A visit to "Castle Dome"!

Yikes, another busy, and nice day in the desert! The sun was up and it did not take long for things to heat up. Judy was in the pool at 9:00 a.m. sharp and I was in the gym. Gotta stay in shape!

After lunch we decided a trip on the bikes was in order, so we headed back to the 95 to a place called "Castle Dome" that we passed on the trip to Quartzite and wanted to return when we had more time....that was today. "Castle Dome" is part of the Castle Dome Mountains. It is a old mining town, and now turned into a Ghost Town by the people that run the museum. There was over 300 local mines in this area back in the old wild west days... seems the biggest finds were silver, some small amounts of gold, and lead!

This first picture would be why the name "Castle Dome"....

This is another peak in the same mountain range... it is just beautiful out here....


We had to drive 7 miles on a dirt road (yes, again) with the bikes to get to this place, so we were hoping it would be worth it....it was!

She had shifted it into "4 wheel drive".....

There was a whole bunch of these out in the middle of no where.....



We finally made it out to the "Castle Dome Museum" where we met a nice lady who ran the museum with Her husband. They just live there all winter in their RV. There is nothing around. They have no power. Nothing....



This is what all the interest is.... there is "silver" in them thar hills.... (this thing was heavy)

So what the owners of the museum did, was collect a whole bunch of old mining town buildings and moved them all to this one location, and set up their own "Ghost Town". They have it full of everything. It is quite interesting to see, and we spent the best part of a couple of hours going through it all and reading a the neat little stories they had with all the exhibits.... I took a whole mess of pictures, so I hope I don't bore you with it all....

Judy's brother Howard would be able to tell you what is car is in 4 seconds..... I can't...

This guy was starting to get smart with Judy, but it turns out he was just a "dummy"....

We were not the only ones to drive out in the desert today!

Judy is heading over to check out this shaft...

I couldn't believe there was a guy down there actually mining!

Castle Dome City established in 1864, the days of the wild west where your 6 shooter was the Law! It was not hard to imagine when you were here...

An old Ore Car sits in the shadow of "Castle Dome"!

You cannot have a mining ghost town without a "Barber Shop"...

The owners invited any Military Person to write their name and unit on this wall inside one of the buildings, and there were many names....

People in this area are very "Religious" and hence, you have to have a Church in the mining town. And of course you have to have a "Bank" to hold all the money. RBC Royal Bank opened this branch in 1864....This desk was identical to the one I used at the RBC in Gravenhurst!

Annamarie still keeps her coin in one of these at the Gravenhurst Branch!

This old vault was used to hold the silver and gold found... man, I'll take a picture of anything...

This was the menu in the canteen... don't think I would like "Cactus Stew".....yuck...Well, the Sheriff had to hang his Hat and Guns somewhere....

I was getting so thirsty walking around, I ended up in here for a rye and coke, but all they had was maple syrup.....

They had an actual little mine shaft you could walk through, so we did...

All in all a real good day, we headed back to the resort just in time for the Hot Tub of course!

Till tomorrow....