Saturday morning came with us near civilization. After
Jonathan swapped out the slider handles, we decided to get some items off of
our checklist before we went into Mexico:
1.
Buy and print Mexican auto insurance
2.
Get groceries
3.
Fill up on propane
4.
Obtain replacement trailer tires
Thus, we spent most of the morning trying to mark these
items off the list. #3 went without a hitch thanks to good ol’ U-haul. #1 had
some difficulties. We went to the library right after filling up with propane,
but they weren’t open yet. We still had 45 minutes to wait, so we went to find
groceries. Now, as much as Wal-Mart can be a pain with the crazies and the long
lines and such, I appreciate Wal-Marts. They offer everything you need at
reasonably low prices. Thus, we headed there for items 2 and 4. Sadly, the
Wal-Mart that I went to today was PA-THE-TIC. It had even fewer items to choose
from than my hometown grocery store. They had no dried fruit, string cheese, or
the sauce that Jonathan likes. Their lameness even went into the Tire &
Lube center. I was not impressed. We
even had to go another store to obtain all the items on our list.
Finally, after we had finished grocery shopping, we
returned to the local library to borrow the interwebs and printer. The staff
there was very helpful and we were even able to get an internet card that would
let us get on the computer at any libraries in the region. The bad part about
library internet is that is normally atrociously slow. Like, a 3G connection
shared with several people would have been faster. I think we ought to fund our
libraries a bit more to provide a more appropriate speed of internet.
Lastly, we had to find some replacement trailer tires.
The trailer is cheap and not well manufactured, and the tires aren’t much
better, so we already have to replace the three originals that we purchased. As
I mentioned earlier, Wal-Mart was unable to help us with this endeavor, so we
had to look up a Harbor Freight Tools. We had success there, albeit slow.
Then, we needed to figure out where we were going next. We
decided on Joshua Tree National Park. We managed to navigate all the way there,
then found out that all the campgrounds were already full! I had never had that
happen to me before and that was 3 in the afternoon! Good thing that I found a
free camping spot (via freecampgrounds.com and freecampsites.net) just before
we arrived at the park. We had to turn around as soon as we got into the park,
and then we trotted off to find the Joshua Tree BLM campground north of the
park. A bit dusty, and quite a bit of company, but nothing too much to complain
about for free camping. And, we got parked earlier enough for me to go for a
run in the daylight after having a good phone conversation with my
grandparents.
I guess the popular time to visit Joshua Tree National
Park is this time of year. Sunday found the park packed still. We did manage to
find the Barker Dam trail to be mostly vacant early that morning, so we went on
the mile walk to the dam. For the first quarter mile, the wildlife was
plentiful. Birds chirped at us, bunnies played by the trail, and small ground
squirrels chittered nearby.
The dam even had a flock of quails eating in its dry lake
bed.
Then, at the end of the loop, there were petroglyphs.
These have been “vandalized” by someone repainting them.
Next, we drove up to Key’s View. From this hilltop (5,000
ft) you can look into the valley and the San Andreas fault and the Salton Sea.
From there we drove down to take the hike to Lost Horse
Mine. Supposedly, a guy stumbled upon this gold mine operation while looking
for his lost horse. The owner of the mine sold it to him for $1000 (back in the
early 1900s, I believe). The mine ended up producing 9,000 ounces of gold (not
sure if that is troy or traditional) through some labor-intensive work. I am
not sure how the numbers figure out, but seems to me that the original owner
made the right decision. Find the gold, then sell it off and let someone else
do the hard work.
After the four-mile, two-hour hike, it was way past
lunch. We left the overcrowded parking area for the mine and found a pull-off
on the road to make lunch. I don’t know if it was the elevation plus lack of
appropriate amounts of water or whether we are just plain out of shape, but
that hike tuckered us out, leaving us with no motivation to do anything else
that day. Plus, the park was crazy busy. So, we thought our time might be
better spent washing our clothes. While we still had a few items left, I was
tired of lifting that heavy mass every time I made the bed. Unfortunately, the
Laundromat was busy too; something about everyone preparing for relatives for
Thanksgiving, or something like that. Things went alright, though, until we
learned that one of the driers we chose wasn’t producing heat. At the end of
the day, we ending up with a lot of mostly dry clothes hanging from every in
the van. Jonathan may have coined it correctly when he called it a “forest of
pants.”
Monday, we decided to try the park again. This time we
drove down to Cottonwood Springs. Apparently, Joshua Tree NP covers parts of
two deserts. Sunday we were in the Mohave Desert the entire time, while Monday
we ventured into the Colorado Desert. The cholla cactus and the ocotillo are
evidence of the Colorado Desert.
At Cottonwood Springs, there was no visible water, but
the cottonwoods and the palms grew exceedingly tall.
From the springs, we hiked to Mastodon Peak.
That evening we decided to head farther south for camp.
We first tried to stay in the BLM Box Canyon by Mecca, but we couldn’t find any
really van-accessible spots. Fortunately, we still had daylight and internet
(albeit slower than 3G) and found a location a little farther south at Ocotillo
Wells State Vehicular Recreation Area, another OHV location.
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