History in Granite

We went to this outdoor museum called History in Granite. It is a few miles into Calfornia from Yuma -- out in the middle of nowhere. It is an amazing place with rows of granite walls. Each wall has a different part of world history on it. The history starts at the beginning of time and eventually will go through all of the ages of man. History of different countries is in the original language with english on the bottom.

The detail etched in the granite is incredible. There is also a chapel you can see on the hill and a small pyramid (not shown). If you pay the extra $3 you can go in the pyramid and then get a certificate saying you have been to the center of the world. I also took a picture of the "Arm of God" that is used as a sundial and points at the time. They don't have many of the walls done yet but it will be impressive when its all done. There are better pictures of the place on line -- just type in history in granite

Spook Canyon

Our hike this past week took us to Spook Canyon. It is in the Gila Mountains and in order to get there you have to travel inside the Barry Goldwater military range -- by permit only-- which is nice becasue there are never many people out there.

The canyon gets it's name from the spooky lights you can see there on a moonless night. They think that the rocks give off something that causes the "lights". It's like seeing the aurora in the northern night sky.

It was a beautiful canyon with steep walls and you could see where big boulders have come down. There were also saguaro cactus growing right out of the rock in the steep walls.

We were thinking that the name of spook canyon is because the canyon is narrow and if there were an earthquake it would be dangerous (spooky) to be there. Of course on Sunday we did get to feel our first earthquake. -- just a slight sway to the trailer -- like a big gust of wind hit it.

American Girl Mine & Picacho Area

We were over on the California side of the Colorado for our latest adventures. We went jeeping with a friend from our park. We first went to an area where he had found a gold nugget stuck to some quartz. No such luck for us. We then went to see the American Girl mine area. They mined cyanite here which is tiny clear crystals that are needed in the processing of iron ore.

We hiked over in this same area in the Picacho Recreation area. We hiked up No Name Wash and saw these huge birds nests. They have to be for some kind of large hawk or something else equally large. We also took a detour after our hike and went to "Graffitti Hills" Out in the middle of the desert there are hundreds of names spelled out in rock. People have raked the area clean and then spelled out their names, etc with the raked up rocks. We drove at least a mile and there were names covering the desert on both sides of the road. It is amazing -- someone said they had seen one that was there since the 50's. I don't know when it really started.

Betty Lee Mine - and summer plans!

We went out on the Barry Goldwater range and got to see the Betty Lee mine and some smaller ones around it. Jim is coming out of one -- he just went in the entrance. It's dangerous and illegal to go in any abandoned mines. It is amazing to see the work they had to go through to mine out here in the middle of the desert.

The mine with the train track coming out had a huge vein of beautiful rock at the top of the entrance -- you can see some of the color. It took us over an hour just to get out to these mines by jeep. I can't imagine how hard it was to get equipment and everything you needed to live out here with no real roads just dry washes to try and navigate.

We also went on an hour and a half jeep ride out to an area on the California side of the Colorado river where we collected rock -- pastelite. It's pretty multicolored rock with quartz and jasper in it. This hill with the person on top was one giant peice of this stuff. It was great fun and everyone got bags and bucketfuls of the rock.

Our big news for the week is that we have accepted a job up in Washington for the summer. We will be working at the campground owned by the town of Coulee City, Washington. It is 30 miles south of the Grand Coulee Dam. We are very excited because the walleye fishing is excellent there. We start on April 7th -- we are leaving here by the first of April and making a beeline up there.

Painted Desert & Indian sights

Our hike this week took us over by the Colorado River in the Imperial National Wildlife Refuge. We went on the Painted Desert Trail. It was very pretty. Many different colors in the rocks and lots of different rock formations. We usually hike 5 miles but this trail was only a mile and half long. Not to worry --- we wandered up canyons off the trail and managed to make the hike the usual length.

A new rockhound friend we met in camp took us over to the California side of the Colorado River. He took us to see this quartz circle. It is quartz rocks laid out in this design. Not sure if the Indians did this or just some rockhounds. The Indian tribe in the area does have a site in the area here where they gather for a powwow. I took pictures of the framework for their sweat lodges. They also had a large framework for shade (like a picnic shelter) that they could gather underneath. When they get together out in this desert area it is a private affair and not open to the public.

We were searching for a specific kind of rock while we were out there. Jim was the lucky one and found a couple of nice size rocks. They are a deep blue almost purple. I can't spell or pronounce the name of the rock but we saw some on the internet and they can be used for jewelry. I'm going to take them to our next Gem & Mineral Society meeting and find out for sure if they are the real thing and what you can do with them.

Sightseeing & Hiking

We went to the Quartermaster Depot Museum that sits on the shore of the Colorado River in Yuma. Its where the army had a post. I took a picture of the old car to show the "plank road" that you drove on that is under the car. The plank road was built over the sand dunes that are just west of Yuma. Half of the museum is dedicated to the history of putting the dam and siphon in place to take water from the Colorado in order to irrigate the land in the area for crops. The other half shows what the quarters were like for the military personnel stationed here.

We also went to up to the city of Quartzite with a neighbor to the Rock & Gem Show. I got a picture of some of the booths set up -- all selling rocks of every kind. Beautiful rocks from near and far -- even rocks from China. You can't get away from buying "chinese" goods no matter what it is.

We did our weekly hiking trip. This time we went around the Muggins Peak. It was very beautiful and we found pretty rocks galore. We found the best desert roses (a kind of rock) that we have seen so far. They are kind of like crystal quartz that forms a circular pattern and builds up to look like a rose.

Jim wants me to add that its been very nice and warm here -- 70's and low 80's :)

Tumco Mine and "Our Mining"

We hiked through the Tumco Mine area over in California as part of our weekly hike. It was very interesting to see how large a hole they dug to get the gold. There are no real structures left of the old mining town but lots posters to show what it looked like in the past. There were some old tanks left from where they used to store arsenic to seperate the gold from the rock. You know the leach fields they left behind have to be very contaminated. We collected some black sand from the mine area and panned it. We did find two tiny flakes of gold in it.

We have also been doing some of our own "mining". We bought this little machine to help wash the sand and gravel and get down to the black sand and "gold". We have found a few specks but nothing big enough to get real gold fever. We aren't fishing so we have fun trying to find specks of gold. This little machine is all self contained and portable. The heaviest thing to haul is the water jug to fill it up.