Springtime in the Desert

We're now in Bakersfield again. Last time we were here, the oranges weren't quite ripe. They have since come and gone, and it's orange blossom time again...

There had been a rain before I got to Twentynine Palms two weeks ago, and this had triggered a relative riot of desert blooms.

During my two weeks in Twentynine Palms I went out caching with Doug and Shannon a few times. On one of our trips, in a riverside park, we saw this shy guy:

We waited to see if he'd come out for a better portrait, but he had more patience than we did. At another park we went to, we saw several of his cousins out for a day at the beach.

Yesterday, here in Bakersfield I spent the day on a fabulous bike trail along the Kern River. Completely paved, with roadway underpasses so you never have to negotiate level crossings or any vehicle traffic. They really take their bike culture seriously here.

I spotted this artwork along the trail. If you gotta have water tanks, I guess they can try to adopt protective colouration.

I wrote the last time I was here about how the "black gold" rush is on. There were a number of active drilling rigs right beside the trail. At one end of the trail was an above ground pipeline, with frequent weird loops.

I asked a worker in a Chevron truck what they were, and they are to prevent the pipeline breaking when it expands with the heat. All that silver cladding is actually a protective layer, the real pipe is inside.

One more day here in Bakersfield, and then we up anchor for Sacramento. The weather report still has it sunny and in the low 70's, so our Winter of Summer isn't over yet.

Turning Point

We've left Vegas and are now back in Twentynine Palms. We'll be here until the 16th, then start the two week trip back up north. Here's a sample of my last experiences around Las Vegas.

I did a geoart called Wild Mustangs (in the shape of a horse head of course). As I got out of the truck to head to the first cache, a real group of wild horses came to check me out. The lead stallion of the group came right up to me as if to welcome me to his geoart. After posing for several photos, including this profile shot, they wandered away and I carried on with the geoart. When I came back, another larger group was there to see me off.

is this my good side?

While doing this series, I ran across this Joshua tree configuration that looked appropriately like a unicorn.

All in all, a magical geoart day.

A real highlight of my Vegas time was my trip to Red Rock Canyon. There's no way a description or photos can do it justice, it is just an awe inspiring place.

In stark contrast, from this natural splendour, my last cache in Vegas was at a museum (now closed) to Liberace. The huge 3 storey mosaic wall still remained, though.

from the sublime to the flamboyant

Since arriving back here, I've been caching a few times with Doug & Shannon (Pouncers). We went down very close to the Mexican border to pick up four caches there, and had a great time. We also had a day with the Century of Caches starting in Hemet. Counting all the standalones we got along the way, our tally was 120 for the day. We'll be visiting the College of the Desert street fair on Sunday in Palm Springs, and I have my eye on a few caches there to fill in some challenge gaps. With scarcely more than a week left (winter has flown by), I'll also be trying to wedge in some more geoart while I can.

What Happens in Vegas

I've been caching up a storm in Vegas, and falling behind on the blog, so here's a bit of a catch up.

The biggest surprise in this area is the well developed network of walking and biking trails all over the place. And not just your sawdust and gravel begrudging one-dog path, either, these are fully paved (some even centre lined), with rest stops. Great stuff. Some of them also have convenient mile markers embedded in the asphalt. This one is on the "Neon to Nature" trail:

I've been doing a lot of geoarts in the desert, which are usually pretty predictable but good for the numbers, but I've also been finding a lot of really creative caches. Here is a sampling.

Mousetrap
(The Early Bird Gets the Worm, but the Second Mouse gets the Cheese)

Gridlock!
(in the middle of nowhere behind a tree)

I'm used to seeing tiny caches noted as "log only", which means there is no room for swag, but when an ammo box is tagged "log only", you wonder:

yep, quite literally "Log Only"

At "Pinky Bison Wants to be an Astronaut", you had to launch the spring loaded bison tube from the nose cone of the rocket. (Another in the series had him fired from the torpedo tube of a submarine)

One cacher memorialized her father with a cache at his grave site. It was in the inverted flower holder at the front centre of the picture. The cache name came from the stash of "angel" pins in the container.

Your Guardian Angel is Waiting

Vegas isn't all desert, though, there are mountains close by. One day I went from the very epitome of springtime (blossoms and bees)

...to the Vegas snowline.

They actually have a ski hill further up.

You've heard of Las Vegas being called "Lost Wages"? This all too common casino sign could be why...

Burros and Bridges and Bungles, Oh My!

Moving day is coming up next week... I'll be off to Vegas for February. Time to reflect on some of the places caching has led me here in the tristate area.

Grapevine Canyon is a sacred area for the Yuman and Numic speaking indigenous tribes on Spirit Mountain near Laughlin NV and features over 700 petroglyphs. They were created between 1100 and 1900 AD.

It isn't without its share of naturally sculpted wonders:

Oatman is a ghost town in the Black Mountains of Arizona. It was posthumously named after a woman who was kidnapped as a child by a Yavapai band of Indians who murdered most of her family, later sold to the Mojave tribe and released after 5 years. Oatman bills itself as "the ghost town that ain't dead yet". Wild burros roam the streets, and many of the stores sell burro chow. There are signs in English asking people not to feed them on the wooden sidewalks, but no signs in Burro telling them they're not allowed inside...

Got Chow?

Here's a scenic vista on the outskirts of town:

Many of the creosote bushes on the way into town had been decked out for Christmas:

Arizona Christmas Tree

Lake Havasu City is home to the old London Bridge, which was disassembled, shipped over and reassembled as a tourist attraction. I can see the seasonal wreath, but the Old Girl just looks out of place with palm trees...

