So Much For Beginner's Luck

Off we went to the Quartzsite Metal Detecting Hunt today.  There were 183 hidden tokens that corresponded to some major prizes.  The day was extremely hot (high 90s) but off we went.

I guess I used up all my luck on the first hunt - all I managed to find was $7.50.  Syd did well - he found over $30 in coins.  Ray found a token that got him a new gold pan and he also won a set of headphones in one of the draws.  These he very generously gave to me.  Thanks again, Ray!

We didn't even get to go see the nekkid librarian.  All in all, it was kind of a disappointing day :-)

A Rock By Any Other Name

Another great day!  When I first decided to live in the desert, I assumed that it would be a wide open expanse filled with nothing but sand, cacti and rattlesnake droppings.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  It is in fact a wide open expanse filled with rocks, cacti and rattlesnake droppings. 

 Today's adventure was a visit to Graffiti Mesa, which is located about an hour away in Southern California.

Most people, when faced with lots of rocks, will look around and say "wow, look at all the rocks" and it would pretty much end there.  Not in California.  For some reason, the people here feel compelled to arrange the rocks in patterns.  And so we came to the Valley of the Names which can only be reached by someone with a 4-wheel drive truck and nerves of steel.  It's worth the trip though.  Over the past 50 years, hundreds of people have gone out to the desert and, in an area of about 2 or 3 square miles, left their names or messages outlined in rocks.  It's

an amazing site!  We spent a great afternoon walking through the area and trying to find the oldest ones out there.

Not to be outdone, some enterprising soul in the town of Felicity (Population 0; Elevation 136 feet) made concentrated rings of stone in a big empty field, piled a bunch of quartz stones in the middle and surrounded the whole thing with angel statues.  The only thing they didn't do was put up a sign to explain why they did it - no markers, names, or any form of identification.  Just a pile of rocks.  You gotta love those Californians.