02-27-11

The other day when we went for a ride with Joanne and Dave, I thought that the canyon we were going to was the “Black Beauty Mine”. As it turned out I was wrong. The black Beauty Mine is about a mile or so south of the box canyon.

Today Patti and I went in search of the Black Beauty Mine. I took the wrong road right at the start and ended up in a cul-de-sac. “Duh”. I new that the mine was further north from where we were but none of the roads in the area went far enough north. The second road we followed took us to a game watering station.

There was a trail going west past the station but we decided to go back to the beginning and try taking a trail going north west. Finally we got onto the track that I had loaded into the GPS. Eventually we got to the “Black Beauty Mine”. It was a little disappointing. The only thing to mark the spot was a slab of concrete.

There were no shafts or tunnels. The mine was a surface mine where they moved a lot of rock around but it wasn’t all that exciting.

At the end of the road was another cul-de-sac of course but high on a hill with a good view of the valley we had driven through.

As always there were lots of great views.

02-26-11

Well, Patti’s sinus infection turned out to be more than just a sinus infection. I came down with it about two days after I took her to the doctors. About half the people in the park have the same crud. We were going to have a Nopalies (see blog for 04-10-09 for information on Nopalies) feed on Thursday but since the cook (that’s me) is sick and several of the other people that we invited are sick, we postponed it until next month.

Of course, we haven’t done much in the last few days. However, I did go to Blythe to get a new tire for the jeep on Thursday but that is about all. The weather today isn’t great but the forecast for the next 10 days looks good with temps reaching the low 80’s by the end of next week.

Patti’s sister, Kathi and brother-in-law Bob are due to arrive here on Tuesday, just in time for the good weather. It has been raining and snowing where they live in Glendale, Oregon all winter so they are anxious to get out of there for a while. It will be good to have some new people to take out into the desert.

02-22-11

The weather for the last couple of days has been less that perfect. It rained on Saturday and Sunday was very cold.

Monday was much better so we went for a little desert ride with Joanne and Dave. The rest of the group was either in Las Vegas or busy with other things. Becky and Dennis’s Rhino is in the shop.

We left “Q” around 10:00 and drove east on I-10 and took the Highway 60 turnoff toward the small town of Brenda. Just before entering the town we turned north on Perry Road where we stopped at a pull out to unload their quad’s.

Our destination was a surface mine in a beautiful canyon on the east side of the Plomosa Mountains.

On the way we passed the “Dancing Saguaro’s”,

the “Arrowshot Saguaro” and stopped on top of “overlook rock” (my names for these places).

From the overlook, we followed the Stage Coach Road north until we came to the trail that goes to the canyon. The trail is pretty good except the last half mile is a little rocky. On the way we saw a trio of Bighorn Sheep.

They didn’t act like they were afraid of us and posed for pictures.

On the way back we stopped for lunch in a wide wash out of the wind for lunch.

The ride was easy and we were home around 4:00.

Patti is suffering from what she thinks might be a sinus infection. Although the last time she thought she was having a sinus infection I caught it a few days later.  We are going to take her to a local doctor today to get her checked out. Hopefully it is just an infection and she can get some antibiotics to fight it.

Well, I started this Blog at around 8:00 this morning but got interrupted at about 9:00 to take Patti to the doctor. It is now 3:30. We went to the local MD but they are a Medicare only physician and  told us to go to the Urgent Care facility in Parker. So after checking one other clinic in Quartzsite that turned out to be “by appointment only” we headed for Parker. The Hospital there was very good and we only spent about two hours there. After some checking and an x-ray it was decided that Patti did indeed have an infection and some bronchitis. They gave her a shot, a prescription and off we went to WalMart to get the prescription filled. We had to wait for the prescription to be filled so we went to lunch. When we returned to WalMart we not only got that one filled but got the rest of our meds as well. Now we won’t have to go back there tomorrow.

02-19-11

It started raining last night and is still raining hard this morning. We expect the rain to continue for the next couple of days. We had planned to go to Bouse to check out a black powder shoot at the range there but the rain changed that plan.

Today is Patti and my 5th wedding anniversary.

Patti woke up with a scratchy throat. I hope it is just because of the dust from yesterday but that may be just wishful thinking.

Yesterday we took a ride out to the “Deer Run Resort.

In the party was: Joanne, Dave, Suzanne, Roy, Patti and I.

Now you may be wondering, “why are they going to a Resort”? “I thought they were more interested in wandering around in the desert checking out mines and such”.

Well, the “Deer Run Resort” is a Slab of concrete in a canyon west of town that people have decorated like the gang from Holiday Palms decorated the “French Quarter”.

We hung out there for a little while. Reading the signs

and checking out the flags.

 

Joanne took a turn on the miniature golf course.

 

We observed a moment of silence at the grave of “Smoking Joe”

Eventually we continued west on a rough track over the mountains

 

and through some steep, challenging gullies.

We stopped for lunch at the end of a short steep trail with a view of the Quartzsite valley.

While we were there Roy started digging in an old prospect cut on the side of the hill. He and Joanne came up with several small quartz crystals from the cut.

Around 4:00 we headed back to town. The trip was kind of short but as always we had a lot of fun.

