[meteorite-list] Valentines day find Terri,s 1st find a big one

From: U.S. Airborne <ontheroad_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2011 10:00:10 -0800
Message-ID: <074B0439763941778A9F611C8C738B92_at_ScottPC>

Hi Meteorite Gang. Yesterday was my wife, Terri & I had our 22nd wedding
anniversary. 22 years ago we got Married by a Judge in Modesto CA. Then we
headed over to Reno to watch a Sammy Davis Jr Show & enjoying life.
22 years later we found ourselves out in AZ hunting Meteorites together on
our Valentines day wedding anniversary. Life this last week has been really
really hard on both of us as our loving Bird Chopper had just passed away
totally unexpectedly. It was a huge loss as Chop, a yellow napped Mecca has
been with us for 16 loving years. After burying him on a Mt top in the
Desert & building a Rock monument for him. Then we tried to move on with
life.

So Yesterday we went Meteorite hunting on our 22nd anniversary together. It
was a sunny & warm day & it was real good to be out hunting together on this
special day.

I had hunted the day before up in the foothills & washes with my metal
detector and when I was setting up my detector I threw down a nice sized H
meteorite to test out my X-Terra and be sure it was all working O.K. Well
it did, but like a dummy I left my meteorite on the ground & forgot all
about it as I headed out detecting. That night when I returned back to the
motor home I realized I was missing my Meteorite throw down. Not only did I
not find any thing but I lost one so here I was at a -1 on my finds for the
day. I was a bit embarrassed so I did not tell my wife I lost it till the
next A.M.
The next morning I asked my wife if she would like to join me in relocating
my lost Meteorite. She gladly said Yes. I retraced my 4x4 tracks to the
exact location about 4 miles out where I tuned my detector at and found my
lost meteorite throw down . I felt much better now so we hunted this area
for a bit before heading back for lunch.

After lunch Terri & I headed out for an afternoon hunt. I was back to 0
finds but better then the -1 I was at this A.M. I pointed to a area not
far from our motor home that I wanted to hunt, it was ridges & washes so we
went slow in our little 4x4 over a few ridges. Then we stopped & hunted in a
probing circle. We traded off with the detector & meteorite cane. After a
1/2 hr in one area
we moved over a ridge & was slowly driving our side by side 4x4 hunting as
we drove. Just as I said I see other quad tracks. My wife loudly said Oh
what a pretty orange rock, so I stopped. She jumped out before I was fully
stopped, so by the time I had set the parking brake & shut it off & got out
of the buggy she returned with it in here hands. 1st thing she said was it
sure is heavy and she handed it to me. I looked at it and my Jaw flew open.
I said Wow I think you have a big one. It was heavy , kind of felt like 10
lbs or so. I said where was it and she pointed to the hole, then she said
there is a broken piece that is off of it to. She grabbed it & fit the
puzzle pieces together. My Jaw was still gaped open I pulled out my loop &
threw my cowboy hat onto the ground as it was shadowing the rock from full
sunlight. After looking at it I said yes its for sure a space rock. This is
when she really realized what she had found & she stared to smile. It was a
huge giggly smile, The one I was waiting to see from her when she found her
1st meteorite. We still never took time to put a magnet to it , so we
grabbed a magnet & it had a real strong pull, then I grabbed the detector &
it also said what we already knew that this was a S.R.. I told Terri she
needs to now do all of her own documentation & pictures. We put this large
meteorite back into the hole it was found in and laid the smaller broken off
piece back where it came from also . Terri took some pics in Situ then with
GPS with rock in hole then out of hole. She also did same with broken off
smaller piece. After Terri finished up documenting her find we took some
fun pics of her holding it & putting the puzzle pieces together. Got great
pics of her happy dance also. After pics & celebration I went to finding me
a small piece of this guy . I detected the empty hole and found one last
little broken piece that completed the main stone and the larger broken
corner she had found. One end of it looked like a loaf of bread then it
tapered off 45 degrees to the other end and it has some large thumb prints.
The larger broken chunk has nice thumb prints also. The only fusion crust
that was still black was only about 1 1/2 inches of the top. At one time the
larger mass was buried deeper in the soil. Then it was partly uncovered by
floods over the years leaving a rusty orange color visible below the black
fusion crust. This Orange color is what Terri 1st saw and why she had me
stop. I waited for this special day when I could see the Joy in Terri's
Eyes when she found that 1st space rock that flew in from the universe just
for her. And it was even more exciting and Joyous then I could of ever
dreamed it would be. It truly could not have come at a better time in our
lives as we were still suffering the loss of our loving Friend Chopper the
week before. It was our 22nd anniversary & we were out healing our souls
walking the deserts looking for flying rocks. Terri find is to big for my
little meteorite scale I use , so I tried to use our bath scale to weigh it
but the batteries were low . I say 7 to 10 lbs.

 Here is link to one pic on facebook
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=198849496794955&set=a.100923909920848.2058.100000097188302&theater

  My wife wants to dedicate this Meteorite find to our Loving Bird chopper
Johnson. And I the same with my tiny little piece. We love & miss ya so much
little bird.
 For now our hunting location will be kept to ourselves, as we want to
investigate the area better.
 Iam burning daylight as I type , So gotta get out there & recover some more
S.R.

Have a Great day from Scott , Terri & Sundance Johnson

U.S. AirBorne Sport Aviation LLC
Eagles Nest Airpark
Sport Pilot C.F.I WSC-L WSC-S
www.usairborne.com
info at usairborne.com
Office 509-780-0554
Cell 509-780-8377
Received on Tue 15 Feb 2011 01:00:10 PM PST