Cary and the Jumping Cactus

I spent last week in Nevada for a family wedding. We had a few days to explore Las Vegas and the surrounding area before the weekend events. One of the places we visited was Eldorado Canyon and the Techatticup Gold Mine. This place was literally a ghost town. A family purchased the land and then discovered the old abandoned mine. They reopened the mine to tourists several years ago. It was nice to get away from the bright lights and busyness of the city and there was no shortage of interesting things to look at out in the desert.

It's too bad James wasn't able to come with us because he would have really liked this place. There were tons of old vehicles and "junk" to snap pictures of. It was a pickers paradise. My favorite was this teal Chevy truck. I keep trying to get James to buy and restore one for me. Maybe some day.

The tour took us through the abandoned mine and explained how they mined for gold in the late 1800's. It sounded like hard work. It was creepy and cool.

By now you might be wondering about that jumping cactus I mentioned in the title of this post. This part of the desert was literally covered with Cholla cactus. These cactus are also know as "jumping cactus" because of the ease at which the stems, which are covered with double sided barbs, detach when a person or animal gets close enough to them. Perhaps you can see where this story is going...I found this out the hard way. I got a little too close (ok a LOT too close!) while trying to take a photograph of the cactus and in no time found myself literally covered in cactus. The spines of this plant are barbed like fish hooks on both ends making it extremely painful to remove. I had to have someone help me remove them one by one with pliers. The sweater I was wearing was completely destroyed and had to be thrown away. One of the stems actually went through my shoe and into my foot. I was able to snap a quick picture of that one, see below. So, I learned my lesson. But at least I got a few nice pictures of the cactus out of it, right?

It was bad, but thankfully not as bad as this guy. Ouch!