Sunday - February 18 - It was cloudy first thing this morning but the sun came out about around 9:30 and it was a sunny, hot day.

We decided to do the Castle Dome Mines Museum today. The museum is 10 miles off Hwy. 95, the first 2 miles are paved and the rest is gravel road in various states of drivability, at times it wasn’t too bad and at other times our teeth were rattling!! It was also extremely dusty so the truck is now an absolute mess, guess what John will be doing tomorrow.

The first mining venture in the area started in 1862 and silver was mined here until 1979 when the priced of silver dropped. This area has the largest silver deposit in the U.S. and was very lucrative, at one time there were over 30 mines in the area. The town has been recreated with the Sheriff’s office and jail, the mercantile store, dentist office, church, dress shop, hotel, assay office etc. etc. There were a lot of interesting stories in the various buildings so it was a very interesting day. Also there was quite a large display of levis, some of which dated back to the 1870’s.

I won a free ice cream golfing a couple of weeks ago so we went down for the weekly ice cream social at 5:30 and what a huge dish they give you. After ice cream they had entertainment and we stayed for a bit then headed home, it had been a long day and we were weary.