To be honest with all my readers, after 25 years of writing hundreds of articles on meteorite related topics my mind is as dry as the desert sand of places meteorites often come from. It takes me longer to come up with a good idea for an article. As I sat here in despair of any mental stimulation for what to write about, from out of the sky an idea emerged. A fireball streaked across the skies of the American southeast and meteorites fell in Georgia. So with apologies to William Shakespeare my article is “To go or not to go that is the question.”
As a young single man in the 1970s I would not have thought twice about getting in my Toyota Landcruiser and heading out by myself into the desert to hunt trilobite fossils, or metal detect an old ghost town or hunt meteorites. I had unexpected events, and some dangerous things happen, but I had that sense of invincibility that is often found in young people. For example, in a single day at Gold Point, Nevada, I was a breath away from getting bitten by a rattlesnake while detecting with my White Coinmaster with headphones on. I nearly hit the creature in the head as I swept the wand left and right. Later that same day I was confronted by a very hungry coyote. The leanest of his kind I have every run into. He stood between me and my Landcruiser and was not giving any ground. We stared at each other for a few moments, though it seemed like much longer. I had my metal detector in one hand and my 357 pistol in the other. The coyote finally turned and left the old dirt road that had once been the main thoroughfare of the mining town. I was not frightened as I admit I might be today. I was prepared and very able to have shot both the animals without thinking much about it. I learned that day not to use headphones when metal detecting and to use the speaker instead.
At least two things would be different about that scenario from my youth if it happened today. I would try very hard to not go to the desert by myself. I would be looking around myself much more as I swung the coil to see what dangers might be nearby. I suppose as I think about it, today I would not be carrying a gun with me.
I have had other serious things happen to make me a bit more cautious when out in the field exploring. One hike in the morning of a day predicted to be cool, turned very hot instead leaving me far from my car with no more water. I nearly did not make it back alive from that hike. But none of these events has kept me from going to the desert or when I was young kept me from going alone. I would drive around the open expanse and camp for the night wherever I was. If it was really hot, I would crawl under the Landcruiser that I had raised six inches and rest for a while in it’s shade.
I was really adventurous in those days of my youth. I had a tough home life that made taking off for a week at a time a very desirable thing to do. I raced cars and climbed mountains. Descended most of the glacial cirques in Mineral King with my acrophobia that was well known showing. Hiked off trail into the forests of California. Camping wherever I was and hiking out a few days later. I knew about where I was all the time, never was really lost. So what has changed in the last fifty years to make me less adventurous.
Well, to start with fifty years ago there were no people in the desert acting like pirates. Bandits there for the express purpose of attacking people. Today I would for sure have a gun and sleep with it. Perhaps even carry it on the seat next to me when in the desert driving alone. Travel dangers in the desert have moved higher on the list of things to be wary about. In fact it was so bad at one point with marauders in parts of the desert that I would not go out and set up astrophotography equipment just a few miles from home. I missed shots of comets in the early morning. There was and may still be an individual killing people in the desert area less than an hour away from home. On a star gazing trip long ago the bones of some poor victim were actually discovered by a member of the astronomy club that Paul and I belonged to. We had watched and photographed the Leonid meteor shower. I had already started home early in the morning. A club member found some bones while out for an early morning walk. I missed the excitement when the sheriff came to begin investigating the place the body had been dumped.
For several years I belonged to another astronomy club with a facility in the desert. On the weekend nearest the new moon members would gather for a star party. Sometimes Paul and I would go in advance and get a few nights of imaging before the other members came. The area around that facility had multiple dope growing farms. Daytime hiking for fun was dangerous. The same situation exists in the desert near where the gem and mineral club of my new town goes rockhounding. Marijuana growing farms are out there too. We actually have a brief meeting sometimes where the leader of the field trip will point out which directions to not hike in while looking for rocks.
I guess what I am saying is it is not just a matter of my age that makes me less spontaneous and less eager to go solo into the wilderness. It is also the many changes in our country and society. Additionally, huge chunks of the desert are being closed to public use. The number of personnel out there to assist if you get into difficulties is shrinking also.
These are just a handful of examples from my lifetime of traveling and exploring the western desert areas of the United States. That fearlessness I had as a young man is still there in some areas of my life, but overall it has been tempered by age I know.
When a fireball streaks across the sky and everything says there will be meteorites on the ground, a part of me momentarily jumps to attention. I contemplate grabbing my hunting bag and heading for the airport. I have gone to falls in the fairly recent past and hunted. I enjoy it very much. But as I have said in articles before I have frankly acquired too many meteorites. I never restricted my collecting to just falls or just irons or any other of the ways that some people collect. My collection needs no more meteorites added to it. I cannot display even a tiny portion. I barely manage to keep it all documented and cataloged. I do hunt when out hiking. I walk a few times most weeks down the path out of town. No meteorites there. But about once every week or so I hike in the desert with one or two friends, and I am always looking for space rocks then.
So when I see the news of a new fall I am conflicted inside about running to the airport and hunting for an unknown period of time in a place, I know nothing about. It is more than making excuses to stay at home. There are serious considerations too. I have found in my life over 250 meteorites. So I have had that thrill of being the first person to touch a visitor from space. I have submitted finds for analysis and seen them become official space rocks in the Meteoritical Bulletin. It never gets old, and I still am excited about hunting and finding meteorites. I am grooming some members of the local gem club to go hunting. They have already bought their metal detectors and added rare earth magnets to their hiking poles. I am not a spring chicken anymore and I have real responsibilities now that I did not have when I was twenty something driving everywhere across the desert.
And it is not just me. The meteorites don’t cooperate. They never fall near my home. It is always somewhere on the other side of the continent or the other side of the world. I have a passport and the money. I can go hunt meteorites anywhere. With a few exceptions the friends I once hunted with are older like me and don’t jump up either and head for the airport. A few do. It has become a new generation of young hunters that have armed themselves with knowledge about the prey and have the unrestrained enthusiasm for the hunt. Perhaps that is how it should be. Time for me to write about past conquests and leave the “got to be there first” meteorite hunting to younger excited hunters.
I still stop at my favorite hunting places when I travel. I hunt a few hours or a day or two. The metal detector and the magnet stick are still in the car on trips. My meteorite hunting bag with bottled water and Gatorade, diamond file and loupe is still tucked behind my car seat. I look at it once in a while and often find an old bag of peanuts or a granola bar in there that has become stale. I do still snap to attention for a few minutes and think about the “to go or not to go” issue. I just might jump in the car sometime and drive to the fall. Or drive to the airport and then walk for days in some strange place. All in the hope of finding another newly landed visitor from space. If one lands closer than five hundred miles, I probably will go and hunt. But it takes just a little more incentive at this age to drop my other interests and jump at the whim of the universe when a meteorite falls. Good luck to everyone still hunting in Georgia as I write this. I hope you all find a space rock and enjoy what is always thrilling, every single time, touching that stone that is not from here, and is older than here. Maybe I could find a place for a few more meteorites.
