Sapphire

We headed south a little later than usual this year…… so that we could come back up a little later… with the hopes of hitting a few places on the way home that we usually cannot get to because of the cold/snow. We usually go down through Nevada on our way down, when we go in November, but most years we are in a rush because some weather system or other is “encouraging” us to go south and fast…

So we usually come down I5, and over to Susanville California and enter Nevada near Reno/Carson city area. We go down through Hawthorne, then Tonopah and Beatty (essentially HWY95).

Nevada sits at a higher elevation, and so the nights can be cold, below freezing, which has always steered us to find a different way home. This year with our new battery…… etc… we are able to fully charge each day and discharge down to 70% (battery charge) during the night. SO we are able to camp in “dispersal” camping areas, which are areas designated for camping with no formal amenities such as electricity, water etc. Usually they are not far off the road, on BLM land, and also usually quite scenic.

THIS was from a dispersal site out side of Tonopah. We love Tonopah because of the amazing rocks we find near there. Miles of open area (BLM land) (kind of like Crown land in Canada) to wander all day long, looking for cool rocks. This year we have learned the many faces of petrified wood and so stuff we thought was nothing we now realize can be beautiful agatized or opalized petrified wood.

Well this picture is from Lake Mead, but you get the picture of what we do all day almost every day, wherever we happen to be.

I have not taken many pictures of rocks this trip, because they tend to be more “photogenic” once they are cut, or tumbled.

Beatty is a town in the south west of Nevada, that is at a lower elevation, so basically the last warm spot heading north. ( 🙃 OR the first warm spot heading south). It is the gateway to Death Valley heading west. There is not much there to interest us usually, but while searching for a store, I discovered an old historic casino that they are apparently remaking into perhaps a coffee roaster place??? Ken and I LOVE steampunk stuff, and this old casino has been completely refaced, resurfaced in Steam punk.

as you can see, the buildings around are totally PLAIN…

I guess what struck me is that this amazing building appears to be done up SOOO well in a town that …. we will just say is ….not so amazing…… Whatever this place will be, it is not there yet and the work is continuing. It must be quite a labour of love, as this town is far from anything. I know myself, I will be anxious to see what it looks like next year.

Tonopah ……..photos…

… and always the ever present Burros…. just sitting watching what we are doing…. so cute.

To go back to the map at the beginning, we drove a highway between Tonopah and Austin,( that does not show on that map), but is a great highway, along a long valley with snow topped mountains either side. I am not sure that they are snow topped in the summer time, so it seems early spring or late fall might be the most scenic times to travel this way.

We are currently just south of Mcdermitt, which is a border town between Oregon and Nevada. It seems that every border into Nevada has a number of casinos…. but this one only has one, it is called the SAY WHEN CASINO. 🫢I like that name. Today we are on the hunt for opalized petrified wood, which we have never really seen, but might have.

It IS getting down to 27-28 F (-2, -4C) at night and it is quite freeing to know that we can weather these temps with no hookups.

petrified wood from Tonopah

Although I have likely mentioned this in this blog before.. I lost the diamond from my engagement ring out in the desert while rockhounding… about…7 years ago. We always jested that perhaps some rock hound might find it in the desert and think he had discovered a new diamond mine

I have gone ringless for all those years and last year at the Tucson gem show, we searched for and found a beautiful sapphire. We went home and I found a jeweller to take my engagement ring and wedding ring, and salvage the gold, and the create a new ring with the sapphire and leftover diamonds

I was never really happy with the ring, I think because I had chosen not to have claws on the ring … this is “bezelled” which is a safer setting but allows less light under the gem.(better for rockhounds and gardeners….)……. soooooo

This year we decided to once again look for a sapphire at the Tucson Gem show and were drawn to the booth with the Montana sapphires which are not so much blue as more of a greenish colour. We spent quite a bit of time going over all of the choices there and found the gem we liked the most (we also got to know the guy quite well, he cuts all of his gems and had lots of stories to tell)

….oh and BTW. …. MORE STEAMPUNK…. Each year the Tucson Gem show has a competition for ART made from recycled stuff.

LOVE THIS STUFF….

Now THIS… stuck me a picture worthy…perhaps someone else might feel that an antitheft device on the steering wheel is an important accessory, but my thoughts were … why bother?

some early thoughts, but the wrong shape….

so in the end we bought the sapphire we liked the best, then went in search of a setting, not really expecting to find something I liked… but I did…. The setting was priced at 6000 but he sold it to me for….1500… (MUCH less than a transmission)…. and there was a jeweller at the Gem show to put the sapphire into the setting and so we went home with a new ring

I cannot honestly say I have ever had much of an interest in jewelry…. but for some reason I tend to stare at my new ring all the time…. I guess after 40 years of marriage it was time for a new one. Ken on the other hand lost his ring in our first 5 years, and so his is also a replacement.

