More touring in beautiful Sonora today. If you listen to advertisements on the radio, then this is 'Gold Country' or 'Mother Lode Country' or 'the Gold Fields.' Although the boom gold mining days are now behind us, it's good to see that mining is still an important part pf the local economy. Rotarian Jerry from the morning club took us on a tour of local lime mine run by Blue Mountain Minerals. Jerry is a director on the board of the mine. Along with current manager Tom, they were able to show us many aspects of this open cut calcium carbonate mine. (Yes, I did ask them if they got many jokes about being Tom & Jerry... no they didn't. No they don't think it is amusing...)
Blue Mountain Minerals Mine
We saw the mine being blasted, the rock being sorted from the dirt, the limestone being crushed, sorted, dried and eventually trucked out. It is used as a ph changer in agriculture, as chicken food, in glass manufacture and in the manufacture of roof shingles. A thoroughly interesting tour.
Blast holes & some blasted rock
Lunch was with the Sonora 49er club. Conveniently, they meet in the same diner as do the morning club, so at least we knew where we were going! They were a pleasant bunch. President Michael runs a quiz. A table is chosen at random to ask a tricky question as a team. If they get ti right everyone gets a small prize. If not, they all get fined. The questions was:
"If you consider the highest mountain in each state, which are the five highest?" (Name the state and the mountain). Now, we all know Alaska has quite a few of the highest, but it still only counts as one. The first table got 4/5, but no cigar. Fortunately Sarah knew the answer. I think she may have had a tip off... Police are good at that. (For the answer, see below...)
President Michael was also the man responsible for the Hispanic Lip Sync Competition that we'd seen in Modesto the very first night that we'd arrived. It was neat to meet him (note the use of general purpose American adjectives 'neat' and the rhyme).
After the meeting we headed up into the mountains to visit the local ski resort, Dodge Ridge. Our tour guide was a kiwi, which was a nice change! His accent was not particularly distinctive (he said he'd had to modify it to suit the locals), but was still different to what we've been hearing and pleasant to my ears! The ski resort had just closed for the summer, but we were able to find big sheets of plastic and run up the hill with them and slide down. Lots of fun!
Strange environment for a devil
Dodge Ridge's desserted slopes
Answers to the quiz:
Alasksa - McKinley
California - Whitney
Colorado - ?extra credit if you can remember
Oregan (or was it Washington?? oops not sure now) - ditto
Hawaii - ditto
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