A Day out East. . .

On Wednesday we took a trip out east to see a member of the LDS church, Louise who is a native Apache 85 years old and has been a salward in the San Carlos Branch. Dad and Mom have been working on documenting her history for the Church. The taped an interview with her and now Dad is transcribing it into text. Pretty interesting. Anyway, we stopped to ask her a couple of more questions that came up during transcribing and wouldn't you know I forget to get her picture.

After our visit we headed east on I70 in search of these! (more info below!)

On our way we stopped to visit the nearly completed Gila Valley Temple and the new next door chapel.

We then drove out to and on HWY 191 to a area that was open to rock hounds. Here they allow hunting and digging of fire opals (not gem quality). Digging did not work out so well for me so we all spent our time searching for them on the surface. It was a lot of fun and we spend close to three ours looking. Anyone that knows me KNOWS I chould have spent much longer. However, we still gathered a boat load of rock to tumble as per my picture above.

On our way out from the area we hunted fire opals, we ran across this strange rock wall and decided to take a closer look by climbing up on the rocks to the right. Below is what I found.

It was a dam and was much deeper on the other side than one might suspect! The next series of pictures are each take to the right of the last one in order to show the size and lenght of this little project.

Pockets of water left from the receint rain. Channel off to the top right of picture.

On up the channel valley.

On our way home we stopped at this LDS church that we had seen earilier in the day as we were driving through.

It turned out to be the original 1953 Thatcher chapel (restored). I believe Pres. Kinball was from this area and attended this church. Almost a full block long!

Close up of the front of the chapel. Notice the unique steeple.

The River and exploring unknown roads

Today we started after noon. The morning was spent with a very SLOW internet and helping Dad with his new garden. We hit the river banks first and then spent some time in Winkelman connecting with family via phone and stopping in our favorite family owned grocery shop. The rest of the afternoon was spent exploring new dirt roads and examining the rocks. An excellent day!
The Gila River with a congolmerate island in the middle of it. Lots of good rocks along it's shore.

Baby cactus's doing their best to make it in the hard rock desert environment.

River rocks ready for polishing!

Banded metamorphic rocks

The Canyon - Part 2

Our hike down to the canyon and then up the canyon along the winter fed stream was a smorgasbord of geology and botany. However, being a geologist and NOT a botanist you will soon see that the pictures are not evenly split between the two! It was a great time as evidenced by the following pictures and the 15lbs of rock that I brought back with me!

Some trees will do anything to stay alive in the desert, even grow new trunks/limbs around the old ones.

Taking a break in a rock wall.

Old man climbing down from his perch.

Century plant with babies - a first for both of us!

Father on the rocks.

Multi colored rocks in water

Big rock in water, up the canyon.

Rocks under foot

Rocks under water.
(No Dr. Zeus was not with us)

I have even gotten my father into looking for fossils as proven by this picture taken as we headed back down the canyon. Looking back down half way up Tank ridge (were we parked the 4 wheeler). Yes it was steep.

Looking down from the Tank ridge to the stream bed we walked through the canyon.

Looking from the Tank ridge at the Canyon that we conquered!

A Day in the Canyon

We started about 11 am hoping that the sun would warm things up a bit. However, cruising down the dirt highway the wind chill factor told us that it wasn't as warm as it looked. We drove to the Dripping Springs KOA camp and headed up the road. Several miles in we could see an old tank from a semi tracker trailer down on the edge of a ridge. That was to be our starting point.

Me at the start of our journey down to the canyon.




The largest Sorel catus in Dripping Springs. That dot in blue is ME! It has over 30 arms growing out of it.




My Dad: Trusted guide and "Machete Master". So thankful to have a father who loves the out doors.

Dad looking up canyon contemplating the journey ahead.

Annual Trek to Arizona

Every Spring for the last 9 years I have made a trip out to Miami. . . Miami, Arizona that is. It’s adjoining town, Globe are the closest towns to my parents home. This year I am came a little earlier than most so that I could catch the Tucson Gem and Mineral show, which runs next week. I flew into Phx and these two lovely folks were there to meet me.

We attended a session in the Mesa Arizona Temple, which I always love. After wards we had lunch in the Temple’s cafeteria and then swing by Seth and Brittany Russell’s (my niece) place to visit their little family, as you can see by the cute pictures below.

It was fun watching Madi play in the gravel while Seth entertained us with his RC car and “floater” plane. (Sorry no pictures) It was a wonderful but short visit and it was off to Dripping Springs (22 miles out side of Globe Az), which is where my folks live 3 months of the winter to get away from the Utah Snow. More later!