Road Trip P2 - Nirvana! Tiffany Stone, Obsidian & Aliens!

This is going to be a long post, so grab a snack, coffee, tea and/or beer and maybe a warm blanket.

We left off  the other day I had just arrived in Delta, Utah. I had dug some sunstones and topaz on days 1 & 2. Days 3 & 4 would turn out to amazing days as well, despite the occasional showers.

On day 3 I woke up to light, sporadic showers. This happened to my wife and I 3 years ago too and it hindered our ability to collect on our first day. I wasn't going to let that happen again. This time I came prepared! I picked up a big umbrella to keep my head dry. On the side of a mountain, in the wind that is about the only place an umbrella protects.

It's about a 45min drive from Delta to Topaz Mountain so I grabbed my continental breakfast, jumped in the car, blasted The Cult's "Nirvana" and headed back out. There is no better soundtrack to driving through the desert expanse than the Nirvana LP. 

On the way out I wanted to stay as dry as I could so before digging I went sightseeing and checked out some other collecting spots. One spot being the town of Joy, or what remained of it. 

Joy was once the 2nd largest town in Utah due to the discovery of copper in the adjacent mountain. Unfortunately there was nothing left of the town, no timbers, foundations, nothing. Perhaps it had been buried by time or being Utah, it wasn't that large to being with.

I looked around for some mine dumps but I couldn't find any. I did find a burial shrine though. Some poor guy lost his life out there riding his bike or ATV. I guess it's better to go out doing something you love, rather than sitting in a hospital bed, sitting at your desk or commuting to work.

Apache Tears (Obsidian)

From Joy I took a long, scenic dirt road to the other side of Topaz mountain. This was an area I was somewhat familiar with from my trip up here last year.  The area contains Apache Tears(obsidian), garnets, jasper, agate and tiffany stone. The latter of which is what I was really hoping to find, because It's only found in one spot in the world, here at Spor Mountain.

As I drove down the road, through the valleys amongst the giants I was filled with wonder of how time sculpts the landscape. These massive columns of granite, rhyolite and other rock are putty in the hands of time and weather. Over the millennia even the hardest of rock is reduced to dust that forms massive alluvial flows. 

When I arrived on the road that winds between Spor Mountain and Topaz Mountain I stopped occasionally to check out the washes coming down from the mountain top. There were beautiful red, orange & white quartz rocks everywhere, but they are not the kind I would cut & polish so I let them be.

The road also happens to be lined with Apache Tears, small balls of obsidian. They are formed when molten obsidian hits water. In this case probably an eruption that landed in a long, extinct lake. The obsidian is so plentiful you can pick and choose the pieces you like. I was specifically looking for banded & mahogany obsidian(a brown variety). The latter is much harder to find, but more desirable.

Tffany Stone (Fluorite, Opal, Beryllium, Calcite, Quartz, Dolomite, Chalcedony and many other minerals)

Then it was on to the tiffany stone tailings from mine operations that had ceased long ago. Tiffany stone is composed of fluorite, opal, beryllium, calcite, quarts, dolomite, chalcedony and several other minerals. This combination produces wonderful patterns that are highly sought after for making cabochons.

Mine dumps, tailings, are great places to search for minerals. There are always specimens that were missed or cast aside for various reasons.

The first of the two was a more recent, larger dump. The ore chute was still intact, however the timbers looked as if they would only last a few more years. 

This dump was littered with small specimens. Most of them were about the size of a golf ball. I was happy to have them though considering how rare the material is. After scouring the dumps and grabbing some pictures I headed to the other, older dump. 

The second dump ore chute is all but gone. There are a few timbers left standing, but all other evidence is gone, except for deceiving looking rocks littering the site. To the common eye you would think they were just beige rocks, but they are in fact tiffany stones!

Since there was so much material scattered about I think this could have been a prospect for minerals other than beryllium. It may have just been discarded while the prospectors were looking for gold, copper or some other mineral.

The stones here were the size of a baseball to the size of a basketball! I got a mineral coma when I saw the material.  A mineral coma is a disorienting feeling when the adrenaline, endorphins and increased heart rate all kick in at the same time. Seriously it's almost a bit like being drunk with excitement. You don't think clearly. I only recently started to notice this state of mind after spending a month's rent at a mineral show and not realizing what I had bought. I just went wild. That same feeling overcame me when I saw all the tiffany stone.

Since there was so much material I pulled out my rock hammer and started to chip away at the rocks to see which had the better patterns to keep. I could have spent all day there chipping away, but I wasn't greedy. I grabbed about a 5 gallon bucket full and called it a day, a day there at least. 

Topaz

On the way back to Topaz Mountain I stopped for lunch and to grab some more Apache Tears. As I was looking around I was shaking some of the obsidian in my hand when I heard a different clanking noise. That's odd I thought to myself, then I looked about 7' feet in front of me at the rattle snake slithering into the protection of a bush. I jumped back in fear. As Indian Jones said, "Snakes, why did it have to be snakes." Rattlers are no laughing matter when  you are 40 miles from the nearest clinic with no anti-venom.

