We have decided we missed our rockhounding so much, we have come down to the US again. Most of our friends say they will NOT go back to the US until Trump is out, but we are NOT about to let him ruin our fun. Don’t they say, life is short……We are currently in Nevada, our favourite NV town, Tonopah. The feature picture was the night we got here, we were not sure if perhaps WW3/end of the world had come…… or 3 planes took off at once in different directions. It was pretty though. We are NOT here for the silver…… however in the early 1900s 200,000,000 dollars worth of silver was extracted from the area. Tonopah is definitely an old mining town, however in the many years we have been coming here, it just gets better all the time, they even have a brew pub.

We are much more humble, looking for agates, petrified wood and maybe some turquoise. The reason WE love it here is that there is a huge field that is maybe 6 miles x3 miles for us to wander, and there is never a shortage of cute agates or hunks of petrified wood. Tucker (who is now 12.5) is not up for really long walks, or difficult ones, but he loves it here. We do have to take him back to the van when we have gone too far. When we got back yesterday, he did not want water or food, only his big bed (our bed)

We stopped at ROME Oregon prior to Tonopah, (this picture is from ROME) but the site where we hunted from Snake skin agates is now blocked off, no trespassing, violators will be prosecuted. So no go. Rome is a small town of about 20 people in south eastern Oregon, that just so happens to be the only place we know of to find snakeskin agates. Perhaps there was a time where one might think…. we are in the middle of nowhere, who will know we have trespassed? But those days are LONG gone 🙂

So this is the first big trip we have made in our new/old Camper van. We have had it for a year and we got this cute little trailer to trail it..for all the pots and pans, and screwdrivers….(oh and rocks).. that do not fit in the van 🤔

We had hoped to leave earlier to make this more of a fall trip than a winter trip. But Stuff happened. We were planning on traveling with friends to Wales in late September to go on a canal boat trip. However, I ended up, of all things, having an appendectomy instead. In late summer on a CT scan they found a mass in the pelvis which appeared to be coming from appendix, but it was not clear. So on October 1st I had a laparoscopic appendectomy. In the end, the pathology report reported that it was an appendiceal mucocele, that was completely resected. WHEW. As the surgeon explained to me, an appendiceal mucocele falls in the cancer realm, however it does not spread like a cancer does, it spreads by rupturing and spreading little globs into the abdomen. Thankfully it was not ruptured and all is good now. We had planned on leaving right after we got home from WALES, but…. I needed to make sure all was healed. (and it is). Sometimes I wonder, why does everything have to happen to me?… but I guess there is a reason… Ken is just so much better of a looker afterer than me.

Here is a long shot of the van, and that trailer is STILL cute. I should also add that our “previously owned” van is covered in flowers and maybe a peace sign, so that everyone knows which van is ours. ☮️

Since we had to stick around for most of October, we have drastically renovated our garden. We have come to the conclusion that we are now both over 70. So this year Ken made 10 raised beds, and we took our tractor and lifted all of the lovely soil we have made in our garden and created areas with no soil (with the black fabric) and dumped all of that soil onto other areas and into the raised beds.

We have drastically reduced our garlic from 6000 down to 2500 (or at least 2500 is what I have told Ken)

I do hope to be putting lovely pictures of lovely agates and jasper to bore all readers to death….

bye for now Love Janet Ken and Tucker (the elderly dog)