Second mining recon

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We started out late, due to the stress and body pains we had from the previous day when stacy smacked her head on the tile floor and I pulled a back muscle, we waited a day to leave.

This morning the knot in my shoulder was really mean, so I had to treat it with hot/cold treatment in shower with massage head on strong. It helped some and with some anti-inflamitories, I was ready to go. 😊

I am glad to have a health club membership now, with one that has a nice hot tub and 170 degree sauna! Helps a lot with the aches and pains, and only 23/month max. You can get better deals if you join with a friend, 19 a month if you join together with someone. You can also get a lot of the fees waived too if you twist the knife a little when they try to get you to commit to a workout with the personal trainer. You get 2 free and once you learn the routine, you can keep it up without the aid of a trainer. They already gave me a workout regiment, you get 2 free guided workouts, then it's up to you.

I am so happy there's a spa/sauna combo nearby, brings great heart happiness to this guy. now I can mine with impunity, not being too concerned about sore muscles because they can be worked out. 😊

Anyhow, enough about my pain. :P Time for the meat!


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We drove up to Payson, it was a beautiful drive and strangely enough there was very little pollution in the valley today (and lately) seems so odd...since we aren't affecting the changes at this time. :P

We first headed out of town about 14 miles to near where we camped last time we were here up in the tall tree forests north east of payson. We were headed to "Diamond Point" where there were writings of an area that just has open collecting of the quartz in the area, and a digging season lasting from oct 1st to feb 28th.

I suspect if you go right after a monsoon, you can get some good pickings, but I don't advise it otherwise unless you like to walk LONG distances into the deep forest and have a GPS device or at least a compass so you can find your way back to the car. 😊 We didn't find any quartz up there on the top of the peak of diamond point, but some small bee-bee sized pieces of white stuff next to the road in the side-trappings of the dirt from the road.

Keep in mind though, this was only the first search, so it's highly likely there may be much I did not see.

We were told also that from the peak, if you hiked about a mile down a dirt road, or if you took an off-road truck down the road a ways, then hiked, you could find a really neat cave. I am very curious. VERY curious. For next time!

If I remember correctly, about 4000 acres are set aside for quartz-hunters, so I hardly doubt our 5 minute hike into the forest penetrated the area deeply enough to see it for it's true glory!

We had also read that there was a place 8 miles west of there that had Geodes galore!

Alas, we were unable to find the spoken of spot on our first guess, however we did find LARGE amounts of agate and some other kinds of rock we cannot identify, but is defiantly quartz-ish in nature. Pretty colors some of them, some blue, some kind of orange, possibly fire agate. We will have to get them identified by some friends or a rock shop failing that.

I really enjoyed the hike, having had an energy drink and then "hugging a tree" so to speak...

(A mental/heart exercise that I practice sometimes in forests where I exchange vital energy with the tree's sap and therefore basically get a kind of energetic blood transfusion. Sounds new-agerish I am guessing, but don't knock if it you haven't tried it.) 😊

Stacy was down and out for the count after about 1/4 mile hike, and daylight was fading so we needed to go eat and try to find the entry roads to the mines I wanted to explore.

We tried the rock shops locally but they had closed at 5 PM.

We drove back to Payson and after some deliberation at the 14 choices or so of places to eat (5 being fast food, and 2 others being subway, and 3 more mexican resturants) ate at Famous Sams (I had a double garden-burger sandwich, having had wendy's chicken earlier, my stomach wasn't feeling the best, so I thought I would eat nicely) and some cottage cheese as a side and water.

We then tried to catch the Oxbow mine on the way back home, but when I followed Oxbow Trail in an attempt to find the mines, the road ended in trails.

There were two more roads after that more south on the road nearby, and I suspected those went into the back country, but did not explore this. I suspect asking the locals around this area would be a good place to start. More recon is needed before we hunt down the elusive "roads to the mine".

I was thinking of buying a Forest Services map with the back roads marked, but we for some reason never saw a Forest Services place to get them from. Proper research next time is highly advised!

So we drove back in mostly silence with the quiet music coming from the car stereo and the wind coming through the car going 75 most of the way back (speed limit 65).

The tempatures were incredible and I LOVED it up there, around 70-80 degrees all day, even direct sunlight was quite tolerable, possibly could be considered enjoyable, unlike the desert sun in the valley likes to toast you like an egg on blacktop in 120 degree temps!

So glad that hasn't happened yet. I hope that the rest of the summer has as nice of weather as we have had so far. If it does, this is quite the nice thing, yes, quite the nice thing...

(wink) 😉

There's some pictures taken but I will have to attach them later.

Be well all who follow this blog.

Enoch

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