Rockhound

We spent the afternoon going through my father-in-law's storage unit, sorting through all the garbage to find anything worth saving. It was stuffed to the gills with tools, specimens of minerals and rocks he’s collected over the years, lots of newspapers and magazines. Now that the house is sold, this is the last repository. Martin kept his mining equipment there, but it was stuffed with much more. His dad loved prospecting, but he also loved going out in the hills, digging for agate, jasper, thunder eggs, and especially sapphires. I had no idea he made so many trips to Montana to dig for them. It’s sad… it’s something he and I could have shared over the years, if he’d just told us what he was doing. Such a secretive man. We set aside all of his specimens, but no one in the family shares his passion, so they will probably end up in the dump unless the Boeing club will take them off our hands.

We hauled one load of trash to the Highlands dump, then decided to finish up today rather than come back and get the recycling another day. It only took three trips to get rid of all the paper. Dave suggested dinner and a beer at the Dog & Pony, which sounded great to me. Back to the dump with recycling, then to the D&P. I stayed pretty clean today, but Dave is a grub! Oh well, they won't mind. We got a parking spot (a miracle), cleaned up, and ordered beer and food and settled down for a nice couple of hours.