Early on in my mineral collecting years I only had a Volkswagen bus to drive and collect minerals in. Although it held a lot of minerals because the storage area was in the middle, between the wheels, it was not ideal if I wanted to go on long trips to collect. I had started a business where I manufactured sample mineral collections with named specimens glued in. To get minerals I could use for the collections I explored mostly around Southern Arizona, where I lived. As the business grew so did my need for quantities of rough minerals to break down for the collections.
I had taken a trip to Nevada in the early 1970's to explore for minerals. I kept good records of the old mines I had been to and collected at. One mineral I was most interested in collecting because it was so colorful was Sulfur. I had read there was a Sulfur mine in NW Nevada outside of Winnemucca and on one trip to the area I decided to look for it. The road to the mine was at least 60 miles of dirt road but it was a road in fair shape and no trouble for my Volkswagen.
I found the mine up on a hill near the tiny town of Sulphur Nevada, miles from any other towns. The only things that were there was the railroad that went through the area and several old buildings which were unoccupied. At that time the mine was open and there was Sulfur laying around everywhere. I collected as much as I could put in my car and decided I needed to come back and get more.
I had also gone to the Getchell mine and had gotten permission from the caretaker there to collect Realgar and Orpiment so a trip to this corner of Nevada would be worth repeating.
I was also taking trips to Los Angeles to pick up the empty boxes I had made for the collections but to pick up the quantities I needed the VW, even with a trailer was too small.
I found a nice used International truck with dual wheels and a ten ton capacity for four thousand dollars and decided that was perfect for my collecting trips. I had a hitch welded onto my VW and it fit behind the truck nicely. Since the truck had a large closed box with no windows, the VW was not visible in the mirrors.
This worried me a bit but the shorter trips I had taken with the truck and VW in tow were always safe and the car was always there when I stopped.
On my trip to Sulphur Nevada I had stopped in Winnemucca to pick up supplies and fill both vehicles with gas. The sixty mile dirt road was just as I had remembered it and I stopped at least every 5 miles to make sure the VW was still there. Every time I checked it was all in perfect working order. I drove to the mine at Sulphur and found a nice flat place to park and camp. I spent a couple of days collecting Sulfur and enjoying the utter quiet of the area. The night skies were more full of stars than I had ever seen and the coyotes kept up a nightly chorus in the distance.
When I had enough Sulfur I packed up and made sure the VW was hooked up correctly to the truck and started off on the dirt road toward Winnemucca. The road wound around mountains and past steep canyons and over flat plains. There were numerous rough spots and small washes that crossed the road. I was careful not to hit any of the bad spots in the road too quickly but since the VW had been there every time on the way in I decided only to check if I hit a particularly bad bump.
I was about 40 miles along when the road crossed a bumpy old railroad crossing and when I had gone across I got out to check on the VW. To my horror there was no VW there, only the broken safety chains dangled in the dust. Panic was building as I turned the truck around faster than I ever thought possible. I was playing through my mind the terrain I had been across and remembered a number of steep canyons and ditches by the road. I looked for smoke of a burning car and saw none. I was racing along and knew the VW was destroyed and was already thinking of how I would right an overturned VW when I rounded a small hill and saw my VW out in a field, upright and seemingly in good shape.
My heart started slowing down as I stopped near the flat area where the VW had come loose and just drifted into the field by the road.
As I walked the hundred yards toward the VW I saw the hitch laying in the dirt, still attached to the VW's bumper. When the VW had come loose the hitch had apparently folded underneath the car and torn the bumper brackets right off. I checked everything under the VW and it seems that only the bumper brackets had torn off and no other damage had been done.
I started the VW and it ran perfectly, turned it around and stopped to pick up the hitch and bumper and toss it in the vehicle and stopped to lock up the truck. I drove the 20 miles into Winnemucca and found a car repair and got the hitch, which was not damaged at all, welded directly to the front of the VW. I drove back to the truck and hitched everything back up with the new tow chains I had bought and was again off toward town. This time I got out and checked at every tiny bump but nothing else happened.
A side trip to the Getchell mine and the watchman remembered me and allowed me to collect all I wanted.
I started the long trip home to Southeastern Arizona not thinking of how much the Getchell ore weighed. The Sulfur was light and didn't put much weight in the truck but the Realgar and Orpiment was a different story. The truck seemed quite heavy as I drove home and I knew I had overfilled it. The truck had a ten ton capacity and I wondered what I had in there. I had no scale to check as I collected the minerals.
About half way home I got a flat on one of the rear tires, inside tire of course, and had to change it. That is also a much more involved project than changing a tire on a car. Again I was lucky that a nearby town had a truck stop with used tires and I had one mounted on the truck wheel. The ten ton jack I had to lift the back end of the truck was barely enough to get it off the ground. Then I knew I had too much weight in the truck. I spent the rest of the trip home worrying that I would go through a truck check point and have to be weighed. I was very lucky that the two truck check points had the scales closed.
I made it home with no further problems but learned several valuable lessons on that trip. I mounted an extended mirror on the truck so the tow vehicle was visible now and the most valuable lesson was that even though the box on the truck was a full 18 feet long, rock was extremely heavy and I could not fill the truck on any of my later trips.
To this day I still go through some of the Getchell material when I want to play with micros and find some very interesting things in the ore I brought home so many years ago.
Fortunately it was the only time I have ever lost a tow vehicle.
Rolf Luetcke