Keweenaw Mineral & Gem Museum

Tuesday, July 1

These are wild flowers in our backyard.  They have a light tan bulb back side, with a small white flower.  I could not get the camera to focus on the flower I wanted so you get this picture.

The 2 pictures above are more wild flowers in our backyard.  Have I mentioned it is so beautiful here?  The high today is to be about 65 and the low last night was 51.  :-)

We decided to take it easy today so all we did was go to the Mineral & Gem Museum.  Tic took about 60 pictures.  I've chosen 14.  There were so many "rocks" and colors and unusual formations it was hard to choose which ones to include.

These beautiful peonies were growing just outside the Mineral & Gem Museum.

This huge sheet of copper was the first item greeting you as you walked into the museum.  I'm standing next to it for size perspective. 

One case of unusual shaped minerals.

The different formations are so interesting.

This is called vein copper.  It looks like a spruce limb.  I wonder how they cleaned this and kept it intact.  Painesdale is close to Houghton where we are staying.

The copper was found in many types of formations.  The shiney part of this display is the silver.  The remainder of the rock does not look like copper to me but it is.  I would not have made a very good prospector/miner.

This one has such pretty colors!

This slab shows earth shifting activity.  Interesting!

This is the largest amethyst geode displayed at the museum.  See Tic's reflection in the glass.  This geode was about 4.5 feet tall.

This is called picture sandstone because it looks like someone actually put different color sands to make a picture; however, it is natural.  

I really liked this deep blue on the snow white crystals.

This is natural also.  I cannot remember where it is from and the camera whited out the card telling about it.

The blue and green are so vivid!

They had a room dedicated to florescent minerals in rocks. The lights in the room turn off, then black lights are used to illuminate the rocks to show off their colors.  They look drab under normal lighting.

This is one chunk of copper.  My hand is there to give a perspective to the size.  Looking at the outside I never would have guessed it was copper.

This is another formation of copper.  That is Tic's thumb.  
I did not include any pictures of the diamonds and other semi-precious stones at the museum.  There was sooooo much to see!

Isn't this park area pretty?  It is at the top of a hill and has a beautiful view of the local ski area.

See the ski area and the lift bridge?  We went home after this and had a nice evening just sitting around outside, enjoying our backyard.