One scary turnaround

12/22/2018

So, we were off in search of mines today. We headed into unknown parts, for us anyway. Again with a “map” of sorts and GPS coordinates. First up was, the map said 1/2 mile to turn, actually it was 1/4 mile to our first turn. After that is was all pretty much guess work. We were victorious in the end and found the mine we were looking for.

For several miles we were on an old stagecoach road, I just can’t imagine traveling in a stagecoach on some of these roads. UGH, in the jeep with good suspension you need a seat belt on, I don’t see how people were able to stay in their seat bouncing around with some kind of leaf spring suspension. I wonder how many cracked heads per trip? It surely had to be much worse and bouncy than the general rocking you see in most westerns.

So here we are bouncing down this “ Stagecoach road”, that was not in the GPS,  for a couple of miles, when we spot 2 women who said they were out for they’re morning walk they must take some walks. One of them mentioned that we should keep an eye out for the Vicksburg Rocks. It seams that out in the middle of the desert, durning WW II the government laid  out some rocks that spell out Vicksburg 12 Miles and the were pained with some kind of glow in the dark, this helped the pilots keep on track when they were ferrying planes to the East coast. She also described what the mine looked like, so we know we found the correct mine.

The mine(s) were quite deep and now fenced off but a rock tossed bounced around about 2-3 seconds before silencing. There were several mines and vertical shafts in the area, I don’t know if any of them were connected below ground or not. We only got to explore a couple of them as it was getting late and we didn’t know how long it would take to reach some kind of pavement.

We left the mine area and were attempting to navigate our way to a paved road on our GPS. We eventually came to yet another mine shaft and just beyond that the road split. Decisions Decsions. Both looked to follow the side of the mountain we were on, one went on one side and one on the other. We opted for the one on the right. Once we were committed we soon realized that it not the road we thought but continued on anyway, it had to go some where.

Well, it turns out that it did go some where, it went just around the side of the hill,  just beyond our sight to where someone started an exploratory pit. I should mention here that of course it was the wrong road and this was a dead end road.

So, with the only place to turn around was to follow the tracks of everyone else and circle around the pit. Up and around we go, did I mention that we were on the side of the hill? Circling around the pit put us sideways on the hill, not enough to really worry about rolling over sideways, but definitely out of our comfort level, then on around, now we are point down. About 2 car lengths in front of us is the narrow ribbon of the road, past that is a near vertical cliff going down for a few hundred feet, sure hope the breaks don’t give out now. Gently edging our way down to the to the “road” we back track to the split and  after a few more miles onto pavement.

No, the turnaround was not that dangerous but I will admit that it was slanted enough sideways it took me beyond my leaning sideways comfort level.  Then looking down into the valley below, while sitting on loose gravel gave you something to think about. The reality is it was a pretty well use path that was obviously explored regularly by others.

We pulled out around 10 until 9 and got back home around 10 until 4.

31 degrees, that’s how COLD it’s going to get Saturday morning BURRRRRRR!!!!!  Did we suddenly get transported to the Fozen North???? Whoever is in charge of the weather, cut it out it ain’t funny!