03-13-10

Yesterday (Friday) we decided to go to the La Paz County Fair up in Parker AZ.
We met Becky, Dennis, Sharon and Glen at the gate. The girls went one way we guys went another. We crossed paths a couple of times and finally met up at the duck races and after watching the first race, we all went to eat.
The fair was very small and not very exciting, we spent about 2 hrs there an hour of which we spent eating. The normal Fair food, you know, Corn dogs, greasy fries, pop and ice cream.
After we left the Fair, Patti and I checked out a dirt road we had passed on the way there. I hoped it would head into the hills to the west but it just wandered around the flats and followed the edge of some sand dunes for a while. Clifford was getting low on fuel so after about an hour I turned him around and headed back to the highway and we went home.

About 11:00 this morning Patti and I took a ride. We drove east on I-10 to the exit for highway 60. We left the interstate and drove about a mile down AZ60 to the Ramsey Mine road where we headed south on a wide smooth gravel road. We crossed over the freeway and then the road got better. We bounced along on the rocky road until we came to the Ramsey Mine.

We didn't check out the mine though because there were some Keep out signs posted. We took a trail heading west for about a mile and came to a deep vertical shaft on a hill.

I dropped a rock down the shaft and counted three seconds before it hit bottom.
We turned around and headed back.
When we got to the mine we took a right turn and drove over a steep hill to the south of the mine and down the other side where we came to the main trail and headed south.
We checked out another trail going west and at the end of it we stopped for lunch.

After lunch we went back to the main trail and continued our trip south.
We traveled in that direction for a while and then turned to the left in a wash with lots of tracks in it. We passed a cave at the base of a low ridge of rocks on top of which is a small arch but we didn't stop to check it out because we plan to go back tomorrow with the gang.
We drove around the end of the rocks on a set of tracks and came to an active mining claim.
We retraced our route back to the main trail and continued south.
Along the way we tried a couple roads but they were dead ends.
Further along the main road we turned down another trail that passed some mine tailing's.

Upon investigating we found another deep shaft.
The scenery was very nice with some high rocky mountains in the distance.

One particular one is called Twin Peaks.

Patti got some Macro shots of some very small flowers.
The tip of the ball point pen in the picture will give you some idea of how small the flowers are.

From the tailing's we headed back to the highway and home.
We got home around 4:30.
When we got home, Patti took some pictures of the Orange Blossoms on the tree next to our RV.


We are going back to the same area tomorrow so I will wait until the next blog to publish the map.