After leaving Cadiz and fossils we moved onto Ludlow,CA., another rather remote area off Historic Route 66. Out of Ludlow is an old Onyx mine with what is called Strawberry Onyx. In the early days of the mine it was so remote that continuing the mine wasn’t profitable so it shut down. A 2 mile hike into the BLM wildnerness awaited us as we found the spot. It was an easy hike this time up a driveable road just not open to vehicles of any kind. Once we got to the old mine we were amazed at how much beautiful onyx was just scattered on the ground and in the pits. We had to choose carefully as we had to pack this poundage 2 miles out.

Bristol Mtn. Strawberry Onyx-very large piece!

This is a sample of what we collected-nothing nearly the size of this but equally as gorgeous and it should work up rather nicely. We figured we carried about 80# of this rock back down!

On the way down the hike we came across a rather friendly Horny Toad who let Jerry pick him up and posed for pictures. He actually was playing dead I believe hoping we weren’t going to have a bit of lunch!

Horny Toad

This was our last rock adventure for this winter…we were sad to have to say goodbye to the SW:( We will miss the sun, cacti and rock collecting but we have a truck full of work for the summer now.

We are off to Pismo Beach for a few days, then to Santa Cruz where we get to see family we haven’t seen in awhile. After that it’s onto Medford,OR for more relatives then to Portland for our visit with our first grandbaby. We are looking forward to that visit so much but not to the Portland weather. Oh well I get to do some much needed shopping and baby cuddling so it will be good. After 2 weeks in Portland we are headed back home to PVille where it will be cold and still very much likely winter.

All in all it has been a great trip this winter despite the return of my C-Diff that I have under control as long as I keep on my Vancomycin. I swear I am worth my weight in gold by the number of bottles of the stuff I have ingestedI. it is so expensive but if it keeps it at bay I am very happy, as is my husband.

At least returning home a bit early will give me some more time to get some more jewelry made since I can’t begin to start the garden for a month. We are interested in showing our work at our Saturday Markets in PVille this summer and possibly even Portland on first Thursdays. We’ll see if we can get into PVille’s Pow Wow this year but there are still several people on the waiting list ahead of us. It is such a popular show its hard to get a spot. We want to see some return on the work we are doing. Maybe time for our web site to go up!