Home Again Home Again Jiggity Jig

Luke, Jack and I left Claremont on Saturday morning, the 15th. We determined to make a quick trip home in two days. Drove to Reno the first day up 395, very scenic drive, one of my favorites. We had to stop at one point and heat some water to soak Luke's infected finger, but other than that our stops were very short.
We met with Ace and Marsha in Reno and they treated us to their company and a swell dinner at the Peppermill. Really fun time that evening, Jack waited in the car.
Left Reno early the next morning following 395 north. We went past the house I lived in during the years I was in 8th grade into my junior year. It is still standing but vacant and broken and has been for many years. The area is ranching country, beautiful then and is beautiful now.
Made it home around 5:00pm Sunday the 16th to a welcome banner and dinner by Kenni. Place looks great. Jack was so excited to be home he rolled luxuriantly in horse manure the first chance he got.
The See America Tour One is over, I look forward with eagarness and longing to Tour 2!

Return Trip May 13: Claremont, CA

Luke was at Huntington Beach with friends on Wednesday, he had a good time but lost his cell phone there. That night I got a text from Luke’s phone sent by the person that found it. The text read, “Found this phone leaving it by the showers at the beach shower 11 on top of pillar.” Thursday morning Jack and I drove to Huntington Beach to find shower #11 to collect the phone placed there by a good Samaritan. Luke didn’t think it worth the trip, he thought the phone would be gone and it would be a wasted trip when he had better things to do with his time, like sleep in. The trip was not wasted, got to Huntington Beach, what a lovely lovely beach, and actually parked right in front of shower #12, went south a few hundred feet to shower #11 and just barely reachable was Luke’s phone on top of one of the pillars! Luke’s phone is so beat up, scratched and has the battery held in with duct tape no one else would want it, I don’t understand why Luke thought it would not be where the G. Samaritan said it would be.
Jack was not welcome on the beach or the pier so we did not stay long, too bad, it is a very inviting beach with the blue Pacific, white sand, and sunny blue sky. After a short stroll on the cement boardwalk we headed back to Claremont and met up with Luke to return his recovered phone to him.
Luke has often mentioned snowboarding at Mt Baldy so to satisfy my curiosity about the Recreational area we took a drive up the steep switchback road that takes one from an elevation of about 1000 feet to over 6000 in only a few miles. The grade is 15% near the upper reaches! There is a little town tucked into a tight, steep canyon at about the 6000’ level, nice looking place, cool and fresh seeming after being in the hazy warm valley. The ski area looks compact and precipitous, I prefer a more gentle slope for snowboarding than appears to be offered at Mt. Baldy Ski area. The stream racing down the canyon is clear and cold and animated. It is a beautiful area. The view to the valley is obscured by the haze (or should I call it smog?). I shudder when I think of Luke driving on that pig’s tail road in snowy icy conditions, it’s scary!

Return Trip May 12: Joshua Tree Nat. Pk

The drive from Needles, CA, to Joshua Tree National Park on hiways 95 and 62 is a pleasure. These routes are lightly used two laners going thru miles of rugged desert uncluttered by development. The air is clear and clean smelling, the sky today was uninterrupted blue. Amazingly enough cell service was available over most of those deserted miles. I did see a solar powered tower of some sort, wonder if it did cell service...?
Joshua Tree Park was full of wildflowers, unfortuately I forgot to move the camera setting from the vista mode to the close up mode so most of the flower pictures I snapped are blurry. The Park is interesting both for its geologic aspects as well as the flora. I wonder if Joshua Tree Park is also considered a National Forest? The J trees are a forest aren't they, but I have never heard them described as a forest. Maybe they are not technically trees? Anyway, it makes an interesting looking forest.

Return Trip May 11: Grand Canyon

I have been to the Grand Canyon a couple of times, once when I was about 10, and then another significant visit to the lower reaches of the canyon on the Colorado River (I loved that short but thoroughly mesmerizing boat ride). Jack has never had the pleasure of visiting the South Rim. We got there early, one of the first 30 cars in the parking lot at Grand Canyon Village, there were a 2 tour buses in the bus parking lot. It was cold and windy, very windy, the kind of wind that made me wish I was wearing thermal underwear. We shared the rim trail with an assortment of non-English speaking canyon marvelers. It is quite marvelous to be there, even Jack would stand staring out over the precipice. The canyon is 10 miles from rim to rim, a long distance, and looking down over the edge made me nauseous! It is so steep and so far to even the near bottom. The Colorado River is puny looking down there in the far bottom. The elevation at the South Rim is about 7200'. We walked and enjoyed and shivered at times for 3 hours then left to find a sheltered location to consume our picnic lunch. While we were eating it started snowing, just a little, then there was more, and more snow. Wow, better go see how this looks in the Canyon I thought, so ceased the grinding and headed back to the rim. The Canyon was invisible, snow was all there was to see. When we had left to picnic there were clouds and what looked like rain moving in from the west, but not rain, it was snow, a blizzard of it.
After that we left, went back to the parking lot which was filled with cars from many different states, two cars vied for the space we vacated. If it had not been so achingly cold I would have stayed to see if the snow would stop, and enjoy a new view of a snowy Grand Canyon, but I was chilled to the bone and the tourist population was growing too large for comfort.

