I am now officially 26! Wow where has time gone, it seems like just yesterday I was having my 18th birthday, then 21st and now 26?! I turned 26 a week ago on the 3rd, although I had to work I had a fantastic day. I was given unexpected gifts, showered with love and wishes from friends and even was brought a coffee from my sister and nephews! I am super lucky to have people in my life who have still showered me with gifts and get togethers for my "birthday week". Mainly Brandon, he is such a source of light to me. I told him for my birthday I wanted to go on an adventure to find crystals in the ground, the look on his face was hilarious. He is not by any means a crystal loving hippy soul like I am but he sees that these types of things make me happy and so off on an adventure we went. We packed up as soon as I got off of work on friday and headed out towards Jackson, Ca. Jackson is located in an old miners area, i'm talking epic gold rush status. They have the best thrift shops, old antique hotels and of course rich ground! We literally had no idea where we were going to look and decided to stop on the way up and stay at the local casino for the night. We both play poker, by play I mean that he plays and wins and I play and....well... not the point! We had an awesome time playing the slot machines( guys these are seriously my weakness) they are like super fun interactive movies that ultimately lead to impending doom for you wallet but are oh so fun! After a few hours we headed up to the room, where I fell asleep almost instantly.
The next morning we woke up bright and early, we headed out in no particular direction just knowing what our goal was, crystals! We drove around for a while searching like crazy people online looking for a spot where we could make this happen. We found out fairly quickly that this was a lot harder than it seems. In my mind I had this grand vision that we would find gps coordinates to a spot where we could make the hike to this perfect sandy location. There I would see a semi dug out hole which would be proof of the crystal vein. With my cool tools in hand, I would carefully dig out this monster pure white quartz crystal. Glorious sounds and lights would come from above and I would walk back with this perfect specimen to show off. WRONG! We couldn't find a spot for shit, we decided to go check out this local cave. I had been to a cave once before in Kentucky, there's something about underground caverns that are completely hard to believe. Its cold, dark and one of the most beauiftul things I have ever layed my eyes on. They are all different and all so utterly breath taking. The amount of time it takes for even an inch to grow down there is unbelievable. After striking up conversation with our tour guide and telling her what we were really down there for, she reveled that she in fact rock hounds. She gave us directions to a few off the map places where we could go and hopefully spot some crystals. After we were finished with our tour we headed out to a local hardware store to gather all the tools that we would need. I put the destination in our gps only to find out that it was 2 hours away. Super bummer, by that time we wouldn't have had enough time to drive down there hike up and really have time to look before it had gotten dark. I got into a little slump because I was just so excited about being so close to finding some. We drove to the downtown area and came across this old hotel. It had recently been remodled but they had still left the old furniture to give it that cool semi haunted old hotel feel. They had a fancy restaurant attached to it and we made reservations for later on in the night. We decided to head back out and explore the downtown area. Brandon could see that I was pretty bummed that we didn't get to go on out hiking adventure and stopped to talk to the hotel front desk man. He came rushing up to me telling me that we were going on an adventure. I was still a little hesitant but off we went. We ended up at this river not too far away, he told me the guy said there may be crystals around this area and I got super excited! We found a place and started to trek down towards the water. Once down there I did indeed find some really cool rocks. I came across a huge sunstone and a few other pieces that had some pyrite inside of them. We had earlier on a whim grabbed some gold panning equipment just incase we wanted to sift some dirt, good thing we did. We brought it out and he showed me the process of panning for gold. I caught on and by the time we left he had some tiny pieces in a jar to bring back with us! We found gold AND some cool rocks. By that time it was time to head back to the hotel and hit up the restaurant. The dinner was seriously amazing! I ordered Ahi tuna while brandon got some kind of chicken dish. Of course I had a glass of delicious merlot but the best thing is they had a fancy bottle of grape juice for brandon. We finally got to cheers wine glasses together, brandon doesn't drink any alcohol so it is rare that we both have wine glasses with dinner. We ended the night by getting desserts and wine brought back to the hotel room and watching a true life mystery story on tv. I really enjoyed myself on my awesome birthday weekend adventure trip, we have planned to go back up into gold country this upcoming weekend to hopefully find some more gold!
The next morning we woke up bright and early, we headed out in no particular direction just knowing what our goal was, crystals! We drove around for a while searching like crazy people online looking for a spot where we could make this happen. We found out fairly quickly that this was a lot harder than it seems. In my mind I had this grand vision that we would find gps coordinates to a spot where we could make the hike to this perfect sandy location. There I would see a semi dug out hole which would be proof of the crystal vein. With my cool tools in hand, I would carefully dig out this monster pure white quartz crystal. Glorious sounds and lights would come from above and I would walk back with this perfect specimen to show off. WRONG! We couldn't find a spot for shit, we decided to go check out this local cave. I had been to a cave once before in Kentucky, there's something about underground caverns that are completely hard to believe. Its cold, dark and one of the most beauiftul things I have ever layed my eyes on. They are all different and all so utterly breath taking. The amount of time it takes for even an inch to grow down there is unbelievable. After striking up conversation with our tour guide and telling her what we were really down there for, she reveled that she in fact rock hounds. She gave us directions to a few off the map places where we could go and hopefully spot some crystals. After we were finished with our tour we headed out to a local hardware store to gather all the tools that we would need. I put the destination in our gps only to find out that it was 2 hours away. Super bummer, by that time we wouldn't have had enough time to drive down there hike up and really have time to look before it had gotten dark. I got into a little slump because I was just so excited about being so close to finding some. We drove to the downtown area and came across this old hotel. It had recently been remodled but they had still left the old furniture to give it that cool semi haunted old hotel feel. They had a fancy restaurant attached to it and we made reservations for later on in the night. We decided to head back out and explore the downtown area. Brandon could see that I was pretty bummed that we didn't get to go on out hiking adventure and stopped to talk to the hotel front desk man. He came rushing up to me telling me that we were going on an adventure. I was still a little hesitant but off we went. We ended up at this river not too far away, he told me the guy said there may be crystals around this area and I got super excited! We found a place and started to trek down towards the water. Once down there I did indeed find some really cool rocks. I came across a huge sunstone and a few other pieces that had some pyrite inside of them. We had earlier on a whim grabbed some gold panning equipment just incase we wanted to sift some dirt, good thing we did. We brought it out and he showed me the process of panning for gold. I caught on and by the time we left he had some tiny pieces in a jar to bring back with us! We found gold AND some cool rocks. By that time it was time to head back to the hotel and hit up the restaurant. The dinner was seriously amazing! I ordered Ahi tuna while brandon got some kind of chicken dish. Of course I had a glass of delicious merlot but the best thing is they had a fancy bottle of grape juice for brandon. We finally got to cheers wine glasses together, brandon doesn't drink any alcohol so it is rare that we both have wine glasses with dinner. We ended the night by getting desserts and wine brought back to the hotel room and watching a true life mystery story on tv. I really enjoyed myself on my awesome birthday weekend adventure trip, we have planned to go back up into gold country this upcoming weekend to hopefully find some more gold! 
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