Hot, Dirty & Tired! …and day two!

When you read – this camp

site offers a few cabins, sites with hookups for those with RVs and campers, and large areas for tents and open camping – you don’t expect the really wonderful area that is the Lake Henshaw Resort!

Several of the other folks that were on the trip had already checked in the prior night – so they pretty much turned in.

We have an air mattress in the back of the Blazer so we figured we would just camp out…we paid $20 for one night at the gate (this place is HUGE – if it isn’t a holiday weekend odds are you don’t need a reservation to camp) and followed the directions of our new buddy Raoul!

We went up the hill just past the RVs and Trailers and we parked under a grove of trees on the right. The first thing we noticed is that there are FULL bathrooms all over the place and a swimming pool with spa!

So – after a nice hot shower we walked down the hill to the restaurant – don’t worry about the “Bikers Welcome Here” sign – most of the bikers we saw were recreational. This place is great!

The meats is from local stock – free range, no hormones (you see lots of cattle, goats, sheep and even bison on the drive in)! The produce is grown locally – to get to the Oceanview you have to drive through an orange grove.

Full, fat and sassy – we hiked up the hill for a quiet evening around the campfire with a new Book on CD! I was out like a light – we got up early (with the wild turkeys), had breakfast at the restaurant and met up with most of the hearty souls that had stayed for the second day of mining!

The Himalaya Mine is one of the Chris Rose family of mines and as with his Sunstone Mine – the Spectrum in Plush, Oregon – you couldn’t ask for a nicer group of people running the action.

The setup was pretty much the same – groups of sifting and rinsing tables around a pile of mine dirt! This time however we went thru almost three piles of mine dirt!

Throughout the day the routine was broken up with some great raffle drawings for gorgeous cut stones and raw crystals (several of these were over 3 inches and bi-color). During the drawings I noticed that several of the winners were from a large group of women. Being the snoop that I am I went over to get the story.

It is rare to see groups of women at mines so I was interested in this one! Turns out that these women have been friends for years and each had moved on to their respective lives…in all corners of country. they had seen the Himalaya Mine on the Travel Channel’s “Cash & Treasure”. They had traveled from New Jersey, Iowa and even one from England – their friend from Germany wasn’t able to make it! They were having such a good time I gave the URL for the American Federation of Gem & Mineral Societies so they could find their local Club.

Differences – there were larger pieces at the Oceanview and they included greens, but there was a lot of small pink at the Himalaya; the mica (by the end of the day you feel like a fish with these scales all the way up your arm) at the Oceanview was green and pink – the mica at the Himalaya was a beautiful lavender to purple.

Check my next post for “The Take” – photos of our mine finds!