Jason enjoys driving unknown roads and going to random desolate places. I enjoy driving to desolate places to search for rocks. Match made in heaven… We drove a few more hours south to Plush. Plush is a town of barely over 100 people nestled in the desert below Hart Mountain. They have fuel there, but it’s otherwise not worth stopping unless you need supplies or steak fries. Nonetheless, Plush wasn’t actually our final destination. Our stop for the night was to be 25+ miles outside Plush into the middle of the high desert to dig for sunstones. The sunstone is a variety of feldspar that is a minor gemstone and also the official state stone of oregon. Click here for info. There is a substantial public sunstone digging area set aside in between all of the claimed mines. It’s also a pretty nice place to camp.
I dug around a little bit for the stones while Jason made dinner. I made a big sifting screen a few years ago, but haven’t had the opportunity until now to actually use it. It worked awesome and I scored a few really nice stones! The sunsets out here in the desert are truly spectacular.
We woke up early the next morning and left the campsite to drive a few miles down the road to get away from the main sunstone digging area and hopefully find a place that’s not been totally picked over to dig. Jason made eggs, potatoes, and bacon for breakfast and we found a whole water bottle full of sunstones. Excellent morning indeed!
I filled my whole bottle with stones and then it got hot and I decided I’d had enough fun for the day. (and I have enough stones to fill my rock tumbler, so I’m good!) We headed south of Plush to the town of Adel. This is another tiny town with only one store, but luckily has gas. As usual out in this part of the country, if there’s an opportunity for fuel, take it! We used every bit of the Jeep’s fuel range and had 10 gallons in the trailer just in case we guessed wrong. (If your vehicle takes premium, you’re screwed out here…) With a minor detour due to a missed turn we ended up on Route 34 headed down into Nevada. We’ve never been this far south, so why not!
