CFMS Member Recognition
By Loretta Ogden
Just a few words of apology and correction. Fossils For Fun nominated Don Tadlock and South Bay Lapidary nominated Leslie Neff and Larry Hoskinson.
I have the list of the winners for 2005 and will mail the pins to the club address unless otherwise notified. The 2004 recipients are a different story so if your member did not get their pin please notify me with a name and mailing address. Again I am sorry for the misspelling and omittance.
Ventura Gem and Mineral Society is nominating Shirley Layton for the Education Through Sharing Award. Shirley is editor of the club bulletin Rockhound Rambling which has won numerous awards, including first in CFMS and first in the American contest. Besides the routine committee reports Shirley includes in the bulletin: important news items from the BLM, CFMS, AFMS bulletins as well as lapidary and safety tips from exchange bulletins which are very helpful. Shirley does all of the printing necessary for the club show. As we have said to each other many times, we don't know what we would do without her.
Submitted by Florence Meisenheimer
Trouble in Tecopa
By Eva
I left for Tecopa, California early on a bright Friday morning. I wanted to have plenty of time to reach camp, only 9.2 miles southeast of Tecopa, according to the instructions.
Tecopa is quite a number of miles towards Death Valley and the middle of nowhere. I arrived in plenty of time. My instructions weren't very clear, one reason why I had emailed others for verification before leaving, only to find out they had never been to the campsite either. I wasn't sure what road to take, but there seemed to be only one main road that went through. I counted my miles carefully and looked for the turnoff, but the darn thing seemed elusive. There were a few small dirt paths off the main road, but since I wasn't sure, I decided to drive back to town and ask around.
"Anyone happen to know the way to Noonday Camp?" I asked, but the locals at the Tecopa Hot Springs seemed as perplexed as me by the crude map I had in my possession, little more than a squiggly line with a dot at the end of it and the mileage. Of course, there WERE some GPS coordinates on it, but since I didn't have a GPS, that was of little use to me.
Finally a friendly old man claimed to know the way. "Ya know where the sign is for the Date Farm? Yeah, it's past the date farm about 8 miles. You'll see a bridge there to cross, I think, or maybe not. I'm not sure about the bridge. But it's about 8 miles. Then you turn right towards the camp."
So I went back to where I had come from and looked for the turn. Looking at my own map, I realized it said turn LEFT. And of course there was no bridge in
sight, but I had indeed gone past the Date Farm sign about 8 miles, 9.2 or so out of Tecopa, so this HAD to be it! FInally, I figured the man must have been mistaken and meant left because there was only one road at 9.2 miles and it went left. I took it.
The road was not the best and I wondered if trailers could make it on such a road. I went about one quarter mile from the main road and then became concerned. The road was continuing to degrade. I decided to stop, get out, and climb a small hill on foot to see if any camp lay beyond. Not surprisingly, it didn't. Time to turn around.
The only problem was that my truck refused to comply. Sure the shale covered road looked hard enough, but under the shale was soft fluffy dry dirt and the wheels of the truck began to spin and spin. Since the truck is a rear wheel drive, I found that backing up often worked to get me free, but eventually, I slammed backwards into a small hill of rock and then I was REALLY stuck. Getting out the shovel, I started to dig, but nothing I did seemed to get the rear wheels to stick. I finally realized the truck was high centered in the back and so the wheels were not making good contact with the ground. The sun was setting behind the mountain and I was probably not going to be able to escape before dark. Curses at my map abounded!
I had little choice but to pitch camp and wait until morning to make my escape. I figured if I had enough time, I could simply dig out the loose rock that was holding up my truck and then the back wheels would settle back down to Earth. Setting up camp, my dog "Gecko" began to stare at a bush and growl. I hoped he was merely as on edge as I was. I could see nothing near the bush so I set up my tent heater and we both went to bed.
In the morning, I woke at the crack of dawn, packed everything back into the truck, and started digging. The rocks were jammed under the truck so the going was slow. Meanwhile, my dog Gecko kept himself busy scouting the area. I dug and dug until I realized that I was facing worst case scenario. After I had pulled away the rocks, I discovered the truck was not actually resting on any rocks. Instead it was resting on a large creosote bush stump that had been hidden amongst the rocks. And that stump would not be moving with any mere shovel! Then I looked up and realized something else. Gecko was nowhere to be seen.
...to be continued next month
