Category Archives: Just for fun

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The Great (Richmond) Eclipse of 2017

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As much as I wanted to see The Great American Eclipse from a city that would experience totality, I live a little too far away from the closest city, so I had to settle for our 88% of coverage.

Thanks to Mom, who is ALWAYS thinking of me, she ordered a solar lens for my camera months ago before all of the hype was…hyped!

I came down with a cold this weekend and stayed home from work, but I wasn’t sick enough to not throw on some flip flops and walk outside every 15 minutes to snap photos of the journey.

My camera records the time of day with each photo, but unfortunately the time was about 30 minutes off, so the times are my best recollection of the time I took them.

1:10pm just before the start!

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1:15pm

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1:45pm

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Same time, with some foliage for perspective

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2:00pm

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2:15pm

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2:40pm (roughly during the fullest coverage we received)

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3:00pm

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3:30pm

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4:00pm

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Richmond didn’t get to see the ring around the sun, or experience the sunset at two in the afternoon, but I did feel a significant drop in temperature (more like humidity). I also noticed a drop in ambient light in the living room, but not when I was outside, which I found interesting.

It looks like the next total solar eclipse in the US will be April 8, 2024. Never to early to start planning a trip!

 

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Gem Mining – Take IV

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I returned to Lucky Lake last weekend to pick up the cut amethyst. As a reminder, this was the before, in raw form.

This is the after.

 And of course couldn’t resist digging into another small bucket!

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Picked up a lot of what I already had, more palm sized sodalite, another amethyst, and citrine. I did manage to get some obsidian and dalmatian jasper! They were little tiny pieces, but something new nonetheless.

Some sort of jasper

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Garnets

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Smokey Quartz. The guy said these were the best kinds to have cut, better than the more clear ones.

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Obsidian

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Dalmatian jasper

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The way back to Richmond.

I think this is tobacco.

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The collection…

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Gem Mining – Take III

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Take three for Dad and I visiting Lucky Lake! We found a few new gems and four or five palm-sized ones!

The last time we were there, I found a very dark-colored amethyst, and I brought it with me to have cut. This is the before and I will post the after when I go back in a few weeks to get it.

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Blood Jasper – as legend has it, named because it was the stone underneath Jesus as he was nailed to the cross.

Giant rose quartz

Giant amethyst

I think this is picture jasper…but jasper nonetheless.

Spider jasper – some look like they have hieroglyphics on them. One of these does, but its hard to capture in a picture.

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Rubies and Garnets (I think I know which is which, but without being certain I lumped them together).

Fluorite

Twix decided he wanted to help.

Smokey quartz. The larger one has a piece of mica growing out of it!

Citrine

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The whole catch!

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Jean Schlumberger – VMFA May 2016

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Mom and I went to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts at the end of May to view sparkly jewels!

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These are gems in raw form with some examples of them cut and polished.

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On the way out, we stopped and awed at the sculpture in the gardens by artist Jaume Plensa titled Chloe. The photographs don’t really do it justice, you really need to see it in person. I also took pictures at a work function and I found it fascinating how different it looks with cloud cover. The bright blue sky was in April, the cloudy day was in May.

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