From Aliens to Craters - "Beam me up, Scotty"

 

Editor's Note - It's a strange headline - but it makes perfect sense if you follow my previous blogs on Death Valley... he he he
After our impromptu photoshoot at Racetrack Playa, P and I packed up and set off around 8:30am back on the dusty, slow dirt road back towards the one main (and paved) road that cuts across the entire Death Valley from one park entrance to the next (a 1.5-2 hour drive in itself). It was growing quite hot already and the road was incredibly dusty - since we had driven down at sunset the previous day we didn't realize how painstakingly slow and hot it was during the day. P's windshield actually developed a large crack from the shuddering and vibrations of the car going s-l-o-w-l-y over the dirt, bumpy road. (Shoot - Good thing we had a great night alone with the stars and good pictures for P to make the damage worth it).

Park Rangers warn people that cars can overheat on that road and you need extra tires if they should go flat. Well, we did run into the abandoned army jeep of the weird guy alone in fatigues that we had passed the night before. Evidently, on his return his car didn't make it and he tried to start walking back all the way (about 30 miles) towards the paved road - - incidentally, this is exactly what they tell you NOT to do. They tell you to stay with your car and with water and food, hopefully, and eventually in the next day or so someone will be making the off-road drive to the Playa and can pick you up. We never saw him on the road back so either he got picked up or the cannibalistic "These Hills Have Eyes" people or aliens came down and ate him!!! (Insert the cascading musical sound effect here: Duh-duh-DUHHH!!!!)

As we almost reached our glorious, paved road we sidetracked shortly to the top of the Ubehebe crater to check out the view. (By the way: I LOVED repeating over and over the name "Ew-buh-hay-bee - so much fun - try it!) The crater was from a volcanic eruption that left a several-mile radius of black, dry lava on either side of the unpaved dirt road. I hadn't seen any lava fields except for in Maui a couple years back so this was pretty cool to look at.
After the crater we got back on the real road and wound ourselves up a hillside to a natural oasis (I have always loved that word, too) with probably an acre of lush grass, believe or not, growing amidst some tall palm trees and other man-planted trees. Next to that was the tourist destination of "Scotty's Castle".

 

Death Valley Scotty told everyone that he built this castle in the hidden canyons of Death Valley. But that was not quite the truth. Albert Mussey Johnson, Chicago millionaire businessman, built his "Death Valley Ranch" in the cool of Grapevine Canyon and he let his cowboy mining partner, Scotty, live there as a guest. Ahhhh, it's a bit more than a white lie, Scotty, okaayy?? Scotty's Castle is a fantasy house. We didn't pay to take the guided tour, but one can still freely walk the grounds and take pictures and see the now empty huge swimming pool that rivals the Hearst Castle one we saw last summer. We also went up to the stables which have now been turned into a 'garage' of sorts of some of the old cars and wagons used during that time around the 1920s. Fantastic and interesting!

Click below for slide show!

Death Valley - Ubehebe Crater & Scotty's Castle

Death Valley - Racetrack Playa

Alas, I am blogging about our pleasure trip camping in Death Valley the weekend after Joshua Tree. Now, firstly, please let me warn: do NOT, I repeat - do NOT go camping in a place called Death Valley any later than April - for it was so hot even me with my fondness of hot desert climate - was feeling almost (not quite!) heat stroke.

So back to our adventure. Another Friday of hooky (it's nice to have someone whose travel priorities are almost as high as mine he he he) and we packed up the car again and set off.

It took us almost 7 hours to get to our first destination at sunset: Racetrack Playa. This was so great - - it is very private as it takes (once inside the National Park) over an hour on a very slow, bumpy dirt road to get there. One can only reach it by sports utility car with 4 wheel drive. With no campground, no toilets - - this separates the real campers from the tourists. Patrick and I love this kind of camping! Outside of 1 scary-looking chap in fatigues and army jeep by himself that we passed up a mile or so, we were completely alone. And when I say 'alone' - I mean pitch quiet, out-in-the-boondocks alone. Put it this way - we were so isolated that even I was slightly freaking myself out stating that if we were to break down or have a flat (a very real possibility) we might not see anyone else for days (they actually warn people of this who trek to Racetrack Playa). I also thought that this is exactly where those scary "U-Turn" movie cannibal people would live in the hills and come down and steal us in the night. (I'm not kidding, I actually had nightmares of it all night, thinking it was real).

Anyhow, we set up camp, P's new camping grill and chairs off the side of the dirt road and grilled delicious fajitas and margaritas before setting off on our moonlight trek about a mile into Racetrack Playa. P's camera equipment included several lens to take night shots and I went to stargaze. This was amazing, it was our own private Idaho, as they say. The big draw to this remote location is that the playa is a dry, cracked 'playa' of light-colored terrain with random rocks ranging from small to TV-set size that for some unknown reason slide s-l-o-w-l-y by themselves over hundreds of years and leave trails - as if they are racing each other! They move so slowly that their movements are undetectable by the human eye! It is so different, so strange and fantastic! Some people believe that aliens(!!) are responsible for the phenomenon. Shoot, if you saw this place you would be a Believer like me - it is so remote and different, I would have no doubt believing aliens land there and the government knows all about it but doesn't tell us he he he..

As P snapped away at rocks I laid back on a blanket and stared up at the stars. I am blind as a bat, but this was the best and clearest star-gazing - hands down- that I have ever experienced. I saw, quite clearly, the Big Dipper and Orion for the first time ever. It was just amazing that we had the place to ourselves! It was well-worth the long off road drive. We were both happy as cats as we retired to sleep in the back of P's Honda Element. Stay tuned for Day 2!


*photos courtesy of PatrickM Photography...

