President’s Msg

Welcome to February Everyone!
First and foremost, the monthly meeting is back to the normal day, the first Wednesday Feb 5. There is also our special once a year Members Appreciation Raffle, JerryG has quite a few items set aside!!
Well, the first outing of the year is in the can and for the first time in several years the weather gods totally cooperated with temperatures just under 70 and sun during the daytimes and no bitter cold in the evenings, cool, even brisk, but the campfires handled it and took the edge off. We had 10 people camping at the Go For Gold Claim, so the company was first rate. The QIA show was fully stocked with venders this year after 50% pulled out last year due to rain. The new big item was Fire Opal, there were half a dozen booths selling specimens, no doubt due to the popular Australian Opal Hunters show on cable. Over at the Desert Gardens show the big change was the owners of the “Big Building” have sold to a new owner and the inventory has completely changed. It used to be a fantastic assortment of fossils, dinosaur bones, Wyoming Green River White Formation Fish mounts with the front of the building filled with a $25 per bucket material. Unfortunately, it is all gone. Out in the rows there is a vender that has the same sort of items as the old store and more importantly close to the same reasonable prices. The endless tables provide mind numbing amounts of mineral selections. The Desert Gardens Show runs through the end of February as well as the Tyson Wells Swap Meet. The main Gem and Mineral show moved on to Tucson and the Big Tent RV show was 2 days only. My son and I took time to walk up to the mine adit at Dome Rock and checked out the prospects there. If fact my son who has rock climbing experience climbed the vent and made it to the summit, be sure to sign the log book if you too make it to the top. We also spent some time metal detecting the old diggings and pits in the wash and I walked over to the Schneider shafts to the west. Saturday of course was the Quartzsite Metal Detecting Clubs biggest seeded hunt of the year. 30,000 targets were planted, 160 tokens for a variety of gifts, and the 50/50, Gold, and silver raffles. All in all a very enjoyable time.
This month we are off to to the Cargo’s Claims the weekend of the 15-16th and in March a joint chapter’s trip to Calico, Wall Canyon, the Ancient Man site, and Odessa Canyon area, close to last year’s Mule Canyon trip and collecting at the silver lace quarry.
Beach metal detecting will be the Saturday after the meeting.
See you at the meeting or outing
Jerryk