Digging for Gold?

 We traded fishing for the golden walleye and instead dig for that yellow gold.   Fishing was much less taxing and much cleaner.   I also don't think either hobby is cheap.  We had all kinds of money invested in a boat and fishing gear.  Now we have money tied up in a 4wheeler and all kinds of gear to find gold.  When you caught fish you had something to eat.  When you find gold you have something to sell although I doubt we will ever find enough to sell some.  

We have been digging in a huge tailing pile (dirt that was dug out of a mine ) and running it through our drywasher.  The place we are digging is on a gold claim that the club we belong to has and it is just south of the original mine.  We keep thinking that when they ran all the dirt the first time they must have missed some so we are hoping to find their mistakes.  So far, as you can see from the picture, they didn't miss much.  The hole that we have been digging is starting to look like a grave.  So if I go missing you know where to look.   😅

Back in Quartzsite

 We are back in Quartzsite through April and hoping we can last until the first or second week of May.  We will see because it might just get too hot.  We are scheduled to go up to Show Low, Arizona in Mid-May.  They were still getting snow there just last week.  Hard to believe that it snows in places here in Arizona.  We got to Quartzsite earlier than usual so we finally got to taste the homemade ice cream made right on site with this contraption churning the cream.  The guy that makes it has a booth near the big tent show that happens in January.  Lucky for us he was still here doing business in March.

Many people have left now that April is here.  They are ready to head back home after a winter of fun in the sun.  We like coming here after the crowds so we can enjoy the desert and the peace and quiet.  We have had some very pretty sunrises.  We get to see them because we are up and out on the 4wheeler while it is still dark out.  We get to our gold digging spot about the time the sun is coming up.  This way we can dig longer before the heat pours on which by 10AM its starting to get pretty warm. 

Good Smells

 I should have taken a picture of the lemon tree full of blossoms but I didn't so I am showing the one with lemons.  The other tree is a desert acacia.  The fruit trees, like the lemon tree, are all in blossom and the smells from them are incredible.  If you're allergic it is horrible but if not the smell --mmmm.  It gets better at night.  I'm not sure why but you step outside and its dark and still warm out and the smell wafts to you.  The desert acacia smells kind of like licorice but sweeter.  I love the smell of spring here in Yuma.

We have been attending going away parties.  We have gotten to know quite a few people here in Yuma so we end up having a lot of people to say goodbye to and that we hope we will see them again next season.  You never know because none of us are getting any younger.  Most of us snowbirds are planning our escapes.  The price of fuel is scaring a lot of folks and they are heading out early.  What can you do it is what it is.

Neighborhood Dogs

These dogs are so clever.  They roll their ball out into the street and wait for a sucker to pick it up and throw it back into their yard.  Of course they catch it and roll it back out of the gate so you can throw it again.  One of the dogs is better at catching it than the other but they both love it and will play til you stop.  Jim is always careful to not over work them so they don't get over heated.  

We are getting ready to move up to Quartzsite in two weeks.  We are moving a little earlier than usual because we got to Yuma a little earlier than usual.  We love gold prospecting in Quartzsite because we can just leave right from the park with the 4wheeler instead of loading it up on the trailer and driving ten miles or so and unloading it to get to the gold area near Yuma.
 

Red cloud mine

We went 4wheeling with our neighbors on Red Cloud Mine Road.  The one neighbor wanted to go all the way up past the mine to a spot he showed us on his little map that said you could see the river and have a picnic.  We got to the mine which is about 17 miles north of Martinez Lake and stopped to take some pictures.  On the way there we saw the sign hung off of the skeleton letting us know the mine was open to visitors.  I think the caretaker at the mine gets lonely plus he makes his money selling the wulfenite from the mine to us tourists.  There are lots of old structures at the mine.  I loved the old water tower looking thing that was bashed in way at the top -- gotta wonder how that happened.  The caretaker allows collectors to dig for their own specimens of wulfenite for a reasonable price.  The story is that he found a piece that was at least an inch or two in a beautiful crystalline matrix.  He sold it for $30,000 and it ended up at the Tuscon gem show and sold for $60,000 -- so the story goes.  The wulfenite from Red Cloud Mine is world famous because of the color, clarity and gem quality.  There are only two places in the world with this kind of wulfenite - Red Cloud and a place in South Africa. 

We continued our ride north of Red Cloud but the road turns into a trail and got very rough.  We decided to go back and not try to go the additional 20 miles to the river.  The rest of the group made it all the way but said the trail got even rougher.   We were glad we didn't try it and some of the riders said we were the smart ones for turning back.  

 

Wild Burros of the Potholes

 The area we go gold prospecting in is called the potholes.  I'm not sure why the name except everywhere you look there are small holes where people have dug for gold.  There is an active gold prospecting club here and there are always folks from the club digging on the club claims.  We dig on the land abutting their claims.  We would join the club but we already belong to two and that seems like enough.  

You always see evidence of the wild burro population out here.  Their droppings and trails are everywhere.  We hear them bray every time we are out but don't always see them.  The burros aren't native to the area.  They were brought in by the miners back in the 1800's and are the descendants of those that escaped or survived their owners.   It is amazing to see what they eat here because it is all thorny bushes, cactus and a few thorny trees.  The American canal, off of the Colorado River, as well as Senator was and Squaw lake are close by and that is where they go for water.  People also camp out here in the long term camping area and I'm sure they feed the burros that come close enough to them.  

Cotton

 Arizona is known for the four cees - cactus, copper, cattle and cotton.  When the weather turns hot they switch from growing vegetables to growing cotton.  When we come back to Yuma around the end of October they are starting to bring the cotton to the cotton gin.  Huge bales of cotton come to the plant and go through the machines and come out in piles.  The piles are put into nice wrappers like another bale and shipped off to wherever-  most likely China.  When we go by the plant the area is white with cotton flurries.  I made the mistake of picking up a piece of cotton  that hadn't been processed and was shocked at how sharp the plant is.  When they used to pick cotton by hand I don't know how they did it without getting blood all over it from all the pricks your hands would suffer from the thorny stuff. 

We have been busy getting things fixed on our RV.  It is as bad as a house especially when it is getting older.  We are still looking for a permanent house to buy but the market is a little too crazy right now.  So we keep putting money in our RV since we don't know how long we will be keeping it.  We have to keep it looking as new as possible because a lot of RV parks don't want RVs that are more than ten years old.    It is good to be able to send a picture of a nice looking rig so we can get into these parks if we want to stay there.