Fieldtrip Report:

Diamond Hill Mine
Antreville, S.C.
June 23-25th, 2006

photos and text by: Lee Fleming

This past weekend, about 20 MAGMA members gathered at Diamond Hill for a summer rock trip. This turned out to be a very hot trip and a wet one too. My truck indicated that the outside temperature hit 100 both Friday and Saturday, with a high of only 95 degrees on Sunday. As for being wet, a very large thunder storm came through camp on Friday evening and dumps so much water that all of the tent campers got wet inside their tents.

Ken Sexton and kids.

Ken baked a "Dirtyrockhounds" cake for the group.

As we arrived for our trip, we found that Ken had prepared for us a cake with a bit of writing on top. Look at the attached picture and see if you can read what he put on the cake. Also, Ken was kind enough to bring his cabbing machine with a generator to demonstrate this process. Unfortunately, due to the extreme heat, I did not have a chance to watch him turn a stone. I hope he will bring the equipment of a future trip so we can all watch him make pretty rocks.

As for the trip, everyone found some nice material to take home. The skeleton pit produced material as always while the amethyst pit was very slow. In fact, before we got there, someone had dug caves into the side wall and left them for us to fill in.

Colorado

This trip witnessed the use of new equipment. Both Ken and Ron and Nancy had purchased and erected portable tent bathrooms. I understand you can use the tent as a bathroom (bucket added) and you can also take a shower in it. Wow, these are going to be nice for those who have them on future trips.

I have included only limited pictures from this trip due to the heat. I did not want to get out of my truck and leave the air conditioner. I think the people pictures speak for themselves. I did include a picture of a little of the local wildlife. This spider was crawling near John D. when he called me over to take it's picture.

Bob Taylor

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