Gems and minerals

 - something to keep my mind off this horrible, no good, very bad day.

I have always loved semi precious stones.  When I was a kid, I had a small collection, and it's slowly grown over the years to include fossils and geodes.  I have visited a few caves in the past, including Moaning Caven in CA, Luray Caverns in VA, and Waitomo Caves in New Zealand.  This past weekend I added another California Cave to my list; on a whim we decided to visit Black Chasm Cavern.  Caves never seem to bore me, and I can't wait to explore my next one.

They also had geodes much bigger than the ones I had gotten as a kid - about the size of my fist!  I couldn't resist getting one.  Buddy cracked it open and revealed beautiful blue crystals on the inside.

I did a little more research on geodes and I'm obsessed with the idea of hunting for them now.  Apparently, you can just pick them off the ground in some places in California.  Maybe sometime in 2011, we'll get to go down to SoCal and go geode hunting!  :)