June 4th,2006

Well it always takes a first run to get the lay of the land. The objective of todays outing was to find the kiln at Indian Springs below Grassy Mtn. My maps showed a road going to the Steward Ranch and turning into a 4wd path past the ranch around up to Indian Springs. What we found was a locked gate at the ranch. So much for Indian Springs.

Plan B for the day was to go to Jack Rabbit, or Royal City, for a return visit. I got a lot of good photos so I can update my Jack Rabbit web page. Wesley found some really good bottles, that have not been shot. We spent the biggest part of the day there and had a great time besides our failure at Indian Springs.

June 20th_25th, 2006

Tuesday, Brenda and I got an early start. I needed to get back to Project Faultless for more photos so I went by way of Tonopah. I had plans to get Faultless and then up by Duckwater to find Buck Fork and Pogue Station on the way to Eureka. Well Stanley does not have Buck Fork on his Atlas, but Delorme does, Stanley won. Buck was a bust, but Pogue Station was still there, just not standing. It has fallen down in a pile of wood. Got me a few photos and on to Eureka. Oh, by the way the Fed's have left the CNTA and there is nothing going on now there. They left a couple of drill sites with Jobox's located on top of them. I guess the area is safe now, or as safe as it ever was, hope I don't start glowing in the dark now. Well we got to Eureka in time to get a few shots of the charcoal burners grave site. Needed photo for furture article. We got a room at the Ruby Hill Motel, last one they had, ate supper at the cafe and called it a day. Brenda thought the drive up played hell with her back, wait till tomorrow.

Wednesday, had breakfast at the cafe and head out to the Diamond Range. I got the Eureka Station on the way. I had planned to stop at Willows and then Coleman, but I could not find any remains or a way to get closer to the sites, so we head on to find Diamond City. I found a road headed in the direction of Phillipsburg Mine but turned south for Diamond. Well, I got Diamond with nothing but a few wooden shacks, all down of course, and then headed south to find the kiln. On the way I came across the smelter ruins, and then on to the Charcoal Kiln. The kiln is in great shape but the cabin foundation is half gone. The roads up here, if you call them that are rough, real rough. Brenda was not happy with that. I had her from roof to floor several times. I then headed back north and up to the Phillipsburg Mine, now here is a photographers dream, model T, stone foundations, wooden cabins, mining equipment, and a out house. After this, we have already killed about six hours, we head north again to the Diamond Springs Station. This was an Pony Express site, but there was very little left, one chimney. Well it was going on 4:00 pm and Brenda was all about bounced out. We headed back to the motel and call it a night.

Thursday morning, well after breakfast, we had to wait till 10:00 am for the museum to open, I got all of the photos of the museum to add to my site. The plan was to find all three kiln sites, but it did not work out. I know there is another kiln at Diamond City but I could not find it and I did not have enough research to even tell where it was for sure. There is another just north of Diamond, I could not locate it either, so I am one for three and will have to return and try it again. Given the facts I need to do more research for this area, we head out on our way to Ely. But first I had a location for the Angelo Bell Cabin at the top of Sentinel Mountain, this took about two hours to find nothing. Not a can, bottle, or any kind of trash. I got a good view of Newark Valley and that was about it. While we were in the area Brenda and I returned to Newark and the mill site. Newark is nothing but trash and the mill has a mobile home setting right on the foundation. Well hell, today is just not my day so we headed for Ely. I had one more stop planned at Buck Station, but given the way the day was going I thought there would be nothing of it either, so I skipped it and went on. Al Frederick told me later today that there is a bunch of stone buildings and a barn still standing there. It figures, the one I skipped was the only that was any good. I was having a bad feeling about the day, and I found out why when we got to Ely. Firefighters Convention and a movie crew in town, I was told there were no rooms to be found. Again Brenda was not in a good mood and using language that was my hint to find a room and call it a day. Deser-est Motel, again I got the last room for three days.

Friday morning I got to take some early morning photos of the Pinenut Indian Maiden statue at the park. Then we went to the Hotel for breakfast. The sun was not all that great and I had shadows, so I will have to redo the statue later in the day, I need it for another article, Tom and I did one on the mural at the bank and it was published in the Environmental History in April. So now we are going to do another on the statue. After all of this we went over to Al and Donna Frederick to visit, and that was the rest of the day, but we made plans to go to Ruby Hill early the next morning.

Saturday we all had breakfast and headed north to Ruby Hill. The last time we were there it was blowing snow so bad I could hardly see over the hood, so I need more photos. Al had been up hear back in 99 and did not find the five stamp mill site so that was our priority 1. We found it at the base of the valley and then took a whole lot of photos of the camp site up on the ridge. On the way back to Ely Al showed me a camp that had a blacksmith shop and a whole lot of trash everywhere, problem is it is not on any maps. The mystery town, so now we are researching to find out what was there. On the way through McGill Brenda saw some Indian rugs outside of a shop, we just had to stop. Shopping always makes Brenda feel better, just my luck. The rest of the day we spent visiting at Al and Donna's going over old photos. On the way back to the motel I try the statue again. The hard motel beds are starting to take a toll on me, I am beat.

Sunday morning it was going to be through Tonopah and try to caught Eva at the museum again, no luck, she is only there Wednesday through Friday. When we were just outside of Ely about twenty miles we can upon a Van burning along side the road. I got out a shot a bunch of photos till the fire department got there. They block the highway for about an hour while they put out the Van and the grass fire. I was on the wrong side of the block to continue. Well we were in no hurry anyway. At Black Rock Summit I stopped and took more photos of the Tognoni cemetery. The family had let me know I had missed one grave site and I wanted to get a photo of it. Now there are two more grave sites since we were there last in 2003, all Tognoni. Well I am tired and Brenda is sore in the back, we called it a day. We had a nice drive back to Vegas and a good to better vacation on this trip. I still have three weeks to burn this year and Ely will be one of them. It seems you always have to go back for more, especially in White Pine County.