Burfday - some of half number 2

On the night of my birthday I camped at Lake Mead, close to the Nevada Arizona border. I ate a can of chicken soup, drank a fancy birthday beer, made a fire and solved the first two rows of my Rubik's cube.

In the morning I drove over the Hoover Dam. Currently a bridge is being built near the dam so that not all of the traffic goes over the dam...or maybe they are going to re-route all of it. Regardless, the new bridge was crazy looking. The two ends each have several columns built but they aren't connected yet. The pictures don't really show how high it is, but its high okay.


By 9:00AM on the 17th I had AZ highway 93 ahead of me. There were four towns I wanted to see: White Hills, Chloride, Mineral Park and Cerbat.

In my search for White Hills I skidded around on dirt roads that reminded me of the moon and found things like washed up speed boats on land, more free fire wood than I ever could have wished for and an abandoned "animal sanctuary."



White Hills was interesting mostly because it has changed so much in the last 30 years. The AZ ghost town book I have showed several buildings and talked about the mine entrances littering the mountain sides leading up to town. The adits have all been bulldozed closed and some netting put down to cover the shafts, but a sleepy town has grown up around the remaining buildings...some abandoned already and some inhabited.



Chloride has about 300 people in it, most of whom were parked outside the church when I got there. There was a tourist info/convenience store and the guy inside drew me an awesome map of how to find the murals and petroglyphs up in the hills. He also told me I was free to climb around near the mine as long as I didn't "go into any holes or anything." The murals had just been repainted by their original artist to celebrate their 40 anniversary. Chloride also felt very lunar.







Mineral Park was pretty awesome. Varney mentioned (in the 30 year old book) that a modern mining company was operating next to the old site. There was one there, but a different one. There were two buildings (one with crazy old mud bricks) and multiple shafts in the hills. Unfortunatley I had to share the experience with a grandfather and grandson who were "searching for treasure" with a metal detector with an abhorrent beep. Cute...but inside I was like, 'you're not allowed to take anything even if you're bonding!!!'


Cerbat was different in that there was a sign that actually invited anyone to camp or hunt quail there provided you signed in and out. There was one private ranch house and then a mine on a hill. I parked and walked past several bullet riddled cars, saw more big kitty prints and went right back to the truck.