than finding Zeolite in such an unexpected and dangerous place."
She agreed with me and stated rather emphatically, "If those Yucca Mountain workers still had the benefit of jackasses on Jackass Flats, they might have found gold in their exploration of Yucca Mountain!"
Now here is the rest of the story. We had offered this story to a magazine called Rock & Gem in which the article was published in November 1996 after of over a year of government delays. With a disclaimer on my finding, from Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Dump, US Department of Energy. Little did Department of Energy that I had contact with people in side that complex. Those people years later who when I showed a copy of the article to sat and stared, and with a faraway looked and said: “So that is where all that water came from.”
To make a long story short my little article in an obscure magazine; had put a bee into some ones “Bonnet” so a test was order: that test consisted of drilling holes into the floor and wall then placing resistant electric heaters into those holes to simulate the heat that would be given off by the “HOT NUCLEAR MATERIALS” Over the period of the test, water began to accumulate on the floor of the test tunnel that really got some people upset. The Brass said: Where in the HELL is all this water coming from. At that point a test of the water was made. The results of that test were that the water did not come from any known source. The test said, “That it was ‘NEW WATER’ without the trace isotopes that would indicate its origins. It was if it came out of “thin air.” WRONG it was out of solid ROCK (Zeolite rock to be exact).
I have since checked for articles on the subject and have found a few posted: long after my article was published. Yes always the Bride’s maid never the Bride.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Our drive from Funeral Mountain Ranch to Beatty, Nevada was not uneventful. First, we broke a clevis on the second wagon tongue (the one between the swing team) and I had to replace the solid tongue with a chain. At the time I believed it would work as well and would remove some weight from the necks of the donkeys. I lived to rue the change. (More about that later.)
Secondly, we met up with some new friends dressed in orange that we probably wouldn't have met except for a troublesome cattle guard.
You probably drive over cattle guards out west without really noticing them as you travel in a modern vehicle at sixty miles an hour: you would hear a RRRR and a clank. To you a cattle guard is nothing to be concerned about. But, with a covered wagon and six donkeys every cattle guard is a big deal to us.
Cattle guards are constructed to keep four-footed critters from exiting a fenced area while allowing motorists to cross without having to stop and open a gate. They are either metal rods or channels lying lengthwise with gapes that would trap a hoof if stepped into. The channels are placed over an open pit in the roadway. A hideous sight to see a dead cow or wild horse trapped by a cattle with its leg ripped out of its socket, the critter is then ripped to pieces by coyotes. Painted lines resembling the former are often used now. Every cattle guard used to have a stock gate somewhere near it so that stock could be loaded into trucks at that point or be moved through the gate to other pasture without breaking their legs in the cattle guards. Nowadays, government folk have forgotten the reason for the gates and only about half of them remain in existence.
We don't mind the painted guards, and our burros in the course of our long journey became used to them and would cross them with a minimum of coaxing. But for the steel guards we (at that point) would have to find the stock gate, which was usually choked with brush, clear a route to it and then drive the team off the road and through the opened gate, close the gate behind us and drive back up onto the roadway.
The cattle guard where we met our new friends in orange was one of the ones that didn't have a gate, so I had to clear some brush, and drop five strands of barbed wire in order to drive the wagon around the obstacle. After I had driven the team through the gap and just as I was hopping back off the wagon to rewire the fence, a big, orange Nevada Department of Transportation truck pulling a utility trailer stopped beside us and two men got out.
I greeted them, with my fence pliers in hand as I went back toward the gate I had made.
"Hold on," said the larger of the two men, "we can put the wire back for you, and save you some time. Where are you going?"
I was relieved to be spared the labor of fixing the fence and went toward the men with my hand outstretched as I introduced myself and my wife and told them about our plans.
Larry, the larger one, fumbling to button the buttons of his orange shirt over his belly asked a few questions as to our exact route and then gave us some bad news.
"There are lots of cattle guards ahead of you," he said. "The next two you come to will be on either side of Beatty."
I groaned and asked, "Do they have gates?"
"I've never really noticed,” Larry answered and turned toward Wayne, his younger partner. "What do you think, Wayne?"
Wayne smiled through a gap in his front teeth and suggested that they drive ahead and check for us after the fence was repaired.
We thanked them and drove off at two miles an hour. It wasn't long before they came up behind us and passed, waving and honking the horn. By this time, our burros had heard many a horn being blasted in greeting, so they plodded unconcernedly ahead.
An hour went by before we saw Larry and Wayne again. Larry leaned out of his window to report, "There are two gates and a quarter mile detour that we flagged with orange ribbon, to get you around the next cattle guard, and we'll have to cut you a gate on the second guard when you're ready to leave Beatty..."
We set up a time to meet them at the third cattle guard on the following Monday and before they drove off they promised, "We'll keep an eye on you and help out all we can! We sure enjoy seeing you on the road!"
Because of Larry and Wayne, we easily conquered the route around the second cattle guard and entered the friendly little town of Beatty, nestled alongside the Amargosa River and surrounded by small hills covered with inviting trails.
It was late morning when we drove into town. I pulled the team over to the side of the road across from the Burro Inn and as Carol tied the leaders to a sign post and blocked the wagon wheels, I ran across the street to order six orders of toast for our burros and two steak and egg breakfasts for our lunch. I sure felt like celebrating for we had conquered the Amargosa Desert!
While seeing about lunch to go, I told the folk in the Burro Inn about our team and how we planned to stay a few days in Beatty. After they had run across the street to visit with Carol the employees gave me the six orders of toast gratis, and set us up with a free hotel room to use during our stay.
We spent most of the day parked at one spot after another along the length of the main road in Beatty while I got permission to keep the burros at the town corrals and do some old time photos on Main Street. We replenished our groceries and arranged to pick up water and feed.
Our clientele that weekend turned out to be the natives of Beatty. They were sure excited to be able to dress up in old time clothing and stand next to a live burro to have their photographs taken. And, they were so pleased with the quality of the sepia colored 4X5 prints and the $8.00 price tag, which most families posed for more than one. Just between you and me it was putting on the costumes in front of my wagon: that was the most fun. You see they had strings on the backs to allowed for size adjustments along with extra-large boots people would laugh and teas as they looked at bare legs and cowboy boots peeking out from the backs of laced up costumes
The
