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

Tue Feb 15 16:01:15 EST 2011

Hi Scott and Terri,

Great story congratulations on your find!!!!

cool stuff

Cheers,
Tim Heitz

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "U.S. Airborne" <ontheroad at usairborne.com>
To: <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Tuesday, February 15, 2011 12:00 PM
Subject: [meteorite-list] Valentines day find Terri,s 1st find a big one

> 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
>
>
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