When we discussed what we four – Matt, Susan, Kit and I might want to see, Susan mentioned the Crater Rock Museum which she thought was in Medford – which was known as the best rock museum in the west. I thought – how curious that the best of something – fill in the blank – would locate in a small city in southern Oregon. I wanted to see it.
On Tuesday market day we decided we would continue from Ashland north to he Rock Museum. Except it wasn’t in the small city of Medford, population about 55,000, it was the even smaller city, Central Point, population about 18,000. Curiouser and curiouser ….
As we drove up we saw something that looked like an industrial Butler building with very few cars in the large parking lot. It was a Tuesday about 10:30 AM, so not necessarily the most popular time for visitors to any museum, but…
Inside like many museums (and airports) one must traverse through the museum shop to get your entry ticket. The staff people were very friendly and anxious to answer any and all questions. We caught up with a couple of them later in our visit and learned lots about establishment of the museum.
It is a sensational museum. I am ignorant about everything except the most basic info on rocks. Concrete one of my favorite building materials depends on rocks – sand is rock ground down, gravel is rock, decomposed granite is, yes, rock. Mixed with cement becomes a remarkable building material – Roman buildings, even my favorite, the Pantheon, completed in 113 A.D. stands with its gorgeous finished marbles as decoration.
So many of the striking rocks are small examples of the crust of the earth as it has changed over eons of time.
But totally mind-blowing was the room with various qualities that cause many different reflection, In a darkened room, four different types of light changed the colors in the rocks. WOW. As I look at my photos, they don’t do them justice.
Some of my favorites, that is the most colors, are found in New Jersey. Extraordinary.
This rock sample looks like a fabulous carved cityscape developed in an alternative world. How could this level of craft (in human terms) happen in the nature? WOW!
daily woodring 