M.A.G.M.A. Mountain Area Gem and Mineral Association Annual Fall Picnic October 15th, 2005 As I said, the name of Sharon's rock shop was the Opalhaus. Here are a few pics of some of the opals I saw for sale: Andamooka opals Nancy had bought a big matrix rock from Canada full of large gemmy almandine garnet crystals, but she couldn't wait to get it home and began chipping away at the rock! After a while she drew a crowd as she began to pull out many nice specimens. Sharon gave us a tour of her mineral collection. She has many museum quality specimens. A 2 foot x 2 foot butterfly calcite specimen in a display case in Sharon's collection. Robbie had come and brought a couple of his latest finds from the Walker Creek site to show everyone. Since many of our members had traveled a long way to be at the picnic, they were planning to spend the night in the Asheville area. It was only fitting to take them on a field trip on Sunday before their trek home, so we headed to Walker Creek the next morning to get everyone some nice kyanite! THE END