Mark and Jan vacationed here

Mark and Jan escaped the hectic life in LA and came to visit us here at Stanton for a few days. We traveled up the mountain above us to the little town of Yarnell, where we found the Ranch House Restaurant to have wonderful breakfasts. Mark found a friend to share his chair outside! Then we checked out the stations of the cross which featured life-sized statues at a nearby retreat center. The next day we traveled up to Prescott which is featuring all the spring flowers such as flowering fruit trees and daffodils. Lynx Lake had very big white geese that hissed at everyone they saw, including Mark! Our next adventure was to the Hassayampa River Preserve by Wickenburg, where we strolled through the paths by the river and enjoyed the view. The Vulture Mine featured a lot of old bits and pieces of mining equipment from the huge operation and town of 5,000 that once existed there. Ron and I have also been finding a bit of gold – here is a picture of Ron’s little specimen he found last week! Very exciting!

Okay I know spring is here now!

Okay, spring is finally here! The temperatures are fluctuating between the 60s and high 70s each day, so its not nearly as hot as it was when we were here a couple of years ago at this time. But that’s okay, it’s wonderful weather for metal detecting and bicycling, which we are doing a lot of lately! Ron and I met a prospector at camp by Lake Havasu who not only wore an amazingly big nugget necklace, he also sported a whopper of a nugget everywhere he went. He said he got out of the truck, turned on the detector, and found the big one! (This happened many years ago however.) We spent a week prospecting with the Nugget Wranglers at a club claim near Salome in the Harquahala Mountains. It was a spectacularly beautiful area with wide vistas from the mountaintops. After the outing we joined our friends John and Jane at Rich Hill, home of the famous Potato Patch, where in the old days nuggets were found on the top of the mountain the size of potatoes. It’s not too far from Wickenburg and Prescott where we shop. Flowers are out in full force – I have included pictures of a California Poppy, the Colorado Four O’Clock, Emory’s Globemallow, a couple of white ones which I don’t know, the Lesser Yellowthroat Gilia, the New Mexico Thistle, owl clover and whitestem paperflower. Last night the Easter Bunny laid a couple of eggs for John and Jane and us. It was a gorgeous day to celebrate the risen Lord!