My Arizona Placer Gold Adventure Is Up & Running on YouTube!
After stressing out for the last two weeks over the enormous amount of work required to produce a brand-new two-part episode of American Rockhound, I can finally take a moment here on the blog to relax and share some of my experiences with you. You can find these new programs on Arizona Placer Gold on the “TV Programs” link at the website.
I’m not going to be giving any spoilers in this blog. Instead, I’m going to tell you the stuff that happened to me and my equipment that is not part of the shows.
When I left from home, I had just paid for a car repair on my mini-van at the local dealership. The amount of the repair bill was $3,400! Whoa…that’s alot of money. Still, I had enough to take the trip to Arizona and prospect for some gold as well as shoot the footage for American Rockhound. However, after I turned right at Albuquerque, my battery warning light lit up as well as my airbag warning light. When I pulled over at a service station, I saw that my “serpentine” belt was missing! WTH!!! I was halfway between Albuquerque and Flagstaff when the lights went off!
Night had fallen and I still had hundreds of miles to go that evening in order to be prospecting the next day. I knew my car battery would never keep my headlights and supporting electronics running through the night. But you know, I am driving the hurricane chase van on these adventures, and two of the things I keep on-board are a set of jumper cables and more importantly, a trolling-motor deep-cycle two-battery set that I always keep fully charged. So I pulled out the battery, put it in the passenger seat, hooked up the jumper cables between it and the battery under the hood…and kept pressing on towards Flagstaff.
I’ve got one of those fancy new Android phones, so I discovered easily that Flagstaff had a dealership and service bay for my mini-van. I arrived at the dealership at 8:00 AM and as soon as I pulled into the lot, the mini-van stopped running. I had drained all three batteries! Wow…what luck, huh!?!?
One of the pulleys had frozen up, that’s why the serpentine belt broke off. They fixed the pulley and replaced the belt (for about $250 bucks) and off I went again towards the gold! I arrived safe and sound, and had a blast rolling tape and prospecting for gold.
On my way home two days later, I was passing a slow-moving semi-truck in the fast lane on the interstate and he moved right over while I was right next to him! OMG! There was nothing I could do but run off into the median, hit my brakes so I could get behind him, and then quickly accelerate to keep my rig from flipping over. It was the most dramatic 20 seconds of my life in a long time!
When I pulled into an Albuquerque service station for gas, my car stopped moving forward. There was power coming from the motor, but the tranny did not work. I coasted to a stop in a parking area where a tow truck would be able to get me, and when I stopped and put the car in park, there was this awful grinding noise! ACK!!!!
I had just spent $3,400 and $250 on repairing the car! How much would this new repair cost me, I wondered!
Anyway, it took AAA 6 hours to get a two truck to me on a Sunday morning. Apparently, no one in the city wanted to drive me the last 100 miles to my home. Finally, a tow company who had received the call earlier that morning took pity on me that afternoon and came to get me. Actually, I was cool waiting for the tow. I had footage to review and a satellite radio for entertainment. I even could have watched television shows on my Android had I wanted to do so! 
My friends at my home dealership wanted the car back right away. I was scared that it was going to be a full tranny job, which costs a minimum of $1,500 (which I definitely did not have.) But they told me that it may not be the tranny, so I got the car over to them and sure enough…it was not the tranny! It was something else, that had pulled loose when that stupid semi-truck driver ran me off the road. The service guys were surprised that I was able to keep driving the car for as far as I did. The semi-truck episode happened while I was still in Arizona. The repair bill was another $250…so now I’m into my car for $4K.
However, it is running really good right now…so I can prepare for my next rockhound adventure here in New Mexico. This time, I will be going for peridot, which is a beautiful green gem that can be fashioned into jewelry.
I hope to blog post again soon. I have been very busy producing this last episode of American Rockhound, along with updating the website, and creating the pdf Travel Guide for those of you who would like to go gold prospecting inexpensively (lol…my car!) If you do not have any car problems like I did, prospecting for gold in Arizona will be inexpensive…in fact, you won’t believe how inexpensive it will be for such an adventure. So I hope you check out my travel guide. It will clue you into everything you would ever want to know about what I did out there in the wilds of Arizona.
New Two-Part Episode of American Rockhound To Be Released Soon
My Dear Fellow Rockhounds,
This is the one you folks have been asking me to produce! Arizona Placer Gold is our next special two-part episode of American Rockhound! My team and I are working hard, as the clock is ticking on Arizona gold prospecting season. There are roughly 12 weeks left. After that, the summer sun would burn you up.
So we are going full speed, literally working deep into the night and starting early in the morning to finish all the work. We should also have a new website design to go along with the new episode, and we’ll be offering T-shirts and hats for sale, too!
I hope you will like the new episode, and promise that I will produce another one in short order behind it.
I will also do better updating my blog. It’s been over a year since I last posted. That’s not good, but in my defense, I have been lazy….LOL!
Stay tuned. The new two-part episode could launch as early as Sunday evening, but will more likely be up and running sometime between March 31 and April 3.
New Episode Launched – Website Practically Finished!
Hello fellow Rockhounds!
I have some great news! The newest American Rockhound episode has been uploaded to YouTube and is ready for viewing. As always, the show is in high definition (HD) and features two different collecting sites in New Mexico.
Amy stole the show on this adventure! At the first location, which is a floodplain for a vast inland sea, she found a beautiful, museum quality piece of petrified wood that has been fully agatized. Then at the second location, she bent down to get a small piece of petrified wood and discovered that it was part of a huge petrified log that we were able to finally wrest from the Earth over an hour later. Just awesome! Amy has a real good eye and is also one of the luckiest rockhounds I’ve ever met!
We have a full slate of upcoming rockhound adventures, and I’m looking forward to capturing every compelling moment that comes my way so that I can share them with you. I intend on releasing the videos throughout the year, so always stay tuned in to our goings on!
Oz—
New Program Release Update
Hello fellow American Rockhounds!
I have some great news. A new “American Rockhound” episode is being released to YouTube this weekend! In this program, my wife Amy, and I will take you on a spectacular journey to two locations in New Mexico in search of petrified wood. The first location is a vast floodplain to an inland sea that drained millions of years ago. Here, we find petrified wood that has been fully turned into agate. Then, we’re off in search of the source, where the petrified wood there has been fully copper-infused.
It’s a pretty good show and I hope you like it. As always, I’ve created a .pdf file that is available at the website store that shows you the exact locations of our adventure, complete with easy to follow driving directions and other interesting facts you’ll need to be prepared for your journey into these remote regions.
Thanks for following along with us. We have at least five more rockhounding adventures scheduled for 2010 and we plan on releasing the shows produced from these excursions on a regular basis.
Oz—