Return Trip May 10: Paint and Color

The first stop this morning was Red Rock State Park which is near Gallup, New Mexico. The name accurately describes the main feature of the park. The park is multi-functional: the natural attraction, the camp grounds, also it appears to be equipped with rodeo facilities as well as some sort of theater or convention center or both, and there is a US Post Office on site. I bought some stamps. I was planning on eating breakfast at Red Rock but decided against it as it was too frigid! Cool temps with a breeze that kept the flag in front of the post office straight out made the thought of sitting at a picnic table trying to keep the cereal on the spoon long enough to get to my mouth unappealing. The park has very good examples of large , smooth red rocks but it is only a small part of the total extent of this geologically colorful area.
The Petrified National Park, just over the Arizona line, is a short distance west down Interstate 40 from Red Rock. This place is uncommon in a land that has many unusual rock formations. What a pleasure it was to visit the Painted Desert! The petrified wood is cool too, but the purple, red, white, orange, brown, black and etc. striped hills and rocks were enchanting. The Painted Desert thrilled me. We had breakfast there at a picnic area near the north entrance. The area is tucked up next to a natural rock wall so there was protection from the wind and with the sun eye stinging bright it was warm. This park is very pet friendly so Jack had a good time too. He was welcome everywhere but the gift shop, that is as long as he was on leash.
We have been above 4000 feet in elevation for 3 days. The last 2 days above 6000 most of the time, and frequently above 7000. This high desert is high!

Return Trip May 9: White Sands, Black rocks, Brown River etc.

This has been a beautiful driving day!
Started out with White Sands National Monument, fine better-wear-your-sunglasses white sand dunes. The sand is cool to the touch and so fine, it is gypsum, it makes salt in your shaker look like rocks. The White Sands Missile Range is next door and before visiting the park one should check to make sure it isn't closed due to missile testing. The dunes are very entertaining.
We, Jack and I, visited Helen and her dogs today in the Village of Tularosa. Tularosa, I like to say that name, it is sylabically pleasing to say and hear and it represents a pleasing village. Helen lives in an endearing and appealing adobe home with wood and tile floors and 3 large pecan trees in the backyard (I wish I had not forgotten to take the pecans offered). I liked that house, I enjoyed the coffee and the visit, and Jack enjoyed the time with Shadow and Dexterous (I hope I got those names right). I liked the doors on that house too.
Stopped at the Valley of Fire, a park situated in the middle of an old lava flow. Black rocks with desert vegetation adding some green relief.
I wanted to find a place to get next to the Rio Grande so started down a paved road to a Game Refuge but the road turned to dirt and then got a bit rocky and rutted so I turned around and came back. Nearing the freeway I saw a man and woman trying to push their van unsuccessfully. I stopped to give them a jump start.
The rest of the day was spent driving thru lovely high desert scenery. The wind starts blowing about 10:30am and stays strong until sundown. Tried again down to the Rio Grande, closest I got was on a bridge going over it.

Return Trip May 8: Palo Duro Canyon then to Alamogordo NM

The Palo Duro Canyon is located about 20 minutes south of Amarillo, TX. A lovely and fun place, and well attended this Saturday. The camp grounds were populated with lots of human campers as well as deer and turkeys. The trails were busy with bikers and hikers. Dogs are welcome in the canyon and there were lots of leashed dogs there and Jack was earger to meet each and everyone of them. The park is pretty, pleasant, has picnic tables cleverly situated throughout, and it is colorful. We spent 3 hours there enjoying this cozy canyon, had breakfast at one of those nifty tables.
Then on to Alamogordo, New Mexico, thru flat cattle ranching Texas and then up into the mountains of the Mescalero Apache Reservation. The city of Ruidoso, NM, has a horse racing track, Ruidoso Downs. I wonder if the horses from lower elevations have diminished abilities there due to the evelvation of Ruidoso, just under 7000'. Ruidoso also has Casinos and other tourist attractions. It is a beautiful area, tall pine trees on the steep mountain sides.
Then thru Tularosa, NM, and on to Alamogordo. There are lots of trains chugging East and West in this area, see or hear or both them every couple of hours!