Nugget, Mad Dog, and Slick, Perhaps we have been Jade hunting to Long?

Perhaps we have been in the desert too long. We no longer refer to each other with our usual terms of endearment but we are now calling each other by our new nicknames. Renita goes by Nugget, Molly sometimes answers to Mad Dog and Renita now calls me Slick. Now there is a reason for this. See she found a jade nugget on  Beaver Rim and I found my first jade slick. I carry it in my pocket and now can really be called a jade hunter as all jade hunters carry a slick.
We had left Cheyenne and drove to Jeffery City. There we hoped to find a place to camp, so we wouldn't have to drive back and forth from Lander on our daily excursions looking for jade. We hoped to prospect on Green Mountain, Beaver Rim, and the Microwave Towers, three areas that are famous/well known to Wyoming's jade hunters.

Pulling into town, its a ghost town that had 5000 residents in the 1980's, we stopped at the Split Rock Cafe and Bar. There we met the mad potter Byron who invited us to camp at his pottery shop/house and said we could plug in to his electricity.

Setting up quickly we jumped in the truck and headed to Agate Flats where we planned on adding to our collection of Sweetwater Moss agates. Our first stop was ok, but it wasn't as good as last year and so we tried two other places before finding the agates we were looking for. I did find another piece of a machine gun clip from a Navy plane from World War Two. The pilots were trained in Casper, Wyoming and used to strafe the Granite Mountains as they look somewhat like a battleship rising above the flat desert.
The next day we arose early, ok I did and Renita slept in. Packing a lunch we headed first to the Microwave Towers area looking for some snowflake jade. Along the way we drove through the Graham Ranch area where we stopped to let them know who we were, but no one answered the door. The road in to the site was actually pretty good for a Wyoming back country road and I didn't even have to use four wheel drive.

Before long we arrived at the Microwave Towers. There we had to be careful to avoid the jade claims and before very long we found snowflake jade. Now jade hunters aren't impressed with the stuff but it does make pretty cabochons and we do love making pieces from rock we have found!
We glassed and spotted other claims and I pointed out where Ted Graham had the claim from which we got some pretty rock that we have in our collection,(Out friend Dick had bought it in the 1960's). It was so nice to actually see the country that had been the place of so many discoveries.

Returning to the highway we headed toward the Gas Hills and Beaver Rim. Now last winter our new friends Suzi and Warren Reeves had showed us the jade they had found there and they even gave us some slicks so we could throw them on the ground to see the "color", of a jade slick.
We didn't find any slicks at the first place, a campsite that was called Riggsville after the twenty jade hunters from Oklahoma who used to camp there, but we did find some green and pink jade. I was pretty happy about this as it makes really pretty cabochons and now we had our own, besides the piece I had bought from a Casper Jade hunter.

We stopped several more places and it finally happened, I found my first jade slick,(If you hold a quality piece of black jade to a strong light it shows green). Renita also found her jade nugget, which is actually a jade psuedomorph of a feldspar crystal,(It replaced the feldspar). Hence our nicknames, Slick and Nugget.
Our last day we headed up Green Mountain. We really wanted to check out the campsites and glass the landscape from the top of the mountain. The road was steep and rocky and we quickly decided we didn't want to take our house, fifth wheel, up there. We did find a piece of igneous rock that was filled with small fractured rubies and so we added it to our rock collection. The view from Wild Horse Point was spectacular, even though smoke from wild fires partially blocked the view.
Too soon it was time to leave Jeffery City but its a place where we will return. If you ever get a chance you should at least stop at the bar and grill and meet Vicki,(Order the cheeseburger and home made fries). You also must stop and meet the Mad Potter and see his beautiful art! Clear skies