Houghton, MI Mineral Museum

 Saturday, June 21, 2014

Wake to heavy fog and about 8:45 the heavy

 rain starts.  Good day for a museum, so we head for the A.E. Seaman Mineral Museum  on the campus of Michigan Technological University here in Houghton.

We arrive a tad early, so make some good hot oatmeal and have breakfast in their parking lot. 

Arthur Edmund joined Michigan College of Mines in 1890 and helped organize collections of minerals.  Today this is a world-renowned museum.

First we learned what a mineral is – coal is not a mineral, natural occurring ice is!

(One requirement is a crystalline structure).

A large portion of the exhibit has to do with Michigan minerals and there are some beautiful examples of copper, silver, basalt, petroskey stone, greenstone and dozens of other minerals.  This is the only place in the world where copper and silver are found together.

Large sheet of copper, about 4' high

 There are over 4500 minerals, with an average of 30 new ones discovered each year.  Most are very rare, so that fewer than 100 species make up 99% of the earth’s crust.   Only a tiny portion qualify as gemstones,  of which they had a rather small collection  - Chap carries more variety!  But this is a technological exhibit so there were lots of other minerals with their chemical formulas.  Some specimens are quite large and beautiful.

One room has an exhibit of fluorescing minerals which react to short or long ultraviolet waves.  The world capital of fluorescing minerals oddly enough is found in Franklin, New Jersey.

With minerals on the brain, we stop at a mostly deserted beach and pick up a few rocks.

We head to Ontonagon next and  Syl’s Café where we try a pasty – pronounced pass-tee.  These are  pies (of varying sizes and shapes but originally made to be hand held)  filled with potato, rutabaga, carrots, onions, ground beef and pork and spices. 

Quite tasty and served with a side of brown gravy and cole slaw, though our waitress says she puts butter and a little ketchup on hers!  These were very popular in the area for miners’  lunches and are still popular today.  We later saw a recipe that used fish.

No easy boondocking spots and we need to do laundry, so we stay at River Road RV Park here in Ontonagon.  A little worn around the edges, but it has everything we need!  Electric, nice clean showers, cable TV and 2 washers and a dryer.  Beth worked on posting while keeping an eye on the laundry.  Greg got the cable TV hooked up and we enjoyed watching  world cup soccer.

 We are by a river and the fog begins rolling in around 8PM. I  dig out the small electric heater so we are really in the lap of luxury tonight haha.   Good night.