Our Visit to Rice Rock Museum

Rice Northwest Museum of Rocks & Minerals

Open: Wednesday - Sunday
Hours: 1 p.m. - 5 p.m.
Admission:
Adults $8
Kids: $6
Kids (4 & under): Free

Ten or more years ago my friend Stephanie handed me a brochure for the Rice Northwest Museum of Rocks and Minerals, then extolled the many virtues of their collection. Knowing I'm interested in natural sciences, I'm sure she thought we'd make a visit right away. However being the poor planners that we are, Charley and I never went—despite that it is conveniently located, affordable, and really, really neat.

This summer wasn't going to get away from me without taking my girls on a visit to this museum. This being the last week in summer, I thought we should maybe get started on that… So Monday we decided we were going. Then I checked their website. They are open Wednesday through Sunday 1-5 p.m. Humm, Monday is out. 1 p.m.-5 p.m.? Seriously? That's smack dab during cranky time—not for the girls—me. My energy level dips early afternoon and I'm usually sporting a low grade headache… You get the idea.

Wednesday came, and we went. The museum was originally the home of the two primary collectors, Richard and Helen Rice. They passed away in 1997, just after they finished the paperwork to turn it into a museum, which it already was in all but name and tax-id. They built their custom home in 1952, and it was probably a mansion by the standard of those days. The entire lower floor was designed to house their growing collections, which now totals over twenty thousand pieces. The house is even sided with “Coconino sandstone from Coconino County, Arizona, an eolian (wind-blown) sandstone deposited in ancient sand dunes during the Permian period (260 million years ago), composed mainly of quartz grains.” (Taken from the FAQ page.)

Despite all of the geologic wonders, I couldn't help but feel as though I slipped into the set the Brady Bunch.

When we first stepped into the Brady Bunch house, the retro-house smell permeates (not-unpleasant) as you gaze at the glass case lined walls, filled with pieces of meteorites and other specimens. Sensing that my attention was elsewhere, Berzo started tugging on my arm and banging on the glass doors. Uh-oh, I thought, this isn't going to go so well. Berzo couldn't see much, being a shorty, and I was worried that everything was going to be boring displays behind glass. If it can't be touched, hefted, smelled, and in some instances, tasted, it may as well not exist to a toddler.

I needn't have worried. Once we passed through the initial hallways, the museum opened up with many items that could be touched and manipulated. Right away there was a large chunk of meteorite on a table. Touching something that fell to the earth from outer space is really not overrated. The table was framed with little doors to lift. Each handle was a different rock that was a possible answer to the question, (which I don't remember) and the display underneath told you if your guess was correct. Berzo lifted them all.

Mom, I'm touching dinosaur poo!

The walls were all lined with glass cases loaded with interesting rock and mineral specimens, the doors of which boomed alarmingly every time Berzo pushed on or hit the glass. We didn't linger too long in the "observation only" areas. Boot's favorite specimen was a fossil hoof and bones from an early horse, and the coprolites. Several coprolites were out for touching, and the girls thoroughly enjoying handling dinosaur poop. They also had an impressive nest of dinosaur eggs. They were so well preserved they looked as though they might at any moment pop open with baby dinosaurs squalling for their parents to feed them.

There was an entire room dedicated to fossilized wood, with lots of ancient forms of palms. Their size and quality were astounding. The fossilized pine cones were pretty darn neat too.

In one of the converted bedrooms there is a gallery of phosphorescent rocks that glow under a blacklight. The room cycles from black-light to white-light for comparison. There was this and so much more in just the house portion.

There is another separate gallery that has what is possibly the largest, opal filled, geode ever found. It is truly remarkable. Even the girls wowed as they ran their hands on this otherworldly stone.

In-between the buildings are paths to explore as well as many of the larger specimens, like a huge basalt pillar, pieces of petrified wood and much more. In the middle is a rock pile that invites burgeoning young rock-hounds to dig for a souvenir to take home—for free. Boots got something that looks like a petrified wood and Berzo got a sparkly blue rock.

I love my rock I found in the rock pile!

The Brady's (oops, I mean Rice's) garage has been converted into a gift shop. Inside are plenty of rocks, books and even fossils in slabs of slate (want) for sale. Berzo chose a pretty yellow crystal called calcite ($2), and Boots got an unopened geode($3). We attempted to crack it when we got home but have been as of yet, unsuccessful.

The museum is located on the north side of Highway 26 just a short dash from Hillsboro. The admission is reasonable at eight dollars per adult, and six per child, (four years old and under are free). We will certainly go back again. Older kids will love it but it is also fun and reasonably safe for toddlers, most of the reachable specimens are tethered by wires and the glass doors are strong, Berzo personally tested them.

We will certainly be regular visitors. See you there.

Space Cadet

Art by RiStarr of Deviant Art

I’ve got amazing powers of observation.

These lyrics floated on waves from my stereo to my teenage soul as I laid on my bed, eyes closed, watching the colors and pictures swirl.

“Yeah, me too.”

