Good Night, Palm

It's been a fun month in Twentynine Palms, but the time has flown and it's now time to move on, so tomorrow my trusty navigator and I head south to Temecula. Here are some more caching memories of the past month.

the nose knows

long live drive ins

the sky's the limit

Frackle rock

sailing the desert

murtle the turtle

good night, palm

Power Trip

One day I decided to pick up some more of the power trail series that Doug & Shannon and I did a little while ago. I managed to get 192 over about a 6 hour stretch, which wasn't bad considering I had no team (unless you want to count Mishu sagely nodding his approval periodically). At lunch time, though, the diesel truck indicated its disapproval of the stop and start regimen by throwing up an "exhaust 80% full - diesel regeneration required NOW" alert. I'd already researched that, and knew I had to take it for a high speed (high RPM) spin, so I charged back down the highway for 10 miles until it indicated completion, then headed back to finish the day's run. I'd lost 20 minutes in the process, but still managed to get all the caches I'd loaded (including eight or so independent caches off to the side). Diesels don't like power trail caching.  :-)

The highway had been recently resurfaced, so it was a nice ride, but some of the shoulders were REALLY soft. Here's where I almost had to call BCAA:

I'm in a rut

At one point the shoulder became paved, on the very side that the caches were on. "Great", I thought, "somebody in Highways likes cachers.

cachers' delight

Unfortunately, my elation was short lived, as a few miles down the road it reverted to "soft shoulders" once more. That stretch of paving apparently had more to do with (water) catchment than caching.

It was a varied terrain day. Sometimes the mountains were miles away

and sometimes you could reach out and touch them

I found this huge weed that looked like it'd be more at home in the rain forest than in the desert.

After researching it, I think it's a type of Datura. It's very poisonous, so I'm glad I didn't snag some for my salad.  :-)  I saw some earlier that had large lily-like trumpet blooms, but didn't have my camera with me.

Fine Art in the Desert

The desert isn't without its Artists in Residence. I posted some of the murals that are in town, but there are quite a number of other public art pieces around. All of these pieces had caches either in them or very close by. Here's a giant cross beside the highway that looks like a cactus from a distance (it even has a crown of thorns)...

But up close you can see that it's made of hundreds of horseshoes.

These next two may look a little grainy, but that's because they're done in oil pastels right on the asphalt street outside the museum. As they wear away, more are done further along the road.

Don't get in the way of this character outside the art gallery (yes, there was a cache in the middle of it).

This large piece (it's about 25 feet tall) was untitled by the artist, bur it's known locally as "spokes" or "sun burst". It seemed to be reaching to the setting sun as I got there. I was so taken by the scene that I almost forgot to retrieve the cache from one of the arms.

Here's a more complete view of it, before the sky stole the scene:

In case you forget where you are, these 8 foot numbers as you enter the city will remind you.

This "Chain of Life" beside the Visitor Centre had its cache in the base...

We found this spontaneous piece out in the desert as we were looking for a cache. The cache was about 5 feet away, I doubt the artist even knew it was there.

Finally, here's one of a set of three pieces, celebrating the sport of rock climbing that Joshua Tree Park is renowned for.

Geoart in The Desert

Some enterprising cache hiders will arrange a number of caches to form shapes and letters. Series like this are called geoart, here's a simple example in Google Earth:

Heartburn

This one's called the "Heartburn Series", with individual names like "Garlic Salt", "Pickles", "Hot Dogs", etc. (One was called "Cachews" (sic)) Each icon represents a physical cache to find and sign its log. Some people take their 4x4s and quads into the desert to do this series, but Doug and Shannon and I did this one on foot. We parked on the road at the top by the unrelated cache there. The total distance we walked was only about 3 miles, and we had a great time. On the way we saw this unique little cactus, quite appropriate for the geoart we were tracing.

lonely heart

Some geoarts can get quite elaborate Here's one up by Needles near the historic Route 66 that'd be fun to do some day:

Geocaches show up on the map as different icons, depending on what kind of cache it is (there are 13 different types). Here's a large geoart near the Mountain Home Air Force base in Idaho that uses the colours of the different cache types to good advantage:

It measures over 5.5 miles from nose tip to exhaust (as the F16 flies). And with more than 200 caches, it'd be a pretty good day's challenge.

Here's an incredible set of 1,000 near Boise, Idaho, measuring about 7 miles on a side.

Most geoart is placed in desert areas, as it's pretty hard to find large accessible open spaces otherwise. Some cachers have found a way around this, though, by publishing coordinates to trace out a design with puzzle type caches, with the actual cache for each being elsewhere. You obviously can't walk around them, though. It also poses a severe logistical challenge, as the published coordinates must be within 2 miles of the real coordinates, and real caches can be no closer together than 528 feet (0.1 mi.).

Next post, I'll show you some of the real art I've seen in the desert.

I've Been Through the Desert on a Bike With No Name...

...it feels good to be out of the rain.

Lots of great caching to be done around here, on both mountain bike and motorcycle. On the north side of the RV park is the largest US Marine Corps base in the world, so not much accessible caching there. On the southern side, though, is Joshua Tree National Park, named for the ubiquitous Joshua tree. It is said that the early Mormon settlers likened the trees branches to Joshua's arms reaching out to heaven and beckoning them to the promised land. It's one of the indicator species of the Mojave desert.

I've had a couple of good days exploring this huge park, and visiting some interesting cache sites.

miner's memories

Think you have bad neighbours?
"Here is where Worth Bagly
bit the dust at the hand of
W.E. Key May 11 1943

Arch Rock

balancing act

stop and smell the cholla

Skull Rock

To the East stretches the Mighty Mojave, and one day I got together with Doug & Shannon (Pouncers) to do a bunch of the Heart of the Mojave Desert power trail series. We totalled 258 for the day and had a great time. 

high desert caching

The last cache we did was called Desert Sunset, and just as we were signing the log, the sun was setting behind a mountain. Perfect timing.

Here's one of the caches I found on a solo trip into the desert...

can you see the cache?

here it is!

Twentynine Palms CA

We have arrived. And yes, that's the way it's spelled... no space and no hyphen. The highway is signed "29 Palms Highway", and some other signs use the numbers, but everything relating to the city is all letters.

The city's byline is "Oasis of Murals", and features numerous murals painted on walls all around. Reminds me of Chemainus. In fact, when I looked into it, I discovered that mural #1 here, dedicated November 19, 1994, was painted by two Chemainus artists, Dan and Peter Sawatzky (Chemainus murals started in 1982, and they were actually responsible for popularizing this form of tourist attraction in many other places). You can see the first dozen murals at http://www.cci-29palms.com/murals/walk/msiepage.html but here are a couple of others.

the artist and friend at work

closeup - no bull

the flying constable

The resort we're staying at has everything... pool, spa, exercise room, sauna, games room with pool table... and for anybody interested... a golf course. It also has some nice garden plantings.

All in all, I think I'll enjoy this high desert "oasis" for our November stay. It's about 74F (23C) in the daytime and 46F (8C) at night, quite comfortable. There are occasionally mild winds, but nothing dramatic. The sky is incredibly full of stars at night, the air is crystal clear. And of course there are lots of local caches.