So looking at the maps between here and home, there is STILL severe weather warnings, so shall hang out here for a few more days…

Bye for now, much love from Janet, Ken and Tucker.

Our most noteworthy adventure recently has been a place we have been to in the past, but did not “take the tour” and so we did this time. Kartchner Caverns State Park.

These caves were found in 1974 when Randy Tufts took a friend (Gary Tenens) back to a sinkhole he had found years before, to investigate. They smelled Bat Guano and felt a warm breeze, a good sign that they had found a cave, and so started “exploring”. It took the quite some time for them to fully explore the caves and to find the major chambers, but they kept the caves secret for 14 years. They were aware of the risks of vandalism and without careful consideration of preservation the beautiful caverns would be destroyed. Can you imagine finding something like this?

The discovery of the cave was finally made public in 1988 when the landowners sold the area to the state for development as a park and show cavern. Prior to its grand opening in 1999, the state spent $28 million on a high-tech system of air-lock doors, misting machines and other equipment designed to preserve the cave.

I was unable to take any pictures… because when you do the tour, in fact, you cannot take anything into the cave with you. (so all photos are shamelessly stolen) If you touch any of the rock, you need to tell the guides so that they can put a marker on the spot so it can be cleaned at the end of the day. Apparently any oil from the skin, or fluff from your clothing will stop the rock from its natural formation and require extensive work to repair, if not cleaned right way. The cave has 98% humidity and 70+ degrees F temps, so I am sure it would be ripe for bacteria as well. So you go inside one heavy metal door and that one has to close before the next one is opened… to minimize the outside air going into cave, and drying it out. Apparently this cave is still alive whereas others are now considered to be dead. Our tour guide said that Carlsbad caverns are no longer “living caves”.

We stayed at the campground in the park and did one of the many scenic hikes, this picture is actually of the hills that are above the caves. All of it sits under those hills.

Sadly Gary Tufts who made this amazing discovery and protected it so well died at the age of 53 of bone marrow disorder, myelodysplasia. https://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/21/us/randy-tufts-spelunker-who-kept-a-secret-is-dead-at-53.html He certainly was an interesting person, if you read this NYtimes article.

I have never been much of a gem person, and do not actually wear any jewelry, but we have been on this search for Sapphires to use for a new “engagement/wedding bands”. Ken lost his wedding band at year 5 of our marriage. He was used to giving anaesthetics in the operating room (his first several years as a doctor he was a GP/anaesthetist). THEY did not have to take off jewelry in the OR. He did a special training thing in Vancouver where he had to scrub in the OR and he had not worked out what to do with his wedding band, so he tied to to his scrubs and the ring went into the laundry at Vancouver general hospital and was never seen again, so he replaced it. So now after having lost mine, I am going to replace mine. So I have bought some sapphires from Madagascar at the Tucson gem show. Still need to figure out what to do with them…. most likely will find someone to make the rings for me. The Gem show was amazing thousands and thousands of gems, diamonds, sapphires and any you could think of. Hard to know why we bought 4 of them, but…. they were so pretty and the picture does not do them justice.

We are now staying at Organ Pipe Cactus National monument. Home to the Organ pipe cactus. South and west of Tucson.

The Organ pipe is not as common as the Saguero cactus often seen in Arizona landscapes. The plant has a short trunk and multiple stems that grow from it. These stems rarely branch but rather grow annually from the tip of the last growth. The mature plant can reach a width of 3.5 m (12 ft). Each stem has twelve to nineteen 10 mm (³⁄₈ in) high ribs that bear dark brown to black spines that turn gray as it matures. It takes 150 years to reach maturity. This campground is very cool and has no electric hook ups. The best part is that they separate the generators from the NON generators, so that the ones of us who have solar panels do not have to listen to generators. (well WE think that is cool). There are many hikes leading from this campground, but sadly dogs are not allowed on them, so we were only able to do the perimeter trail.

So we shall move on today because for us… it is all about the dog..

So on another note ♩♬♫…… Veterans for peace RADIO HOUR, interviewed me and played many of my songs. They wanted the stories behind the songs I had written. They posted the interview as a Soundcloud file, but many people were unable to open it so I have downloaded it and put it on dropbox so people can download and play…. https://www.dropbox.com/s/5lul82hnvsyhedk/309229016-44100-2-1fc91a000f2a8.m4a?dl=0

enjoy…… These songs were written about the invasion of Iraq, in 2003 and the subsequent side effects.

So to end …. this is an amazing piece of art work…….

Made of recycled spark plugs…at the gem show.

So Bye for now, much love Janet, Ken and Tucker, the spoilt rotten dog who has taken over all of our seats in the Motor home. 🐕‍🦺☮️☮️

mymostrecentobsession

Nevada travels 2024….

Caverns, Cacti and cute little gems……