02-17-11

Things have been kind of slow the last few days.

Last week the right rear tire on the jeep had a slow leak because of a screw stuck in it so I got out my tire plugging kit and plugged the hole. I don’t like driving around in the desert with a plugged tire although we did go to the mines on it the other day.

I called around to see if I could find a new tire. The best deal I could get was at a tire store in Blythe CA. No one had the tire in stock so I had them order one. They said it would be delivered by Wednesday. Around noon on Wednesday, I called them to see if the tire had been delivered and they said that the tire was on back order and wouldn’t be in until next Wednesday. I am still driving on the plugged tire and haven’t had any problems yet.

Dennis’s Rhino has had a bad clunking on the right side when he drives over bumps so on Wednesday he took it to Parker to have it checked out. He came home without the rhino and won’t get it back until next week some time so they are grounded for a while.

Wednesday evening we got together with Becky, Dennis, Roy and Suzanne for a game of 5 Crowns. We had a lot of laughs.

Today (Thursday) I am all alone. Patti went on the casino bus with Becky to the Fort MC Dowel casino. Dennis and I were going to go do some shooting but he had to go to Mexico to get his new teeth fixed because they are giving him a lot of pain. I might just go do some shooting anyway as I need the practice. I am still having a hard time holding any kind of a descent group with my .45 Vaquero. I am beginning to think the problem might be with the my hand loads. I haven’t been able to find any .45 colt ammunition in the stores lately but then all ammunition is scarce right now. 

We may go for a desert ride tomorrow but I’m not sure where or with whom yet.

02-14-11

A couple of weeks ago while at the ‘big tent’, Becky bought a black light flashlight. We have been talking about going into some of the Mines in the area and trying it out to see if we could find some minerals that might flourless so yesterday we did just that. Junior and Missy went to Las Vegas for a week and everyone except Becky and Dennis was still tired out from the big Kofa loop ride of Friday so only Becky, Dennis, Patti and I went on this ride.

We left the RV park around 11:00 and drove out Plomosa road to mile post 9 where we stopped to let B and D unload their Rhino. From there we headed east through the hills. We were looking for a couple of mines that we had been to last year. I knew that the mines were south of the main trail but not quite sure how far out they were so we took every right turn off the trail. Some were just dead ends. One of the trails went to a couple of deep vertical shafts.

Eventually we got to the first of the tunnels that we wanted to explore.

I had never been in this mine before but Becky and Dennis had and they said that it was very interesting with several levels.

We Put on our hard hats and grabbed our lights and cameras and walked into the mountain.

Patti doesn't particularly like going under ground so she acted as our outside spotter. It is always prudent to have some one on the outside just in case some thing goes wrong.

 

The tunnel went back several hundred feet. When we got far enough in to where it got dark, Becky turned on her black light. At first we got very excited because we saw several objects fluorescing on the floor and some on the walls but every time we tried to pick up the objects they crumbled to dust. We continued to explore the tunnel and passed a couple of wooden ore shoots and a set of ladders going up into an overhead gallery.

BY Becky

The ladders looked fairly solid so Dennis and I climbed up them.

by Becky

The gallery was maybe 40 feet long and about 15 feet high with a lot of timbers and braces holding up the mountain.

I took the black light with me and saw some more glowing bits of stuff on the floor. I was able to pick up one piece and it turned out to be an Owl casting.

Okay, some of you probably don’t know what Owl castings are so here is an explanation. When an owl eats a mouse or other critter they eat the whole thing including the fir and bones. Later they will vomit up the fir and bones and other un-digestible parts. I think what we were seeing in the Black light were the tiny bits of un-digestible matter, probably the bones since they contain phosphorus.

After leaving this mine, we drove around the mountain to another one where we had lunch.

by Becky

After lunch we suited up and went into the tunnel.

 

There wasn’t much in this one and nothing glowing in the black light.

From there we headed west on the main trail. We came to a track going north and since we had never explored that trail we turned onto it. After going through several gullies and over some low hills we came to an area with a lot of evidence of mining activity.

Eventually we came to a tunnel going into a mountain on our right.

We parked and got our lights, put on our hard hats  went into the tunnel to explore.

This tunnel went back about 200 feet and had a vertical shaft near the end.

The vertical shaft had a ladder in it but the ladder looked a little unsafe so we didn’t try going down it. If we ever want to explore this shaft further we will need some safety harnesses and ropes. In the main tunnel we found some deposits of very sparkly minerals which we were unable to identify.

There was also several vanes of Crysocolla

by Becky

but nothing that showed up under the black light.

After leaving this mine we made our way to Plomosa road where we headed west. At a spot where the road tops a pass we turned off onto a small track that Patti and I had been on before.

The trail follows the road for a little ways and then drops into a wash going south.

It is a fun trail

 

that goes through some very narrow rocky areas.

After the trail comes out of the wash it goes over some steep hills and through some deep gullies. Eventually the trails connects to the main one that we came in on. We got back to B and D’s truck around 5:00. Becky and Dennis headed for home but Patti and I had not taken anything out of the freezer for supper so we stopped at The Grubstake for Calamari.