[meteorite-list] First Meteorite Hunt

From: Todd Smith <lubbinv_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2010 19:17:13 -0600
Message-ID: <DBD5EBD9-8954-43DD-B6D8-FA47E71C98FB_at_gmail.com>

What a great story



On Nov 19, 2010, at 7:18 PM, Larry Atkins <thetoprok at aol.com> wrote:

> Abe,
>
> Congratulations!
>
> I love to here stories like this, I can feel your excitement and am very glad for you and your son. I remember as if it was yesterday when I found my first meteorite, what a great experience and sense of satisfaction.
>
> Keep up the good work and happy hunting!
> Larry
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Guenther &lt;abe.guenther at mnsi.net&gt;
> To: meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
> Sent: Fri, Nov 19, 2010 6:26 pm
> Subject: [meteorite-list] First Meteorite Hunt
>
> Here is a short story about a first time meteorite hunting experience.I live in an area of Canada that has not yielded any meteorites to speak ofso I knew I needed to look at hotter, dryer areas for the best chance at asuccessful first trip. I did over a year of research and planning before Ifinally made my decision where to go. I read countless success stories andwatched a lot of meteorite hunting shows and videos on YouTube beforenarrowing my search. Almost overwhelmed at all the places I could try, a fewweeks before the much awaited trip I decided on Nevada. Besides the cheapairfare to Vegas, there were lots of success stories near Vegas. I had a fewplaces mapped out in Nevada, Arizona and California that I wanted to huntover the 9 day trip. After finding nothing in 5 days of my lone journey itwas time to pick up my son who flew in to join me for the final 4 days.Considering this was his first time too, I am sure he wasn't too confidentsince his dad hadn't found anything yet. But he and I both knew we w
eresaving the best place for last! This was the part of the trip we were bothanticipating because our destination several hours away would be to a drylake bed that we knew had yielded some meteorites just recently. Since itwas supposed to be a secret location, we were confident that if there werestill any meteorites left, we would find some.It rained a lot on the way so we were concerned about how bad it might be onthe lake bed. We arrived at the dry lake area near dark so all we wanted todo the first day was figure out how to get to the lake since there were noclear roads to access it. We could hardly wait to get out there the nextmorning bright and early. We finally made it to the lake bed at about 9:00amafter a muddy trek and nearly 2 hours travel from the motel. The rain haddefinitely made it slippery but we were surprises that it wasn't actuallytoo bad on the lake bed itself. The first day didn't yield anything specialexcept a really fun time. My son found a complete dried out coyote skullthat he kept a
nd an arrow head. We also found a several rocks that drew ourmagnets but they were obviously not meteorites because of deep, sharpcavities and what we would soon discover over the next couple of days, thiswas a common rock in the area. We usually parked and then walked for a fewhours at a time and when we started to get tired, we would just drive thetruck during our rests. It was during one of these drives that I happen tolook to my left and noticed what I thought was another cow patty. I stoppedand the first thing I did when I got out was kick it. It didn't move. Idon't remember what I said but my son knew that I was excited aboutsomething. I picked it up and it felt like 5 pounds. It was unusually heavycompared to the other rocks. I had no doubt it would draw the magnet but itwas surprising to see it stick so hard. This was the last hour of the lastday of the trip and all we could think is how lucky we had been to find ourfirst meteorite and to top it off, one so big!When we got home I still thought that w
e had been on the right lake bed. Ijust couldn't wait to tell everyone about our success! I looked up someonewho has excellent knowledge of meteorites and emailed him the pictures. Hewasn't quite convinced and so he had me take some more pictures. To mydelight, he emailed me back a "congratulations". It was only after doingsome more research about the lake bed that I realized we were 100 miles awayfrom the lake bed we had researched. In a way I am sort of glad we went tothe wrong lake bed but I'm happy we didn't know at the time. I don't know ifwe discovered a new meteorite fall but it is fun to think we did. Ignoranceis bliss.A few pictures: http://aguenthe.mnsi.net/NM1.jpg,http://aguenthe.mnsi.net/NM2.jpg, http://aguenthe.mnsi.net/NM3.jpg,http://aguenthe.mnsi.net/NM4.jpg.Abe Guenther______________________________________________Visit the Archives at http://www.meteoritecentral.com/mailing-list-archives.htmlMeteorite-list mailing listMeteorite-list at meteoritecentral.comhttp://six.pairlist.net/mailman/li
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Received on Fri 19 Nov 2010 08:17:13 PM PST