Then the plane crashes and machine guns fire as Syd Barret's sanity is locked behind an impenetrable wall, rendering him Comfortably Numb as he begins Waiting for the Worms.

****
As a fourth child, (one natural brother, two step siblings) I was often overlooked and sometimes left out of the older kids' activities, which usually suited me just fine. I had plenty of social time too, but those hours left to my own devices I spent observing my world and the people that inhabited it. I watched them act and react, pondering the impulses that animated them. I watched nature and studied the behavior of domestic animals. While I took it all in, I was unaware of my surroundings, time, hunger—I was anything but lonely and certainly not bored.

I acquired the nickname, “Space Cadet” because it sometimes took more than one attempt to rouse me from such a state.

I hated being called Space Cadet.

****
My world and my kid's worlds are so different. We were called for meals but otherwise left to our own devices from a very young age. In my kids' world, they are shoved into all kinds of prearranged situations in 'safe' play spaces with pre-arranged companions to do pre-arranged activities. No wonder today's kids are so anxious, it's rare for them to make even the simplest decisions for themselves and when life requires them to, they melt down. At least mine do. I digress.

In these pre-arranged activities such as a gymnastics class or a play-and-music class. There are the active go-getter kids, the social kids, and the observers that hang back and prefer to watch everything from a distance. Parents generally want their kids to be go-getter and/or social kids because they think their own child's unwillingness to participate means that he/she isn't benefitting from the activity or perhaps that something is amiss—nothing like having an audience when your kid is behaving weird.

I see the parents worry and try to urge their child to participate. I would tell them not to worry, I was also one such child, but the instructor has already done that. It doesn't help. The parent tries to coax their now recalcitrant child into the fray and sometimes misinterprets their behavior as a problem. If the observer's brain was hooked up to an electrical impulse reader they would be astonished at the level of activity that is happening in there. They are taking in an incredible amount of novel information. They miss nothing, the way the other kids move through, the way they react to each other, how they solve (or not) property disputes, what the parents are doing, what the instructor is saying, the pattern on the carpet... With all this input, it is difficult, if not impossible, to also talk and/or join in the activity.

However, after a period of time the novelty wears off, freeing up enough cognitive processing power to allow the child to join in. Not only will they have learned much about the specific skill they'll need to perform, they also have absorbed intricacies of the social situation from a less threatening third party perspective, and all kinds of other minute bits of data from their surroundings and situation. These kids can often perform a new task on the first or second try. Astounding to all but the child, who has carefully studied the trial and errors of the other children.

My dad took me down the river in his drift boat many times. The first time he let me sit behind the oars during a mellow stretch of water, I found I could quick-turn perfectly, pull to one bank then the other then right back in the middle, dipping my oars in the correct depth for each maneuver. Dad was coaching me, but I didn't need it. He thought me gifted, but I knew it was from the time I spent observing his movements. I have always want to try a full drift behind the oars, but I never got a chance, by the time I was strong enough he had injured his back. Then I moved away from rivers and the people who drifted them. And that was that.

****
Boots is a social kid who jumps right into an activity. She learns by doing, almost exclusively. She has a difficult time seeing from other people's perspective and I mistake that for being self-centered, when really it's lack of experience observing other people. How can she not see that?  I find myself thinking frequently.  She has no interest in learning by watching, even when it's something she's passionate about, like riding horses. We go to the horse fair every year and she quickly tires of watching the other girls ride equitation routes, (we're up so close!). I try to narrate what's happening to help her glean the learning opportunities and gain her interest but, alas, if she's not in the saddle, she could care less.

****
As an introvert, life can be taxing. When the blur of people moving, people talking, and kid meltdowns become too much for me, if I can't cover my ears and close my eyes, I either have a grown-up tantrum or shift into observation mode. I've only discovered this ability as an adult and often forget to employ it. But when I do, I am impenetrable.

My kids hate it.

In observation mode, life becomes a work of art. A toddler-tantrum becomes a charming phase of life that I'll one day miss. A punk kid becomes an artistic embodiment of modern culture— a thing of beauty. A skyscraper becomes the Roman Coliseum—something to be marveled at. The texture in bird feathers, the dynamics of their wings and movements becomes a wonder of evolution and beauty, their song something for which I wish I could capture on paper in measures and notes. My children's faces become animated sculptures of cherubic perfection.

As I pull myself back down, and push my attention outward, I am refreshed.

*******

“Amy, are you O.K.?”

“Amy?? Amy!”

“Huh, wha? Yeah, I’m fine. Go away.”

Homesick in the Heat

Home.

A little o' noun with galactic meaning. Home is wherever Charley and the girls are at the moment, but occasionally, my childhood home on the McKenzie River creeps into my heart and plays the strings there.

It is these hot, surly days of summer when I miss my river home the most. Summer, for us river kids of eighties, meant playing outside until dusk with the rest of the pack of free roaming kids, huge BBQs, and best of all, entire days spent at one of a dozen different swimming holes.

