12-27-10

On Christmas day we drove to Wellton to visit with Dianne and Wayne.

We got down there around 11:00 and headed for home around 3:00.

On the way home we got a picture of this Raptor nest in a Sagurao next to the highway.

 

The plan was to go to Best Mexican for dinner because I was craving tamales but they were closed. In fact every restaurant in Quartz was closed except the “Quartzsite Yacht Club”, so we ended up there. All they were serving was a hot turkey sandwich. It wasn’t all that good. We have been to the yacht club once before and were not happy with it. I think their focus is on their sports bar, not the food.

A couple of days ago Junior came by and mentioned that he had a brochure that had directions to another abandoned cabin. We decided to go take a look at it yesterday.

Here is the description from the brochure;

“The Cabin at Goodman Mine”

“It is believed this cabin was once lived in by Angela Scot, one of Quartzsite’s earliest pioneers. The cabin has two rooms and is chinked with mud. It has a splendid view of the Colorado River and the valley below. The cabin is located at the end of a rough mining road. You can to with in 1/4 mile of it.”

To get there we drove west on I-10. Between mile marker 11 and 10 there is a road cut. Just beyond the cut is the road on the right. We passed the road by a little bit and had to back up on the shoulder of the freeway. “Scary stuff”. We went through the gate and followed the rough trail all the way to the cabin. I guess the description in the brochure must have been written for people with 2wd vehicles.

There isn’t much left of the cabin.

They picked a good spot for it as there is a nice breeze that blows across the saddle where it sits. We checked out a scary mine shaft just past the cabin.

After we left the cabin we drove west on I-10 to the next exit. Instead of getting back on the freeway to go home we took the Gas Pipeline road. I have been wanting to check out Dome Rock for a while.

There is a trail going up the north side of the rock and from below it looks like there is a mine at the top. The road is steep and rocky.

When we finally got to the end of the trail there was just a wide spot and some bulldozer cuts but no tunnel.

As we were on our way back down the hill we saw a trail going to the right. We couldn’t tell if it went all the way down so I sent Patti to check it out. She signaled to me that it was ok so I picked her up on the way down.

Behind Dome rock is another trail going up another steep hill that looked like a mine,

so we drove up it, but again there was only a flat spot at the top, no tunnel.

It looks like it might have been a “Talc” mine

After we came off the mountain we wandered around the desert for a while and eventually we got back to Dome Rock Road and turned east toward Quartzsite.

It was another fun ride.

This afternoon Junior and I are going out to the “French Quarters” to check out a mine that he and David found. He says it goes way back into the mountain and has more than one level. Sounds interesting.