Joshua Tree 2008

 

You saw the video, now here's the blog. Last weekend we took Ciara to Joshua Tree National Park. It pretty much was Ciara's first time camping (outside of camping at the beach). We were all pretty excited about it. But not excited enough that somehow both Patrick and I slept through and didn't wake up to the phone alarm at 6am...

** editor's note - I still don't believe it was set, for I NEVER sleep through an alarm.

Thus, I was preparing myself that our leaving 2.5 hours late probably meant we wouldn't get a camping spot at Jumbo Rocks campground on a Friday. :(

Sure enough as we paid and drove through the Ranger Gate we were informed that all campgrounds were full already except one clear on the opposite entrance (30 miles of slow turns through the Park). With expectant breath we stopped at the campgrounds on the way as we made our way to the Cottonwood site. Luckily we found one in Jumbo Rocks after all - someone must have recently packed up. We were so excited!

Jumping out of the car Patrick and I started pitching the tent and unloading food while Ciara happily started running and climbing around on our campsite's backdrop of ...you guessed it: big rocks.

 

That afternoon we continued exploring the huge, slightly orangish boulders - climbing, scaling, slithering through small passages - that was definitely Ciara's favorite part of the trip. We then continued down a trail to see Skull Rock. It's amazing how much it resembled a skull! As we shot photos and Ciara climbed around, a very amiable family from London joined our spot and I knew the minute I heard the father's accent that P would mention he was from Ireland and that he also lived and worked in London for a year. The 2 ended up sitting together chatting about photography as they both had expensive cameras and the Brit commented that he was a professional photographer. Meanwhile, I chatted with the mom and her daughter who was about Ciara's age. Anyone who knows me knows I love foreigners, so I enjoyed myself plenty. The daughter was so sweet and bright. She commented to me, "I know I've only been here 3 days but I REALLY like America. The people are SO nice...!" Wow - God Bless her for saying that:)

 

As we returned to camp we all stopped short when we saw an older couple camping with not one but 2 Basset Hounds. We always lament that we can't take Fred-the-Basset camping or on our big hikes. He barks too much and also he just doesn't have the stamina. We ended up talking to the couple a good half hour while petting their hounds who - being the social breed they are- loved the attention. Then, unbelievably, came a Biker who ALSO had one and he came to let the dogs play together. Patrick and Ciara were going nuts - P, especially - wants 1 or 2 more in addition to Fred. He is almost obsessed with sending me pictures almost daily of multiple Bassets playing together. I keep telling him I love Fred but I will go NUTS with another one.

Finally after returning to camp and having dinner we went to the presentation (solar-powered, of course) at the Ranger Station. I really enjoyed it as they talked about the dangers of light pollution from LA, San Diego and Riverside that are making it harder to enjoy stargazing in the Desert. The ranger went on to point out constellations and I even saw a shooting star!! But it was very windy that first night and quite cold so we left a little early to warm up at the fire and then hit the hay.

The next day we awoke and Patrick contentedly fired up his new camping gas stove that he just bought. He was adamant about having eggs, bacon, sausage and hashbrowns for breakfast - even though I rolled my eyes stating he was high-maintenance and that I grew up camping and happily eating a simple bowl of cereal. Well, there you go.

After breakfast we took an easy couple-mile hike to Baker's Dam. It was lovely - not too hot at all. The path also led us to real petroglyphs drawn at least 100 years ago by the native Indians in the area. That was amazing to see in the caves. We then went off the trail a bit and found a few more, faded but true - - very cool!

After a big lunch and a short nap for Ciara and I we then drove a ways and got out to hike the 4-mile, more difficult terrain and hilly trail up to Lost Horse Mine. I had done this trail a few years back and remembered it being long and harder going then just a leisure trail. But I didn't let Ciara in on that. She was already commenting at lunch that she wanted to go back to the campsite to climb on the boulders. But her dad and I both commented that we'd have time to do that later and that we like to get out and hike and see things on our trips.

Poor Ciara - at 9 and a half years and Physical Education only twice a week at her school (don't get me started ya'll) she isn't in the shape that I was at her age. The trail was a 'trek' to her. She did her best and pulled through it but not without 1 tantrum (he he he) and a whole lot of complaining. But she did it - although she was disgusted when we got to the gold mine to see that they had constructed a chain-link fence around most of it since it was so unstable that they couldn't have people climbing around it. "We came all this way and we don't even get to go inside it??!!!" she exclaimed. Ha ha ha. I had known that already as well, but didn't fill her in on it beforehand. Smart Gal...

Nighttime was less windy that Saturday and we had a huge fire and roasted and ate a disgusting amount of marshmallows and Ciara actually went to bed before us this time since she was exhausted.
The next morning was our final hike to the ruins of Key Ranch. Not too much left to the shambled old building, but it always interests me to think that at some time someone lived and worked in this exact spot so many years ago.

Alas, time to pack up and head home - I truly love the desert and seeing it bloom this time of year with the wildflowers was an extra treat. Good Times :)
Click on Slideshow below!

Joshuatree2008

Joshin' Around at Joshua Tree

On Friday we all played "hooky" and took Ciara to camp at Joshua Tree National Park in the California desert. Here we are at dinner time with my barely-adequate recording on my digital camera...:)

YouTube reporting and digital recording..

I hate to admit it - feel like I am cheating on - but I love the digital camera Patrick bought me in Oahu last summer. I was the only person left in the world still using regular film, with an old camera held together by tape that I had used for 15 years throughout college and around the world.

That said my Pentax digital one is compact, nifty, takes pretty darn-good pictures and even has a video recorder option which once in a while I actually remember to use...

You might have seen my YouTube posted videos of Ireland. (Stupidly I deleted my Peru, Inkan Trail one). Here are a couple of our July camping trip to California's Big Sur. Enjoy!