(because we're too tired at night)
Friday, January 4, 2008
We’re hunkered down in Twentynine Palms. There are heavy blizzards in the Sierra Nevada and torrential rains in Los Angeles. Here, it is chilly and overcast, but no rain yet. If it’s not raining tomorrow, we’ll move the RV into a Joshua Tree Park campground. It will be nice to watch rain or snow out in the middle of nowhere.
The drive down to southern California was uneventful. We were glad to feel healthy. We both felt out of sorts on New Years Day and thought we might be getting the flu. We went to see “The Golden Compass” and have dinner with our friends, Mary and Rick. We didn’t drink all that much (no champagne), so we have come to the sad conclusion that the ‘chocolate decadence’ cake that Rick found for dessert was too rich for us and upset our delicate systems. Fortunately, we felt good enough to pack up the RV so we could take off on Wednesday morning. We headed south on Interstate 5 and enjoyed looking at the winter hills that look to me like they’re upholstered in light brown suede.
We took a hike today to Samuelson Rocks in Joshua Tree. There’s no trail there; you hike a mile to a “braided wash”, turn right and hike a half mile to a distinctive looking pile of boulders. This is where John Samuelson, a Swedish citizen, in 1927, chose to homestead. I guess he had lots of spare time, because he carved political statements into various boulders on his little hill. One, for example, is:
Are you the fellow, Mr. Mellon
That grabed (sic) all our dough
Ain’t you better up and tell us
Where in hell did it go
We heard a little patter of rain on Friday night, but nothing significant, and Saturday morning revealed blue skies, although there were clouds over the mountains that surround Joshua Tree. So we packed up clothes for sun, wind, rain and snow and took off for another day in the park. There is about a 1,400-foot difference between Twentynine Palms and the higher portion of Joshua Tree. Sunshine turned to clouds turned to fog and heavy mist. By the time we got to our destination at Barker Dam, it was chilly, but not misty or foggy, so off we went to find a petroglyph turtle that Dave remembered photographing a while ago. We were happy to get back in the car to eat lunch and drink coffee. Then we headed to the westernmost portion of the park and did another short hike up a small hill that had a good view of Yucca Valley. We were happy to get a couple of hikes in on a day where Los Angeles and San Francisco were reeling from the heavy rains and winds. It sounds like about half of S.F. is without power, so we feel pretty lucky riding out the storm in the desert.
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
Monday was cloudy, but with many pockets of baby blue sky. The clouds vary a lot here, one layer in front of another. Yesterday’s included a background of buttermilk-colored clouds, fronted by a few transcendental white puffies. Later in the day, much of the landscape at Key’s View was obscured by variations of clouds and mist, outlined in silver, gray, gold and white, with little glimpses of blue.
After a day of relaxation, we were ready to head out again into Joshua Tree. We hiked a trail we’ve done before – Split Rock. It’s one of our favorite hikes in the park. It begins at a gigantic boulder, split down one side, takes you through a jumble of rocks, many with long veins of small rocks that look like a backbone of some prehistoric creature. It then goes into the scrubby back country where you can view large rock piles from a distance and eventually leads you back among the wonderful rock piles. We picked out the rock where I sat above a rattlesnake in March, 2006, during our first trip in the RV.
He had some trouble with spelling and actually added an “N” into Henry Ford’s name in another message; apparently he forgot it as he carved it into a boulder. I guess he didn’t have a dictionary and there’s no Spellcheck for boulder carving.
He was kicked off his property a year later because, as a Swedish citizen, he couldn't legally homestead in the U.S. He moved to Los Angeles where, during a bar fight, he killed two men. Before his trial, he was declared insane and sent to California’s State Hospital in Mendocino. In 1930, when surveillance over him was relaxed, he made his escape. (Doesn’t sound that crazy to me.)
His house burned down in the 1930’s, but the 8 boulders with his messages still sit there in the middle of the desert. It’s a strange legacy: to spend so much time creating a few messages in so remote an area.
Samuelson Rocks, Joshua Tree National Park
Joshua Trees in the mistI guess we didn’t escape all of the nasty weather. After a night of being shaken by periodic wind gusts, today is cold and cloudy with almost constant powerful winds. So we decided to spend the day in the RV, celebrating indolence. After a few hours of reading, we had breakfast, showered, obtained an L.A. Times Sunday newspaper (only two pages of comics!) and are frittering the time away. We have an expansive view of the hills and the sky to look at and are enjoying the peaceful day.
After lunch and a rest, we headed to another location, Ryan Ranch, where another homesteader tried to make a go of it in the desert. What’s left behind are two wonderful adobe ruins and a few outbuildings. Rock climbers (at least I think it’s them) have created a gallery of rock art, laying them out to create the outlines of horses, scorpions, ticks, and a very innocuous-looking alligator (or crocodile or maybe a lizard, I don’t know which), as well as peace signs and blazing suns. We also found the cemetery, with small rings of rocks encircling very old graves. The dates of interment were painted on the boulders: 1896, 97 and 98. It nice to see that little graffiti has been added at this location.
Ryan Ranch adobe ruinOur final stop of the day was at Key’s View, a high point where you can ordinarily get a smoggy view of Coachella Valley and environs. We were hoping that all the wind and rain had cleared the air; it had, but clouds obscured most of the view. So we photographed the clouds and sun-dappled mountains instead.
Today we hiked to Fortynine Palms Oasis (no, we’ve never counted the palms). It’s a rugged 1.5 mile hike up, down and around canyons. It is very cool when you see the tall palms off in the distance. It’s a messy area on a hillside, with little pools of spring-fed water, palm fronds all over the place and lots of boulders. As we were leaving, a small covey of quail ran up the trail. It’s been a cool day, with high clouds and a pale sun. This is it for Joshua Tree; tomorrow we take off for Santa Monica and Malibu.
Clouds obscure Key's View