Here we are in Cadiz,CA smack dab in the middle of nowhere and I do mean nowhere. There is not a gas station, market, motel or commercial enterprise of any kind for about 50+ miles. God forbid if something should happen to us or the truck. We smartly loaded up with food, water & propane before venturing out here. We have been all over the Marble Mtns. looking for Hematite, Garnet, Epidote, Magnetite, and Trilobites.We have been lucky as we have found all that we hoped to find.

Yesterday was a tough digging day. We are staying at the base of part of the Trilobite Wilderness and the first time we went up we found nothing. We had an idea we were searching in the wrong spot and we were right. We came across a guy staying up here in a tent who is actively searching for a new Trilobite. He is a professional and knows his fossils so he showed us the Cambrian layer of rock to dig in to find these lovely  515 million year old fossils. We worked for over 5 hours in the beautiful sunny warm weather and found some excellent specimens. It was a challenge to get up to the site as it is an all shale trail and about 1/2 mile up a good slope. I really rely on my hiking poles when going up & down these slopes. If you start to fall you just sit down and steer with your feet and butt while you go down a little quicker than planned.

While we have been here we have seen 2 other rock clubs come and go-all searching the same sites we have. They had come from the California Coastal area to search here. UC@Davis uses this site for their students to look for fossils and learn about the geology of the area.

USC@Davis put in this nice site for its students

This tent site is quite elaborate for out here. It sits down out of the wind and has an outdoor privy complete with rock lined trail. Rail road tracks are close and their is lots of old wood to burn for fuel. It’s quite a site as you go up the hill. The pro we met up here has been here for 3 weeks and expects to be here for about 2 more while he digs new holes into the Cambria layer hoping to find his new Trilobite.

Jerry digging in our hole-about 5ft deep down

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a nice large Trilobite specimen

These are two specimens-some are tinted with orange minerals found in the soil while others are just shale colored. It is difficult to find a complete Trilobite but we sure came close.

this piece had more than one in it-the trowel came in handy as a splitter

Well from here we are off to the big town of Ludlow to do some more agate & onyx searching than on to the beach where we will surly be surrounded by fog and mist as we work our way back to the NW. It will be hard to give up the sun and nice weather we have had these past few weeks. We have had wind but don’t mind as our wind turbine has given us an extra boost of power especially at night.