keb, I sympathize, it is so time consuming to fish through paper stuff and get it purged. Sometimes it's straightforward shredding, sometimes it's a long trip down memory lane, it's tough. I'm still glad I was never a 'just throw every thing away, immediately' person. There are treasures to me in some of these boxes of stuff.

As we age, a lot of these 'keepers' need to be ditched or passed on. Photographing and scanning helps me to keep the image or the words and lose the poundage.

Thanks both of you for the info on Bandelier area. Those are good papers and they are bookmarked for next trip up that way.   I'm not really looking to collect rocks in general. I'm more targeting microcrystals which usually grow in vugs in rocks, usually in old mines or tailings piles.