Serendipity: Newberry Nodules

Serendipity:

luck that takes the form of finding valuable

or pleasant things that are not looked for

Hi Blog!

Today is Tuesday, February 9, 2016. After a long day of driving yesterday to Mojave National Preserve, we were looking for a little something closer to home here in Newberry Springs, CA. We thought a bike ride through town or perhaps a short hike up Newberry Mountain or into the Rodman Mountains Wilderness Area would let us stretch our legs.

On our morning coffee walk, we stopped to ask the campground manager about a propane fill. She asked if we had plans for today. When we told her we were thinking of hiking Newberry Mountain, she asked if we were going hunting for Newberry Nodules. No, we said. We had never heard of Newberry Nodules before. We asked what they were and she explained they are a type of geode. Rockhounds come from far and wide to try and find them. Her parting advice was to just Google "Newberry" and "rockhound" and we would find the website. So, as soon as we got back to the rig, we did and discovered - FindingRocks.com.

FindingRock.com is a crowd-sourced site that helps rockhounds identify sites where particular types of rocks and minerals have been found.  To our happy amazement, the website listed good old Newberry for agate nodules and geodes!

Here's what FindingRocks website has to say: "Agate nodules and geodes. Most are golf ball size and smaller. Occasionally larger nodules up to softball size are found. There are also veins of chalcedony and dogtooth calcite found in [the Newberry] area." FindingRocks gave us precise GPS coordinates for the location of the Newberry Nodules, and the waypoint was less than 5 miles away.

Time to get on our bikes and ride:

Our bike route took us along Historic Route 66. Unfortunately, there is not much left along this old section. We did pass the Bagdad Cafe and planned to return for a late lunch. With our packs full of extra water, a hammer and chisel, we parked our bikes after a ride of about 3.5 miles, and began to hike about a mile up Newberry Road:

As we hiked up, the road became a wash. Trudging through the gravel, sand and rocks, we came across some Coyote Melons. We were tempted to try them, but since we've had no experience with them, we left them for the locals. Boy, were we glad we did. Turns out the Coyote Melon contains "cucurbitacins" which are among the bitterest substances known to mankind.  If you actually swallowed some of the pulp, the emetic action would thoroughly and for days cleanse your digestive tract.  Hmmm.....maybe later.

After a little bouldering further up the wash, the GPS said, "We are here!"  Time to get busy treasure hunting.

Dave decided to take the high road and searched for nodules high up the skree field above the wash. Here is his view down the wash toward the valley.

Since we really didn't know what we were looking for, we cracked open a bunch of rocks (Kathy admits she actually "bashed" a few) before we began to get a clue. We found a rather large conglomerate, which showed a number of small round pockets filled with quartz. It was clear that these little round pockets become the "nodules" when they erode out of the surrounding stratum. This gave us a clue as to the type, color and size of the little rocks we should be looking for.

As we were looking for golfball-sized nodules, Kathy came across a tiny grape-sized one.  Here it is after she split it open:

After cracking a couple more likely suspects, we finally came across a textbook specimen.

Having filled our pockets with rocks, we decided to turn our attention toward lunch. It wasn't until our hike back down that we realized just how high we had actually climbed.

The bike ride back was uneventful, and we were soon locking our bikes up in front of the Bagdad Cafe.

We soon learned that our lunch spot is famous! People come from all over the world to dine here thanks in part to a certain quirky movie. Bagdad Cafe, a movie centering on old Route 66, was filmed in Newberry Springs. Our Bagdad Cafe is not the original Bagdad Cafe. The original cafe was located in the town of Bagdad between Amboy and Ludlow on the old Route 66. Nothing remains of Bagdad or the original cafe. The Newberry Springs cafe is a Route 66 survivor and was once known as the Sidewinder Cafe. After the movie was filmed here, the name "Bagdad Cafe" just seemed to stick. It appears that sticking is pretty popular here, as there are flags, hats, banners, t-shirts, photos and dollar bills stuck on every available surface inside the cafe:

Memorabilia aside, we came here to eat. Dave's milkshake was slurped before our buffalo burgers were even served. All that biking and hiking builds up a powerful thirst.

On a side note, as we hiked back down, we found a really nice round nodule. We didn't feel like getting the hammer out of the pack, so we brought it home with us and gave it a good whack.  Here is what it looked like before we opened it:

As the stone split, the entire center was filled with quartz. Note how the sun can shine right through.

The only difference between a geode and a nodule is that a geode has a hollow cavity inside the agate, and a nodule contains solid agate. Most of the Newberry rocks are nodules.

However, we did find one geode.

All in all, we had quite an adventure today.  We biked, hiked, went on a treasure hunt and ate in a really funky Route 66 Diner that was immortalized in a movie set where we are staying! Just another day in the life of a couple of vagabonds.