9/14/03 I woke up at 4:30 am with a hour and a half drive to Steve's house. He had lined up a bunch of places for us to probe. It rained all night, but must have stopped. I couldn't hear any on the roof. About half way to his house the rain started to pour. Crap, we should have dug by me. The weatherman on the radio claims it is suppose to stop by mid morning. Steve met me at his door and off we went. He told me of this 1850s mansion we were going to. The only drawback was it was once in the country, urban sprawl now has swallowed it up. We were still hopeful the pits were in this yard.
.
It was a big yard and a large concrete drive has taken up most of the back. It was drizzling and we probed until our arms almost fell of. Steve found a spot that felt like ash and stuff. We didn't feel any bottles in it and decide to go elsewhere. We ended up probing until noon on six different properties. Some of the yards had big garages that must be hiding the pits, others had pits that had been previously dug. This area was extensively dug starting in the 70s when the bottle craze took off.
We decide to head 20 minutes south to a different town. Steve's buddy had got us permission on a neighbor's place and gave us directions to an empty lot. Being as wet as it was, we decided the empty lot would be better. Dirt+water=mud and people aren't to happy when you leave a mess. Steve had dug the adjacent lot a number of years back with Jeff. 10 feet away from that spot Steve found another pit. How did they miss this pit before? I don't care, at least we have something to dig. The first foot down, aqua "This bottle never sold" shards start coming out. Another foot and four more of the same. Where are the front panels? A pumpkin seed flask and a bunk medicine come out just as a heavy down pour starts. We head for the van laughing in anticipation for the goodies to come. We figured out how to do the timer on the digital and came up with the following pics:
Steve,
don't look at the camera before the flash goes off
Rain
delay, let's try out the timer on the camera
The rain let up to a drizzle and we headed back for the lot line. I got back in the hole. I don't care what Steve says, it was still my turn. Another foot of dirt was removed and the top of the layer started to show. I pull up a shard a local blob beer. I am handing it to Steve, when he tells me something is wrong. I turn to see what he is looking at and see a cop walking up. The officer asks, "Are you digging for buried treasure?". We tell him the scoop and he asks us if we have a permit. We end up needing a permit to dig on a city lot. Crap, we are on the wrong lot! He waited for us to fill in the hole and left. We went back to Steve's wondering what is will take to get a permit. We were so close. Only if we had dug faster, if the rain would have stopped.....