Back In Texas With Apache Tears From Grandpa Jake

I made it back to Texas last night, well before midnight.

Previously, due to various delay issues, midnight turned out to be the time my pickup-er needed to arrive to pick me up.

But last night all went well, lift off was right on time, arrival in Wichita Falls seemed to arrive quicker than usual.

And the pilot did not get lost on the large Sheppard Air Force Base  landing zone.

And so when we landed, unexpectedly early, I called my pickup-er so the pickup would not arrive way too late. I was barely out of the terminal when I was happy to see my transport arrive.

What does any of that have to do with BETO?

Well.

Whilst in Arizona it was soon apparent my little brother, Jake, also known as Spencer Jack and Frank Hank's grandpa, was in a productive creative phase.

The first example of this was the Little Library Jake made for Aunt Jackie. We mentioned this previously in Uncle Jake Builds Little Library In Chandler Arizona.

On my last visit to Arizona, back in October, Jake showed us where he hunts for Apache Tears.

Apache Tears are black obsidian agate like rocks hidden inside a coating of perlite rock. Jake harvests a load of perlite rock, releases the Apache Tears, runs them through a rock polisher and adds them to his HUGE Apache Tear collection.

Since that visit last October Jake has found a way to re-purpose the Apache Tears.

At the top, that is an Apache Tear refrigerator magnet holding up the BETO FOR SENATE sign on my refrigerator.

Jake also figured out how to turn Apache Tears into cabinet knobs. Below is one of the pairs of Apache Tear cabinet knobs I brought back from Arizona, still in their packaging.

A load of Apache Tear products is one of many reasons I was overloaded on the return trip, and why I left some stuff behind at Miss Daisy's.

This morning I replaced my kitchen cabinet knobs with the Arizona Apache Tear knobs from Jake.

Now, the above photo of the pair of installed Apache Tear cabinet knobs makes it appear they are both quite different in size, and that my cabinet knobs are not level. Both appearances are erroneous. The knobs are level, and whilst all are slightly different, making each one one of a kind, they are all similarly sized.

And this kitchen upgrade looks real good...

Superior Apache Tear Copper Mining With Grandpa Jake

This morning, after swimming with some of the Sun Lakes Lady League swimmers, Big Ed and I drove north to Scottsdale to Casa Jake's for a lunch buffet of ham soup, fried chicken, buttery whole grain bread and strawberries.

After lunch Spencer Jack and Hank Frank's grandpa suggested seeing some superior scenery by driving to Superior, where SJ and HF's grandpa wanted to visit the World's Smallest Museum to see if there was any validity to that museum's claim to have on display the world's biggest Apache Tear.

We got to Superior to soon discover the World's Smallest Museum was closed. Jake was determined to see the supposed world's biggest Apache Tear, so we opted to visually break in to the museum via looking through a window.

Looking through the World's Smallest Museum's window Jake was able to see the Apache Tear display and was able to determine that the World's Smallest Museum's Apache Tear was bigger than Jake's biggest Apache Tear.

After the museum visit our driver pointed the under powered Honda to a hilly mountain road, with a HUGE copper mine operation our destination goal. We got to the copper mine to find the access to the copper mine scenic overlook was closed.

Even so we were able to see a lot of the HUGE mining pit and the giant piles of earth which had been removed from that pit. We explored a couple of company towns which we assumed were occupied by those who work in the various copper operations.

I have seen copper pit mining type operations before. One near Ely, Nevada comes to mind. It was also HUGE, with big trucks making their way up and down the pit. Because we could not get to the overlook today we were not able to look into today's pit to see the giant trucks. I remember mining pits in Bisbee, which is also in Arizona. And one in Lead, South Dakota.

But this mining operation today was the biggest I have ever eye witnessed.

We are planning on returning to the Superior area to hike to some caves where we get to dig for Apache Tears, hoping to find one bigger than the world's biggest, currently in the World's Smallest Museum...