Tonopah NV ..Here we are.

October 30, 2026 ~ mymostrecentobsession ~ 2 Comments

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)

Snake skin agates…..

November 22, 2019November 22, 2019 ~ mymostrecentobsession ~ 2 Comments

Once again we are making a run for it through Nevada. Usually it is to avoid the low night temperatures, this year it is to avoid the low night temperatures AND the snow.

Joshua trees in the snow.

We have had a few days of doing jigsaw puzzles and listening to the impeachment hearings….. We did venture out yesterday in Fallon Nevada to hunt for rocks in strong winds and rain, but it was NOT FUN.

Green mountain on a very cold day

We are also being hounded by the CRA (Canada revenue agency) the equivalent to the IRS. Not really sure why if we file our taxes in March, they wait until November when we head south to start hassling us. They do this to us every year, and every year we show them that we did everything right, but yet they keep doing this every year. The GOOD thing is that I no longer take it very seriously, and don’t get all stressed out about it. The hard thing is that each time we have called this week it has been an hour on hold on the phone. The classical music playing during the hold, then gets totally STUCK in my head for the next few days. REALLY? I think they need a few more phone answerers.

Just before leaving Canada I received my new Almond Cow, a machine for making nut milks. It is saving us many trips to the grocery stores, AND trips to dump garbage. (very little recycling in campgrounds) We are using mostly cashews. Pictures here of walnuts. One cup into the container…. plus one date.

The metal jug gets filled with water, you push a button on top and it goes through 3 stages, which takes less than a minute. VOILA.. You take the top off which contains the pulp (more on that later)

You get a big jug of milk

Then I pour the pulp into storage containers, there are a huge series of recipes you can make from the pulp.

My first attempt was to make granola, which you mix the pulp with other granola stuff and then bake in oven.

Next time I think I will try to make Hummus with the pulp. (just google nut pulp recipes)

I should note that you do not need a machine to make the nut milks, you just need a food processor and a nut bag to squeeze out the nut pulp. This machine is a bit tidier for me.

So yesterday we drove from Fallon (4300 ft elevation), where it was stormy, but not snowy. We drove south on HWY 95, through Tonopah (6200 ft elevation) where it was snowing and extremely foggy. NO stops for pictures, no stops for anything. We have never had to negotiate this vehicle in snow, and do not want to. We were a bit sad because Tonopah is one of our favourite places to rock hunt.

We drove on to Beatty, where we are now, 3200 ft elevation and the lowest it got last night was 6 degrees celcius ( 42 F.) Very black sky, only light rain last night.

Some of the coolest rocks we have found recently are called Snake skin agates. They are extremely unique, and when cut

Or broken in this case….. quite pretty on the inside

This is called wonder stone, it is quite pretty, but we have decided we prefer Jasper which is more dense. So these are more “catch and release” or catch, take picture and release.

This one, I believe is a limb cast agate, formed inside a tube in rock. Note the snake skin appearance of the underlying rock.

WE are thinking that this is variscite but will need to cut it to make certain.

We are thinking of heading over to eastern Nevada/Utah today, but you never know.

Much love from Janet, Ken and Tucker.

Hunkered down in Tonopah.

December 4, 2017December 4, 2017 ~ mymostrecentobsession ~ Leave a comment

We are currently HUNKERED down in Tonopah NV due to weather. Yesterday there were winds up to 50 mph, and last night it went down to -7 C (19.4F). So time to repair, reflect, and do laundry.

We did do a bit of wandering, but it was VERY cold and as you can see a sand storm in the distance.

We bought this motorhome 2.5 years ago, a 1995 Sahara Safari, essentially for the price of the new diesel Cummings engine, (which had been installed 600 miles prior). Essentially we got the rest of the motor home for free, ……..retrospectively, it would seem .. what it was worth 🙂

A few years ago, the roof was destroyed in a storm and cost 8000$ to replace. We were fortunate that it happened in a storm in that insurance paid for it. Shortly after that, a major part went in the transmission that was going to cost about 6000 dollars, and so the guy at the place basically said that we might want to get rid of the motorhome. Our thoughts were “how could we get rid of it , it has a new roof?” (of course you KNOW what a slippery slope this kind of story can be…. )……. At which time Ken FINALLY remembered his password to get onto the Safari online forum, a group we endearingly call the “OLD FARTS FORUM”. We were told about a guy who remakes these parts, so we got one sent up from Texas for 600 bucks, and we were on our way again.

I shall not bore you with all of the things we (KEN) has repaired, but suffice it to say that it is a LOT. Point to be made here is :DO NOT BUY AN OLD MOTORHOME unless you have a “KEN” to keep it running. The past 2.5 years has been an apprenticeship of sorts for Ken, and I feel confident that he could, at this point, open up his own Safari repair shop. He is continually in contact with the old Farts learning how everything is supposed to work. The previous owners of our motorhome had made an incredible mess of all of the wiring, and “jimmie rigged a lot. But then the weather is pretty hard on it too. Yesterday Ken had to take all the panelling off the door after the STRONG winds caught hold of it and tore some of the wiring.

OH and Tucker is still remembering how much fun he had while we were in Eugene, waiting to get the brakes fixed.

Despite all of this we have LOTS of fun traveling in the motorhome, most days we can just open the door and head off into whatever desert we are exploring.

Just outside Hawthorne Nevada which is the worlds largest munitions dump.

Yesterdays rocks all cleaned and ready for the basement.

This is the frost on the INSIDE of the single pane windows…………..

We WILL have to head further south today.

MUCH love…