Our Recent Adventures

It was cold, wet, exciting, exhilerating, and miserable all at the same time. That was last Monday. A group of us (12 crazy rock hounds) ignored the threatening sky as we loaded up our ATVs to go gather Burro Creek Purple Agate in Burro Creek which is about 8 miles east of Nothing, AZ out in the middle of the desert on a primitive road. About 3 miles in we unloaded our ATVs to travel down a wash and on to the "road" and into Burro Creek to find the unique agate. It turned out to be a nice day up until we stopped to eat our lunch before we headed back to our vehicles. Then all HAIL broke loose! Rain, sleet, and hail followed us the entire 5 miles. Most of us were cold and soaked to the bone as we loaded our ATVs in order to wind our way back to the highway and on to camp some 40 miles away. Charlie and Janice were the only dry ones, for they were in their coveted jeep. It was a trip we will always remember.

Today several of our Red Hat members prepared lunch for a jeep tour group that was visiting Stanton. Another group parked in visitor's parking (right behind our motor home) and saw Willard out panning his concentrates. They came over and started asking questions. Willard ended up giving them the history of Stanton and explaining what we do here.

On February 6 we celebrated Ben's B-Day in camp. Ben is now 91 years old. He's been living at Stanton for about 30 years. Since we have known him, he has been the caretaker of all the plants in camp (cacti gardens, oleanders, irises, Palo Verde trees, ever green trees, etc). He also arranges and rearranges rocks in the gardens and to frame given areas. Our camp band provided the entertainment as we enjoyed his birthday cake and icecream. We had 6 members. Willard, Ken, Millie, and Hollywood Don took turns singing and we all played guitars. I played bass guitar. It was a lot of fun.

I went to Prescott for my last fiddle lesson this year. Now it is practice, practice, practice.

We had lunch with Dee and Don, a couple we met in a park at Mt. Pleasant, UT this summer. They are staying in an RV park on HWY 60. After lunch we wandered around the vendors at Gold Miner's Day in Wickenburg.

I can't believe February is almost over and that we will be moving on in about 4 more weeks.