Tuesday, July 22, 2003

Greetings,

Yesterday was cool and quite blustery and threatened to rain but never did. Kerith and I went up to Rogerley about 10:15; she had intentions of spending the day washing small crystals but had worn thin cotton pants and her black gortex was still wet from use the day before. So Kerith walked, read, napped and late in the afternoon did wash a bag of crystals we'd collected the day before in the North West Crosscut.

Byron spent much of the day working in the Dipper Extension and going down below the current floor level; Dave mucked the face and I spent much of the day frustrated. The huge red iron-stained boulder with numerous fluorite pockets on the west side of the passthrough between the two crosscut was my objective. Get it to fall to make the entrance safe so we can finish mucking out there and put in a timber set. I excavated nearly 3' below the boulder, several behind and above it so it looked like it would just fall. It was still propped with a 4x4 so I got out the big sledge and slammed the support out and ... nothing. It was on the floor after lunch though through the diligent efforts of Dave. I then spent several hours breaking up the big boulders in the Crosscut and moving them out between the tracks so Dave could get them into the tub and empty on the dump.

We left about 4:00pm to clean up and meet Tim and Holly back at Burnbrae. They arrived about 5:00pm having a long day of leaving Penrith and driving Hadrian's wall from Carlisle to near Hexham seeing the great fort at Housteads and the cavalry cohort excavations and museum at Vindolanda. Without a doubt Vindolanda is the best historic museum in the North; a recent BBC program listed the wooden letters found there as the #1 treasure in England -- above the great gold and gem find at Sutton Hoo.

The entire crew along with Tim and Holly went back down to the Millrace for dinner. Stan Esbenshade had told Tim he had to try the Whitby cod, and he did. We had all had a long day so we got back from dinner in Wolsingham and went straight to bed.

That all from the North.

Cal

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