Homer Joe

The Rice NW Museum of Rocks & Minerals; Hillsboro has everything: minerals, petrified wood, meteorites, fluorescent minerals, lapidary art and agate from worldwide locations.  My tour guide, Donna Thompson, is very knowledgable and has interesting tidbits of information about the historical use of the different minerals.  The house itself is also a rare fine;  in 2006 it became a historical landmark as the first "ranch type" house to be accepted to the National Registry of Historic Places.

This museum is nationally reognized as the finest rock and mineral museum in the Pacififc Northwest, and one of the best in the nation.  A must see for any one interested in the earth sciences.