January 1 thru 13, 2016 Fun Time in Yuma

Happy New Year to all.  We have been having a blast since I last blogged.

On the 4th and 5th, I took two classes in the park.  The first one was Making Embroidered Cards taught by Dan – I liked it and may try my hand at making more.  Of course I did a cat with beaded eyes – cute.  The second class was Zentangle taught by Barb – Fun but may need more lessons.  Talk about a small world, we met Barb and Dan many years ago in Alabama and then in Tennessee – great folks and it was good to get caught up with them.

On the 5th, Della and Bob invited Andy and me to the Yuma Gem and Mineral Club meeting.  What a great bunch of folks and the program was very interesting – about the Cocopah Indian Lands and their artifacts in this area.  As a result of learning new things and meeting such nice folks, we joined the club (Thank you Della and Bob).  So on Thursday, Andy and I took a Geology 101 course at the University.  The course was taught by Mo who is also the geologist for the club. So much stuff to learn about Minerals, Rocks, and Gems.  I am sure we will learn as we go along.

That same day we also got our permit for the Barry Goldwater Range so that on Saturday, 9th, we could go on the Rock Club Field Trip to the Fortuna Mine.

Here we are starting:

Before starting out we all had to call the Marine Corp Air Station and give them our permit numbers and where we were going.  After everyone was settled – off we went:

Beautiful areas of the desert:

The mine and townsite is about 10 miles from the Yuma Foothills.  We arrived and began looking for different types of rocks:

Lots of Trackers on the trip:

Those white veins are what we came for originally and sorry but I forgot to write down the correct name. 

There was a lot of quartz and we did get some nice pretty rocks.

In our travels over the past 9 years, we have collected different rocks from many different areas.  This past summer I started a little area in the yard to display them.  We may need to find out what some of these stones are when we get back.

There is a trail and many kiosks around the area and I would love to come back again to just do the history tour.

Did you read the above – 1100’ – that’s a LONG WAY DOWN.

We had lunch and then slowly made our way back to civilization:

It was a GREAT day – thank you Della and Bob, who were our mentors on the trip.  We look forward to many more trips.

I have also been beading with some of the ladies from Bead Week and from the Yuma beaders group – everyone is so talented that I hope it rubs off.

On Friday, there was a Boomers Ladies Luncheon.  It was so good to see some of the folks and hopefully our paths will cross again.  (I think I have been hibernating a little too long!)

We have also been touching base with the many folks coming thru the area on their way to Quartzsite – always good to see old friends.

Tomorrow we are heading to Blythe for the bluegrass festival so stay tuned and enjoy today.