several zeolites have been observed or reported in Thundereggs; clinoptilolite is fairly common, and mordenite, natrolite, and mesolite have also been reported.
Thundereggs are sometimes found with fortification banding just inside the shell, then an area of horizontal layering, with the remaining central area filled with clear chalcedony or inward-pointing quartz crystals. Banding and layering vary in color, thickness, and content. Some layers are composed of a fibrous cristobalite (lussatite). Other eggs have a partial botryoidal filling of an opal form of low cristobalite. This opal is often fluorescent because of a low content of uranium salts. One collecting site in Oregon has eggs filled with carnelian. At another, the filling may contain cinnabar, which colors it pastel to intense red. Some eggs are filled with pastel jaspers. Others may have any one of a variety of opal fillings that may be opaque blue, opaque red, translucent pastel blue, translucent yellow, translucent red, white, or colorless. Some of the opal can be faceted, and a small percentage is true precious opal.
Thundereggs can be collected at many sites in Oregon. Some localities occur in beautiful forested hill country, others in dry, desertlike terrain. Some are "free sites," while others are "fee sites." As Thundereggs have been collected in Oregon for fifty years, collectors on "free sites" must expect to dig and work for the eggs. Proper equipment, including shovel, pick, and bar, makes the job much easier. The "fee site" will almost always have some preparatory work (overburden removal) done. Eggs often may be purchased and equipment rented at the site office. Conditions change, so collectors should contact sites for current fee status and appropriate authorities for permission to dig.
So there you have it, Thunder Egg Hunting in Oregon. I have hunted at Richardson's Ranch and love all the different beds and quarries they have to dig from. Here is a link to their website.
Richardson Ranch Gallery
See pictures from my trip in July 2008 to Richardsons in the Photo Gallery.
Rockhounding, Treasure Hunting, Gold Prospecting
All kinds of information at DesertUSA on rockhounding, gold, deserts geology you name it.
If you are going to take up rockhounding here are a few things you will need.
Things You’ll Need:
- Rock and Mineral Identification Guide
- Rock Hammer
- Hand Lens