RockhoundingVideos.com - From The-Vug.com

Several years back, when I was just a teenager, they cut a great big wedge out of the mountain of western Maryland so that the I-68 could pass through.

This road cut is called Sideling Hill, and has become a popular stop to rest and learn a little geology.

Justin, Amber (My Sister), and I stopped and filmed it as an extra feature for the Fossils of West Virginia.

Apparently black bears are some what common in the area, however I have never seen one.

The shale here has fossils, although you can’t collect them.

They built a walkway over the highway so you can get a better veiw.

Big brother is watching you.

After putzing around Sideling Hill, we headed to the Cumberland MD to check out another fossil location. Much like the other fossil locations, this one was also a road cut, back in the country.

We combed through the shale pile to see what we could find.

We were not disappointed.

Everything needed to be carefully wrapped, luckily Amber had lot’s of practice from back in the day when she helped us pack mineral specimen orders.

Justin even uncovered a nice quartz crystal.

However the best part was getting to spend time with my sister.

While driving to our first collecting location of the day, Justin and I saw a sign for the Musuem & Gravesite of Buffalo Bill Cody. Always up for a historical roadside attraction, we decided that we would have to take a moment to give it a look.

The actual Grave of Buffalo Bill.

We finished our visit off with root-beer floats.

We stopped at quite a few other locations, but none of them were of any interest.

But there were lots very pretty purple flowers.

By the time we reached leadville, we were excited to not only have found a location that was open, but one that was for interesting Feldspar crystals, one of Justin’s very favorite minerals.

However, Feldspar wasn’t the only thing we found.

Too bad we couldn’t make it to Mount Antero this time around.

The Yellow Cat Flat has a region known as the “Poison Strip”. It is so named due to the massive amounts of selenium and radioactive minerals that are found there. Always on the look out for new stock for RadioactiveMinerals.com, we spent the day exploring the area. These mines were closed in the 60’s, once regualtions changed, and demand for uranium declined.

Most of the mines were gone without a trace, but the one we found was completely closed up, and the minerals in the dumps has long since decompossed, leaving nothing behind but bright yellow powder, and some super freaky selenium filled pools that for some reason people were collecting water from.

However we did find some more agate.

After a rather uneventful day, we decided to drive to Moab to camp for the evening.

Camal Spider

12 miles outside of town, right after the rest area, is the classic roadside attrtaction, “Hole N the Rock”.

Also at the rest area, is a rock that looks like a guinea pig. (from the right angle)

The town of Moab is quite the vaction spot for people who like camping, hiking and outdoors activities. Just north of town is the entrance to Arches National Park.

Although you might have never actually heard of Arches National Park, you have certainly seen pictures of some of the famous geological formations within its boundries.

These famous natural sandstone arches are created be wind and water erosion.

I had always wanted to go there, and since we had the time, we decided that we would go for a couple a hours before we filmed the remaining locations for the “Moab Vdieo”.

Since we do so much hiking every day, we decided to only walk the trails around the windows.

We were finished in the park by about 3pm, so we still had penty of time to film two more locations before calling it a day. The first location of was for agates at DuBinky Well.

The 2nd location was for calcite on Klondike Bluffs Road, outside the back of the National Park, on BLM land.

Then it was off to Green River for a $40 hotel room! Good thing too, I hadn’t had a shower in days.