Sneaking in a little trip down to the Gold claim

Spineless prickly pear and a fruit filled orange tree!

It's been nearly 8 months since we last walked among the mighty Saguaros on our Gold claim.  The summer heat was boiling and with all the rain since, the timing has not worked out in our favor.
A little glimmer of an opportunity opened up and we knew we had to jump on it. Our supply of ammunition boxes has run down to zero... Once they started selling on ETSY it was steady sales.

Glad these fellars moved out!

  So we left Vegas with thick snow clouds clinging to the mountains and drove down to Arizona through a steady downpour. We woke up the next morning to crystal clear blue skies, snow capped mountains, and a date with a man about some ammo boxes.
When we asked him for his address his directions went like this: Once you pass the gas station you make a left, follow the dirt road 6 miles to a group of trailers, there should be a prospecting truck and to the right you will see a little wood sign with Old Buzzard Road painted on it, follow the old 4x4 wagon trail till it dead ends at the house.  Mind you this road, if you could even call it that, had holes big enough to swallow a tire.
When we arrived we were greeted by a true character from an old West movie.

Where do we begin?

Frost in the morning, it was in the 20's...Burrr!

He was wearing an old duster coat creased permanently from years of use, a full scraggly beard, and a leather hat that I am sure is on more often then off.  Behind him were pallets  full of the old ammo boxes. We made our way through the stacks looking for just the right combination of age, graphics, and color. Many of the piles are literally rotting where they lay. Some the wood is too brittle or warped to recover and many of them  had one or two nasty surprises lurking inside. One of the reasons we waited until winter to come and collect the boxes was to avoid the swarm of hornets that claim the crates in the warmer weather. From the amount of nests we uncovered there are also lots of little critters and maybe a rattlesnake or two that call these boxes home.
 
We spent the better part of an afternoon rummaging through the precarious piles looking for the perfect boxes to bring home.  As the truck filled up and the sun began to sink lower into the mountains we decided to call it a day. It's a labor of love!
Tomorrow we head out to the Gold claim to check on it and scratch around in the dirt a little. 

Matt's Mining Report 12/21/12:  It's wet out there!  
  Well, if you're looking to go out and do some dry washing in the desert you're going to have to wait a bit.  There is a lot of standing water in the washes and the ground is soft, damp, and muddy.  You can't even vacuum the stuff it's so wet!  Not to mention the road conditions of the wagon trails are pretty bad in some spots from all the erosion and wash outs!  
  On the other hand, if time and money isn't an issue, then go out and set up for wet operations if you have all the gear and water you will need to recover that yellow stuff!  Regardless, we can't wait to get back out there!