Hunting Petoskey Stones? Start At Baileys Place

Leaving Connecticut we headed west through rain and downpours. Mile after mile of trees and rain, punctuated only by the occasional river crossing. The Hudson, the Delaware, the Susquehanna all large rivers and then more thick forests. Mile after mile we stopped only for a brief nights stay at Walmart's in Pennsylvania and Ohio.
As soon as we came down the Appalachians and entered Ohio the forest gave way to the prairie and farm fields appeared. We were still in a hurry and so we drove west and then north entering Michigan. We had done this leg before and so we splurged and spent a night in an rv park, resting, showering, and dumping the tanks along with recharging batteries.

Crossing the Mackinac Bridge we tried a new  park, new for us anyway at Tiki Rv in St Ignace. We planned on making it our base camp for a few days as we were after the famous Petoskey stones, yup its time to start collecting more rocks!
Our first attempt was marred by storms as we drove west on the highway and stopped to check out rocky points along the north shore of Lake Michigan. We found some rock, but it was mostly dolomite and it usually destroys fossils during its formation. Dark storm clouds promised and delivered heavy rain and so cut our day short but it was nice to get out of the truck.

The next day we decided to recross the  Mackinac straits and head to the city of Petoskey, a likely spot for Petoskey stones? Google searches had turned up several shops including a rock shop called Baileys Place. Renita called ahead and talked with the owner who was looking out the door as we arrived.
As soon as we entered she greeted us warmly and it became obvious that we had entered the presence of a master lapidarist whose expertise was in Petoskey stones. We told her of our prospecting and of our love of stone and wire wrapping and she told us how Petoskey stones were prepared. It involved cutting slicing and stabilizing, something we have never done so she took us into her workshop and showed us a crock pot filled with Petoskey stones sitting in a bath of opticon.
She warned us of the fake Petoskey stones, actually coral from Indonesia and fossil coral from China and she showed us how to recognize it. She also told us to go to town and look at the fake stuff being sold as Petoskey Stone,(Shame on you few merchants who sell such junk to unsuspecting tourists, the color and the center of the fakes are quite different).
Baileys told us that a place to look for our own stones was right in town along the shoreline, She also said that the last six years had been unusual springs and that the ice hadn't plowed up any new material during the spring ice out, making the rock hounding poor.
Driving into town we parked behind Glens Supermarket, where theres a large lot, and after eating a hurried lunch we headed down to the shore. I waded out and saw the green moss growing on the submerged rocks that Bailey had told us about. Returning to the high water mark I started to shovel stones with my feet as the surface has been picked by thousands of rock hounds.

It actually worked as we found a tumbler full of Devonian age coral mostly favosite,( a Devonian coral), fossils but even some Petoskey! I was surprised that we found so much in such a heavily hunted area and wished I had a rake to run over the stony surface. To add to our fun I even found a morel mushroom and so for a while rock hounding was forgotten.

Driving back we took the east shoreline and while we didn't find any rock hounding areas we were treated to an occasional view of the lake and mile after mile of forest. The floor of the woods were covered with white and pink trillium and it made the drive almost magical to see so may flowers..
It was a day well spent as we ended up with lots of Petoskey rough to work. Besides the pieces we had found Bailey had sold us some beautiful rock for sawing, slabbing, and cabbing and so it starts anew as nine pounds of rock are stored in the fifth wheel. If you hunt Petoskey stones you should take the drive to the Town of Petoskey and stop at Baileys Place, where you will meet a mistress of stone, Thank you Bailey! Clear skies