[meteorite-list] First Meteorite Hunt

[wahlperry at aol.com]

Hi Abe,

Great find. You need to go find the rest of them : )

Sonny


-----Original Message-----
From: Guenther <abe.guenther at mnsi.net>
To: meteorite-list <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Fri, Nov 19, 2010 10:26 am
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 weresaving 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 and 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 we 
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 
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