Monday: Not much to
report from today. The only interesting
thing of note is that we’ve been getting twilight visits from a local coyote
pack. They seem to be made up of a
bunch of youngsters who haven’t quite gotten the hang of a good howl yet. Instead, they have an eerie yipping
cry. Very spooky.
Tuesday: With the
forecast for the next two days to have massive winds, we took refuge in the
library today. It was very busy, since
there was an actual winter storm warning for upper elevations. The local elder population gathered in the
library to discuss the weather and to pick out DVDs to pass the storm
with. We just enjoyed a good surf
session. While the library did have
wifi, it wasn’t a great connection.
With all the people, it seemed to keep kicking off. So we just used the phone and the mifi. Seeing the palm trees in the parking lot
bending in half in the wind…it was decidedly a good idea to have found shelter
for the day.
Wednesday: This
morning, I made a trip across the dry lake bed. There’s an interesting phenomenon in the
valleys of vast mountains whereby your perspective gets seriously messed
with. Like in the spinning tunnel of
Ripleys. Anyway, I had estimated that
it would take about 10 minutes to walk across the lake to the foot of the
mountain. Boy, was I off. It took me 30 minutes! I would have guessed that it was 1.5
football fields. By the time I got
halfway, the changed perspective made it look like 8 football fields in either
direction. It was seriously
disorienting. I battled the
straight-line winds both ways, cross body.
Cassie hated every minute of the wind…poor bugger. Her ears were flapping behind her head the
whole way. :-)
Enough with the wind!
It’s too much! Yuck! Luckily, it’s hitting the rig broadside, so
we don’t get any howling from the windows.
But it rocks the rig so much that it’s like we’re driving 70 down a
pothole ridden road. Sometimes it
seems possible that we’ll tip over. We
took a lesson from our elders and passed some time with a movie.
Thursday: I drove
closer to the main road (and most of our fellow boondockers) to do some
internetting today. Not a bad
drive. Actually, it’s kind of fun to
open up the throttle and punch it on the dirt road. With
far ranging views, there’s no danger of not seeing anyone oncoming (though
that’s rare). Usually when we have to
drive into signal range from one of our boondocking sites it’s a horrible
twisty curvy drive. This drive is 2
minutes. So, we might reconsider
parking in signal range for the 2nd half of our trip. The tradeoff to keep our privacy is probably
worth it.
Friday: Today we
drove to see if we could find the end of Rockhouse Road. We occasionally see people driving by, and
they don’t return for hours. Since
there is a sign at a fork indicating “Rockhouse Canyon”, we were hoping there
was a slot canyon trail for the hiking.
Hoo-boy. We quickly figured out
why it took people so long. The road
SUCKS. It took 30 minutes to go less
than 5 miles. Not wanting to pop
another tire, we gave up and pulled over.
We decided to just walk across to the nearest hill and go for a
climb. I thought we should just start
up at the closest point. Missy thought
it looked too steep, so she wanted to walk down the road a bit and access the
hill from a gentler point. We couldn’t
agree, so we parted ways. :-)
I had a fun time with the challenging hike up the slippery
rock face. I traversed over to the
direction Missy was headed in towards.
At one point, I called out to her.
I couldn’t imagine she didn’t hear me because it was soooooo quiet. But she didn’t respond. So, I made my way carefully down a boulder
ravine. It was really fun! Normally I only encounter boulder hopping on
rivers when scouting or portaging. Wet
rocks are much slipperier. These were
desert dry, and fun to navigate. I got
back to the truck and there was no sign of Missy. She finally came limping up 40 minutes
later. I guess she had a rougher time
of it. With no watch, and no spotting me
(she didn’t see me at all, and did not hear me calling), she got worried about
how long it was taking her. (She could
have taken her time…I was fine sitting in the valley taking in the view). She got some blisters and scratches and
ouchies from cacti. Pobecita.
Saturday: Early this
morning we packed up the bike and computer and drove into range. One girl sat and did some surfing and
downloading while the other went for a bike ride. Then we switched. It was a great way to get exercise, see some
new sights, and get some shows.
Sunday: Happy 70th
Birthday Dad! Sorry we’re not in range
to give you a call today… Hope you
enjoy this shout-out on the blog!
The winds came back last night. SUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK! I had to get up at 3:30 am to put in
earplugs. Sadly, the wind is coming
from the direction that makes the windows shriek.
IhateitIhateitIhateitIhateitIhateitIhateit. Sigh.
I tried to go for a bike ride across the dry lake bed. I wanted to check out some signage I’d seen
in the distance from my previous walk.
However, what seemed like a fine surface when walking, turned into a
sinking-mud-type surface for the bike, making it seem like I was biking in
molasses. If that wasn’t hard enough,
half the time I had to pedal into the wind.
It was hard! I gave up sooner
than I would have liked and headed home.
I took the long way so Cassie could inspect the scrub bushes. After all this time here, a jack rabbit
finally broke cover right in front of her!
She was so excited! She chased
that sucker sooooooo fast, and seemingly for a long time. I guess it was looking for just the right
briar patch. I love to watch her
hunt…it’s sad there are no gophers here for her.
Back home, we had to pull in the bedroom slide to deal with
frickin wind. We decided to watch a
movie to cover the howling…Missy picked a horribly depressing movie that made
everyone suicidal. Good going. Tomorrow, we’re packing up and heading to
the state park campground for one night.
I’m not sure, but if more winds are in the forecast…we might just be
changing out plans to get out of this windy hell-hole.
It's so unusual to have a blog post about how the environs are so awful.
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