[meteorite-list] FW: Post to list?

[Pete Pete]

From: marc.d.fries at jpl.nasa.gov
To: rsvp321 at hotmail.com
Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 08:17:50 -0800
Subject: Post to list?

Pete, could you do me a favor and post this to the list?  I haven’t been able to post for a couple of years now, with no explanation as to why.  

Cheers,
MDF



Howdy

    I’ve just returned home from a one-day, solo scramble at West.  I went with the goal of making a rough map of the strewn field to complete a project I’ve been working on, and hopefully to find some meteorites.   I can claim victory on the first point, but not on the second.  What I can do here is report on what the conditions are like at present.
    The weather was beautiful while I was there – clear, somewhat windy, and chilly.  I wore a fleece top, jeans and long, lightweight underwear and was good to go all day.  I started with a short recon of the area on Saturday evening and spent all day Sunday searching and talking with the locals.  The locals were marvelous – one couple gave me free reign to search their property and a guided tour around to see the households that reported sonic booms and even flickering lights, and to point out land where meteorites had been collected.  A few landowners didn’t want anyone on their property, and a couple of those lay directly astride the fall line.  That’s too bad, but from what I could make out the various meteorite hunters were doing a good job of respecting their privacy.  All in all, the locals were marvelously helpful and friendly.  I don’t know what Mike Farmer was talking about with his problems with them.  I suspect that the real problem wasn’t how close they are to Waco as he said, but rather how close they were to Mike Farmer.
    I also met the dog.  You know which one I mean!  
    There were a few groups working “on contract” with the locals to search land.  I didn’t join in, as I wanted to cover a lot of ground in other ways.  I did search along the various roads that cross the strewn field, and received comments from passers-by several times to the tune of,  “you should have been here yesterday – there were twenty people where you’re standing!”.   Great.   In the end, no meteorites for me.  This time.   ;-)
    Oh, and the koloches were wonderful.  Hadn’t had one in years!

    So, good luck to those out there now – I’m jealous and seriously want to go put a boot in various yahoos here at work who won’t give me time and resources to join in.  Apparently NASA doesn’t count finding meteorites as an especially important endeavor.  Quite a comment there.

Best of luck to you all in West, but leave some for me!  ;-)

Cheers,
Marc Fries
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