My dad, a single father who worked too hard, was a tough person to be around some days. But summer days spent at the swimming hole, among friends as close as family, he was happy and light in a way usually wasn't.

The Rope.
Photo courtesy of Patence Winningham

Of all our swimming holes, The Rope was my favorite. It was little more than a wide, deep-ish spot in a small river that drained into the Blue River Reservoir. The water was always very cold and very clear, leaving the colorful rocks and lost keys clearly visible through twenty-five or so feet of water. It was only the bodies hurling from the rope swing that could turn the pristine water opaque.

On top of a high rocky ledge an alder tree grew almost horizontal over the hole to escape the shadows of the canopy.  Tellis Lawson, a half-crazy Vietnam Vet, was the first person I can remember to shimmy the trunk and tie a rope. He tied in a few knots at the end for grip and it dangled just over a shallowly submerged rock shelf. At rest, it took a tall person to wade out on the shelf and, with a stretch, snag the rope. Next you climbed, barefoot and shivering, up the steeply sloped rock face, grabbed onto the highest knot, and swung out over the rock ledge, then at the apex of the swing, which for mid-way up the rock face was about middle of the hole, to drop. Timing was of paramount importance. As a teenager I became adept at diving off the rope; once I didn't angle the swing enough and as I went under, my hands touched the rocks of the opposite bank. I didn't make that mistake again.  Although it was dangerous, in all my years swimming there, none of us were hurt worse than an arm slap from forgetting to tuck in your hands in.

Once the water swirled passed the rocky ledges, the depth tapered off to form a designer little-kids' area. There were half submerged ledges for climbing and jumping, and a sheltered shallow pool, visible to the grown-ups reclining in the shade. Then suddenly the hole ends and creek returns. The whole area is less than half a football field.

Our day was spent swinging off the rope until our hands were raw, jumping off rocks, pretending to drown each other (my brother was especially fond of this game, me—not so much), diving for rocks, and walking across the bottom holding heavy rocks, swimming to the opposite shore, and daring the younger ones to do likewise. And so we played until the grown-ups pulled us out with purple lips and chattering teeth.

While waiting to warm up we raided the red Igloo cooler, stationed in the shade near the lawn chairs held in place by the grown-ups.  I always marveled at how they could spend hours doing nothing but sitting in the shade talking. HOW BORING! Today, I can think of nothing more pleasant.

After eating a PB&J and drinking a cup of red Kool-Aid, we were right back to the water's edge building miniature ponds to hold the minnows we caught. We'd watch them slip through the gaps in the stones, then rush to find smaller rocks and sand to plug the escape routes.

After tiring of that, we'd scale up our construction endeavors and build a dam across the shallow, outflow end of the swimming hole. This would take several kids several hours to span the distance, which was not trivial.

Our lifting muscles tired, our backs sore, it was time to float an air mattress, or an inner tube (the real black rubber ones that would get really hot and give you a contact rash all over), down the “rapids” (is there such a thing as class .1?) sometimes the water was too shallow, or rocks too plentiful, then we'd pick them up hop across the sun warmed rocks and go back in; all the way to reservoir.

Soon, we'd worry that the adults were starting to worry, so back upstream we went, hauling our flotation device, hopping from rock to rock to rock—whoa that one was wobbly! We're back. We check in with the parents—all is good. Warmed by our exertions, it was time to jump back in the water.

At some point during the day, the grown-ups would emerge from the shadows and go in for a swim. My dad, clad in too short cut-off jeans, usually took the trail up to the high rocks, that stood about fifteen feet above the water. He'd pause for a moment, stretch his arms wide, jump lightly, then fold in half, curving his head towards the water while bringing his hands to a point above his head and straightening his legs. He parted the water with a grace and precision that belied his six-foot-four, two-hundred-and-thirty pound frame. Re-emerging, he'd his shake his head and wipe his dripping mustache, and swim, arm over arm, to the rock shelf. A vestige of his privileged Southern California upbringing. All things considered, us kids got a better deal.

The shadows grew long across the water. We drooped with unperceived fatigue. The adults folded up the lawn chairs; my dad hoisted the cooler up to his shoulder. Together, we trekked up the short, steep trail to the hidden parking area. We loaded ourselves into the back of the pickup and broke off branches laden with berries from a ten-foot-tall high wall of red huckleberries. We fought each other to sit on the wheel wells. The pickup rumbled to life and bumped out of the forest on to the paved road.

My hair whipped my face and stung my eyes as I picked my huckleberry branch clean. Getting cold, I nestled into the cab of the truck, lifting my bottom off the truck bed floor when I anticipated big bumps.

At home, I fell into bed and slept more deeply than I will ever again experience.

And so passed the best summer days of my life.

The Rope during the higher waters of winter.
My brother liked to climb that stump and jump off that too.
I climbed up there once, but could never work up the nerve to jump off.
That cliff Nicole is standing on was good enough for me.
Picture courtesy of Calinda Ndoye

Such a great spot.  The cliff to the right is the one my Dad would dive off of.
Picture courtesy of Patence Winningham