I discovered some soldiers' graffiti dated 1942 under the bridge, and found out later that it was two Americans who left it when posted in London:

In Golden Shores, AKA Topock, I got to not only drive ON Route 66, but THROUGH it:

And in the spirit of "leave 'em laughing", I visited the Von Schmidt State Boundary Monument, a site of monumental Government ineptitude. When the line dividing California and Nevada was surveyed in 1873, an iron column was erected at this line's southernmost tip.

A later survey found that the original marker was 3/4 mile south of where it should have been (ah... what's a measly 4,000 feet between friends...?). When in 1974 California and Nevada each erected their own monument here to commemorate this original erroneous survey, Nevada's plaque included not just one, but two critical California place name spelling errors.

California Knows Their Own Place Names

Nevada Doesn't

Life is a Highway

gettin' my kicks on Route 66

It's been a busy time here since I arrived in Mohave Valley. It's in Arizona, but is very close to the borders of both California and Nevada. One day I got caches in all three States.

Shortly after getting here, I noticed that I was close to 3,000 finds so thought I'd target that milestone before my "cacheversary", my first year of caching on Jan. 23. I got to that pretty quickly, and decided that if I really pushed it, I could get to 4,000. I've been boots to the caching trail ever since. With only a week to go, that milestone is now easily in sight, so I'm treating myself to a slow day to catch up on the blog, email, laundry etc.

I spent a couple of days hiking a 200-cache geoart just off old Route 66, with a familiar design:

It was a lot of fun trekking through the desert. It started with a favourite container... an "ammo can", with extra pill bottles to replace any missing en route:

I found several abandoned tortoise shells, reminders of the harsh environment in the desert.

 Since my decision to push for the 4,000 mark I've also done 500 of the 800-long Route 66 power trail (caches every 528 feet or so, right on Route 66). The first 60 or so I did by mountain bike. Most of the time, these were 35 mm film canisters, placed under rock piles (some of which weren't actually easy to spot):

Somebody, perhaps "tired" after doing all 800, left this marker by #800:

I saw some iconic places along the way. The well known Road Runner Retreat is in (still recognizable) ruins, but the most famous is:

Roy's, which opened in 1938 at the height of the "Mother Road"'s popularity, is in Amboy (founded 1838), which now bills itself as "the ghost town that ain't dead yet". After many years in decline, it is being restored for the nostalgia tourist trade, and a number of films have included scenes shot here. The cache outside the cafe was in a tucked away "Route Beer 66" bottle.

There were many other amazing sights along the "Main Street of America". It has become a tradition for people to use rocks to spell out names and messages along the embankments. Some are quite colourful:

...some are cryptic:

...and some are monumental (many of these rocks have "Ed and Karen" painted on, with different dates):

I stopped at Amboy Crater, an 80,000 year old extinct volcano.

Since I was on a push to get 200 caches that day, I didn't hike up and into the crater itself, as that was a 3 hour return trip. I did pick up the Earthcache in the parking area though.

There have been lots of other interesting things to see here, including Bullhead City, Oatman, Needles and Topock, but I'll save them for another post.

A Cacher's Christmas in California

I was up bright and early on Christmas morning, at first light, rushing out to try and pick up a FTF (First To Find) on a cache that wasn't too far away from the RV Park. It had actually been published on the 21st, but nobody had logged a find on it yet. I wound up getting the FTF I'd asked Santa for, logging it at the official sunrise time here, 6:50 A.M. A great start to the day! I picked up a $5 bill as my prize, a pathtag from the CO (Cache Owner), and immense satisfaction.

The name of the cache was "One Out of Fifty", and the hint was "California". The coordinates were noted as jumpy, as the site was under trees, about a quarter mile in the woods off the main road (Rainbow Valley, appropriately enough). Once I got there, it took me a couple of minutes to zero in on the hiding spot:

That's its camouflage... a fake rock in the middle there. I lifted it up and found the container:

A nice big one, completely wrapped in camo tape. That was quick work... I opened it up to see what was inside and to log my FTF...

A bag full of swag, but what's all that underneath it?

It's dozens of 35mm film canisters (wonder why they're here?). In the swag bag, amongst all the (really good) loot, was a small envelope for FTF, with the note "Must Sign California". (there was another one for whoever will be tenth to sign the log). There was no log book. Oh dear, now I knew what the title "One Out of Fifty" was referring to, and the hint "California". OK, I opened one of the film canisters: "Vermont - this is not the log". The next: "Arizona - this is not the log". I kept going in this fashion, right to the very end, and was starting to get a nasty suspicion. After opening the final one, I did what I should have done at the beginning... I counted them. 49. Uh oh, this is sneakier than I suspected. I looked high and low, far and wide but couldn't find that magic 50th container I needed. A flash of insight made me inspect the big container more closely...

Hm... is that... YES, it IS!

...the log is in a secret pouch underneath it (that's it poking out). The big container was actually the 50th. Now THIS is worth a favourite point.  :-)

The rest of the day was great, too. I drove to some rural areas where there were linear stretches of caches (6 to 8 at a time), then did them all by foot. Picked up another 21 that way, and got some great exercise. The temperature was in the low 80's, but the amount of humidity (10%) made it quite comfortable. Some of these caches were pretty creative, too, but none matched that first one.

Hope you all had wonderful Christmases too, however you best like them to be.

...and to All, a Good Night.

Oh, a postscript... I asked one of the supermarket clerks down here if they were open on Boxing Day. She looked at me blankly. Not only is everything open (everything's closed on Christmas), and it isn't a holiday for anybody, but they don't even recognize the term. Culture shock.  :-)