Up We Went

We went out on the Barry Goldwater Range again.  This time we took some friends along whohad never been out there.  They have their own 4 wheeler and they go much faster than we do.  We got to the Fortuna Mine area and they wanted to go up the steep hill in the top picture.  We followed along having never attempted anything that steep before but we made it to the top without a problem.  When you get to the top of the hill the bottom picture is the view you have of the valley below and some of the old mining roads.  The weather was nice and the wind wasn't blowing so we didn't eat a lot of dust however the 4 wheeler was pretty dusty when we were done.

We've accepted a job for the summer at a small RV park in SE Colorado.  The RV park is called Circle the Wagons RV Park  in La Veta, CO.  La Veta is a small town 40 miles west of Walsinburg, CO which is on I-25.  Its up in the mountains at 7000 feet.  We will have plenty of time off to explore the area with our 4 wheeler.  All of the trails look like they go way up in the mountains and can be as high as 10,000 feet.  Not sure how we will do in that altitude but we will find out in May. 

Bluebird Mine

 

We took a drive over to the California side of the Colorado River and checked out an area called the Bluebird Mine.  We had our rock club picnic here last winter but Jim didn't go so I wanted him to see the rocks they mined here.  It is mostly kyanite which is a blue crystal and you can also find some garnets but they are not gem quality.  Jim was breaking rocks with his rock hammer and was bent over for too long and rehurt his back.    So now he is recuperating and its a good thing the dirt is too wet to gold mine or he would be trying it even with his back out of whack.

We went to the gold show in Quartzsite over the weekend.  Lots of pretty gold nuggets for sale some costing as much as $10,000.  Beautiful stuff and with so much gold there they had Quartzsite's version of "security".  The security guards were older than dirt -- one was using his walker to get around the place.  I'm sure there were enough honest people there carrying weapons that no robber would get away with anything.  Conceal/carry is legal in Arizona and we have heard that most guys are "packin'.