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Every weekend, fits of absolute craziness, hectic, a full on seige, but every weekend just slightly less than the week before.
3 Weeks to pay bills and then the first cliff will come upon us, and the stupid money will be over. Then it will be time to start looking - not just for pretty rocks and gems, but a place to live and profitable way to pass the winter...
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Another brutally long weekend at work - madness, utter madness. This, until the end of summer, and I've got to start planning my move indoors - November, I hope, change of job - the same.
The jeep, the drivers front tire making that noise, "ffft ffft ffft", like a warped rotor - so this morning jack it up and pull it off. 4 of the 5 lug nuts are finger-loose. Get the tire off, look at the rotor, not warped, the brakes, crumbling but still good, the undercarriage, the structural rust, nuts, bolts hidden under centuries of rust, as if this were an ancient shipwreck. Any repairs on this are not going to be easy.
Maybe it's as simple as the lug nuts being loose? (and if this is the case, how did it happen???).
Remount the tire, tighten everything up - and - presto, rubbing/chafing noise has disappeared...
So, Tuesday, August 9th - it's going to be a hot one for sure - where to go, what to do...the jeep is ready to fly...
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Tuesday, pay bills. After Stupid Money I find I'm not anywhere as rich as I think.
In the evening, test out the new phone / Camera with some generic views of Nelson and the Orange bridge. I'll post those later.
Wednesday, up early and off to the races. First stop, and aquamarine/black tourmaline pegmatite. A couple of hours banging and very little found. This location needs a backhoe - it's there, the logging road criss-crosses the pegmatite - the first intersection has it filled with garnets, the second with black tourmaline and a little off-color aquamarine/beryl at the seams. But it's hard smashing up the rock. Worth another visit, but need to line up some heavy equipment...
The other two stops of the day, both locations that held promise for quartz crystals - some previous finds, but none today. So they're now scratched off the list and ruled out for the rest of summer, no need to revisit, the pay-off too low to be worthwhile.
Then, out of the heat, the drive up lake to the ferry, the drivers side front wheel is making a rubbing sound, perhaps a rock stuck in the brakes? It gets worse.
Stop, a fashionable cafe filled with mosquitos in Crawford Bay, try a couple of appy's, they're trying for upmarket city food but somehow not-quite succeeding, interesting but not particularly worthwhile.
Ferry, drive to Nelson, I work again in the morning. The rubbing on the wheel grows worse, I'll have to dismantle and see what's up, whether I have a warped rotor and need new brakes or if it's as simple as a rock caught in the brakes/wheel, this will be determined on Monday...
Prospecting, this summer - despite all this extra time off, has not been so far too successful. Time now to highlight some new roads on the map and once again begin voyages of discovery...
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Between the Dentist and Shingles I've got to stay out of sight.
Bloody Hell.
The heat, untenable, unbearable, 37 degrees Celsius, higher even.
Up early, on my way to Kimberley to check out some beryl crystals in the pegmatites at the headwaters of the Saint Mary's. On the way check out a few thrift shops, replenish my wardrobe.
I'd forgotten about Shambala.
Salmo, the town pump, packed with cars leaving the festival. Cars filled up with neon lycra leggings, feather boas, facepaint, glowsticks, tutus, tie-die, inner tubes, to the brim, overflowing, camping gear falling out whenever a door is opened, poorly packed. They're easy to identify.
Get coffee, supplies, then head off....
Into the 1 KM line for the check stop, there's check stops either side of the festival, a line up of tow truck drivers to seize impounded vehicles, it's too easy this, shooting fish in a barrel.
From here, a convoy of Alberta plates, eastward bound, past car accidents, careless, or not-so-obviously impaired drivers, through the perennial summertime construction zones, the obligatory stops - Tim Hortons in Creston, packed to the gills, the 7-11, party central...
I Make it as far as Cranbrook, getting out for an ice cream discover I've lost my wallet. I rack my brains, eventually remembering that - oh, no - I left it at the Salmo Town Pump
A quick call confirms it.
Now I'm lucky, I've enough gas to make it back to Salmo. Or I think I have enough gas. In any event it doesn't matter, and so the day is cut short.
The long drive back, just enough for a small ice cream and pop in Yak. And to Salmo, again wait out in the sweltering heat the check stop, then to the town pump.
I'm doubly blessed, not only do they have my wallet but it's contents are intact, including the $200+ I had in it.
Sit at the Subway and watch the show.
This, a super spreader Covid and (it will be seen, I'm sure) MonkeyPox event.
And, just as they sold tickets to Shambala, Salmo should be selling tickets to the aftermath. The most sketched out people - and these the ones that made it through the check stop - the Wolfman of Salmo, somehow escaped, now howling at a table outside the Salmo Town Pump, others, in various stages of recovery, many yet weeks away from any sort of baseline, an oversized girl in an undersized bikini shrieking at the Subway employees that "there's too much sauce...." before storming out, the Subway, fully staffed, a line-up out the door, vendors were in short supply this year, starving festival goers patiently lined up out the door,
...This has to be every service industry workers worst nightmare. Everyone hired must get the same spiel - gas station, bar, Subway employees: "Wait until Shambala...".
It's an economic boon, the busiest couple of days of the year, but at what cost?
The workers, the stony-faced response of having to work this the worst day of the year, for a minimum wage job, serving the sketchiest people in the nation, this, their worst day of the year, the day after Shambala, passengers passed out in their cars wearing nothing but facepaint, tattoos, pasties, there will be no prospecting today, merely sit and enjoy the show....
A week after the event the RCMP put out a call for a missing festival goer, trying to hitchhike out of Salmo, last seen "running through peoples yards", this a week ago, some people don't know when the parties over, a tragi-comedy unfolding...