The rattler slithered into the bush and I went the other way, but  my senses were heightened to the extreme. It was cold and I didn't think there would be rattlers out, but I guess you never know. I stayed away from bushes and rock piles to be safe and it paid off, no more snakes! But the lizards! The lizards were freaking everywhere!

At around 1 o'clock I headed back into the Topaz Mountain amphitheater. The rain had stopped and it seemed like a gift from above. So I hit the rhyolite hard, literally.

Despite there being endless bubbles and pockets, the rhyolite is hard. The only way to open it up is to go at it with a cold chisel and sledge hammer, breaking off small layers at a time, hopefully opening up a pocket in the process. Most of the time I do the opposite though. I will find a soft spot and start cleaning out the sand and chipping away at the rhyolite around it to get the crystals out. You have less of a chance of damaging the crystal or losing it all together by this method. It's time consuming though.

Basically each bubble you see most likely has a bubble behind it or attached to it. Amazingly almost every bubble has a topaz crystal or cluster of crystals in it. 

When I finished up around 7pm I headed back towards Delta. I had planned on camping the night in the amphitheater, but because of the rain and cold temps I decided to shoot down to the city of Milford about 70 miles south. I picked Milford because there is a Bacon Opal deposit just outside of the city. 

Bacon Opal Fail

The drive down to Milford from Delta is lonely, especially on a cold, rainy night. The whole drive down I encountered 1 car. There is nothing out there other than cows and deers, but my mind kept telling me there were "other" things out there. Roads like these are the devil's playgrounds and if you aren't careful he will best you.  

I made it to Milford late in the night, found my motel and was thankful for making that drive safe to a warm bed and a restful sleep.

The next morning I woke up at 7 and was out the door in 15minutes. I was in a hurry to go get some bacon! 

The opal vein is about 10 minutes north of town, next to a geothermal plant. When I made the turn off from the highway towards the vein I was again getting that feeling of entering a mineral coma. As I approached the road to the vein my heart sunk. Posted right at the turn off road was a fairly new "No Trespassing" sign, minimum fine of $1000 dollars if caught. No problem I thought, I'll just go around. So I drove a down a bit more to another road.... with the same sign. It seems the vein has been claimed and is off limits to collecting now. No bacon for me!

Source

I honestly began to weigh the thought of "ok, can I make it to the vein and back out with over $1000 in bacon opal?" See, when in that mineral coma you really can't think straight. How the fuck would I be able to sell the opal if I got caught?! They would take all the opal and fine me! My thinking made no sense, but luckily I came to my senses before doing something stupid. I already had a ton of minerals from other locations. I'd just have to chalk this up to a loss. Then I received a message, A51.

Area 51

I looked at my phone, pulled up a map and got directions to Rachel, NV. I had a whole day ahead of me and the Extraterrestrial Highway was calling. So I cut across Utah into Nevada towards the aliens.

Groom Lake or Area 51 is a secret Air Force base outside of Rachael, Nevada. For decades Area 51 has been host to strange phenomena, lights in the sky, physics defying movements of said lights and weirdos. Most likely the sightings were due to the testing of new, experimental aircraft and/or weirdos making shit up.

Due to it's secrecy and armed soldiers stopping and occasionally arresting people who get too close, the base has been thought to house extraterrestrial craft and even extraterrestrials.

The highways I took, were majestic, Utah 56 to Nevada 93. They were full of mountains that lead into valleys that lead to more mountains that lead into more valleys. It was awesome to traverse in a car doing 80mph(128kmph), but thinking of the Pioneers and Native Americans crossing this desert boggled my mind.

I arrived at "Groom Road" about 3 hours after leaving Utah. There are no signs announcing this place. Just a well maintained dirt road that runs straight into the mountain range in the distance. Beyond those mountains is the once super secret base. With my testosterone levels having been on the decline for a few years I turned the car around and headed 20 miles down the road to Rachael.

Rachael is a god forsaken place. Everything there is dying other than the Little AleInn and some strange farm a few miles behind it. There is no gas station, no market, no clinic, nothing except maybe 20 dilapidated structures some people call homes, or are they really alien domiciles? The surrounding desert waits patiently to finish them all off.

Inside the Little AleInn is a restaurant/bar. The walls & ceiling are decorated with UFO paraphernalia from all  over the world, but mainly relating to A51. The owner of the Little AleInn claims to have been abducted long ago. Seems that was around the time when acid and other drugs were in vogue. I'll let you make your own judgements, but I'm not convinced. 

I looked around, took some pictures, bought some corny souvenirs and turned around to head back towards civilization known as Las Vegas. 6 hours later I was home. It was an amazing trip that could only have been made better if my family was with me.

Anyone wanna buy a genuine, overpriced A51 bumper sticker?

Thanks for reading!

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[//]:# (!steemitworldmap 39.690661 lat -113.099113 long Road Trip P2 - Nirvana! Tiffany Stone, Obsidian & Aliens! d3scr)