A side trip home - to 3/4/26

I'm not sure where I heard about it or perhaps I read something in a magazine, e.g., AARP, but since we were already "in the neighborhood," why not stop by?  I'm referring to Trona Pinnacles, a "unique geological feature" located about 170 miles north of Desert Hot Springs and 28 miles east of Ridgecrest in the Mojave Desert.  While we've been all around this area, we'd never been to Trona or Ridgecrest.  Because it's BLM land, dispersed camping is allowed and I thought it would be grand to camp below one of those tufa spires.

We found it easily.  At the entry, a sign read that the 5-mile-long dirt/gravel road is generally accessible to passenger vehicles (if you're willing to drive on a washboard), but after a rain, the road may be impassable, even to four-wheel drive vehicles.  Rain had fallen two weeks earlier; we figured we were safe. 

With Smartie in tow, Tergel started down what used to be a dirt road, transformed into a dried mud (like cement) track, with deep, irregular ruts.  We made it possibly a quarter mile before crying Uncle!  Then we had to turn around and make our way back toward the entrance.  Truly, that was an awful experience for Tergel, Smartie and us.  Nearer the entrance we found level ground and, since camping was allowed, we decided to stay where we were.  Too bad we were still five miles away from the pinnacles.  And we said, ain't no way we're walking that far!  Well, at least we could see them.  

Tergel sits all by herself with the pinnacles in the distance and train cars parked on a siding.  (Can you see her?) We'd taken Smartie for a spin so we could check out the ghost town of Trona.  Not much to see there.  The town is still functioning, but only barely.  A huge chemical complex closed down years ago, and we all know what happens then.  A new outfit is pulling sodium and potassium minerals out of Searles dry lake, but Trona is floundering.

This train was moving toward Trona (at a snail's pace),

going to pick up some raw material?  Flashy cars.

We went for a walk to the siding with the rail cars,

looking, examining, supposing ....

Toward dusk, I climbed a ridge behind Tergel and found a treasure trove of wildflowers.  The bottom two are Brown-eyed Primrose and Desert Five-Spot.

I took this picture of the pinnacles from atop the ridge.  Isn't it fantastic?  I'm glad we stopped here even if we couldn't get any closer.

In 2016, the BLM designated Trona Pinnacles as part of the California Desert National Conservation Lands due to the area’s significant scientific and ecological values; this means that the area will be managed to protect those values and will be permanently protected from development.  Good.  (They could work on that road, however!)

This pic is from Wiki.  As you see, people were closer to the spires.

There's Tergel/Smartie (and my shadow where I stood on the ridge).  Being camped here was extra-special, and with no one else around the silence was pervasive and so welcome.  Aside from the pinnacles, the area isn't particularly scenic, but we appreciated both the vastness and the tiny wildflowers at our feet.  I didn't fret that we couldn't camp at the base of a monolith tufa, nope.  Just happy.  Period.

And the sky!  We saw the breath-taking full moon rise above yonder mountain -- what a sight!  We didn't expect this which made it even better.  For sure, we wouldn't see many stars nor the Milky Way, not with the super bright moon filling the sky.  Alone as we were, there wasn't any need to close our windshield curtains.  We watched the moon climb in the sky.  I got up once in the night to look around, and it was like daylight out there.  So quiet.

The next morning was cool and sunny, blue skies all 'round.  Whoa, I looked out our dinette window and saw this black smoke.  We didn't hear anything, but China Lake Naval Weapons Station is beyond the hills.  The smoke continued and spread eastward in the sky.  It looked like a plane had crashed, but, like I said, we heard nothing.  Just about the time you think you're alone in the world, bang, a reminder you're not.

We left the site after breakfast, heading for Tehachapi (the -ugh- wind tunnel) and eventually I-5.  It didn't take us long to reach Hwy 58, the road to Tehachapi.  Meanwhile, we were treated to mountains and flats blanketed with blooms, the yellow you see on the peak above.

And here!

Yellows and purples and masses of white,

but hard to get a great photo at 60mph!

I'd also hoped to stop at Red Rock Canyon, but the entrance came upon us too quickly and we missed the turn in.  Nowhere to turn around!  Well, okay, two for two: we came, we saw, we almost conquered!

From the road, the place looked stupendous.  Maybe next time.

We moved on, with a headwind in our face, through Tehachapi, down to Bakersfield and on to the Baker Museum in Coalinga, a Harvest Host site we used a couple of years ago.  After a delicious meal at Los Reyes Mexican Grill, we enjoyed a peaceful night at the museum.  No dinosaurs disturbed us.  We shared our site with one other camper, a lady from Oregon named Eileen.  Always lovely to meet fellow travelers, especially when they become friends!

On toward home the next morning, we endured a vicious headwind, the kind where you feel like you may as well simply pour gasoline straight onto the road. ** sigh **.  We made it home late Thursday afternoon in one piece, glad to see the homestead still standing, having sustained no damage from the snowstorm.  

Five weeks away, loved it all.

What? No name? Wed, 5/5/21

All you have to do is look around, be open to what's out there, and be willing to get off the beaten path, and you'll discover all kinds of neat or quirky things.  For instance, we're more interested in cool experiences rather than staying at the same-old campgrounds right next to the freeway.  Harvest Hosts is perfect for finding unusual or remarkable places to stay.  We knew we'd be ready to quit driving for the day somewhere near Boerne and the Harvest Hosts site steered us to Cave Without a Name, out in the limestone-karst boonies of Boerne!  Texas hill country.

We parked on level ground near the lofty Cottonwood tree and were quite comfy.  Most HH sites offer no hookups, but with our solar and large water/holding tanks, we're okay without hookups.  After hours, we were the only people in the entire area and it was wonderfully quiet, ideal.  Wildlife, deer and fox, came close.  Our window over the bed was open half the night, till it grew too chilly (46° the next morning). I love sleeping like this.

Who's ever heard of this place?  What kind of name for a cave is Cave Without a Name?  No name a'tall!  It has been designated a National Natural Landmark, regardless of its no-name name.  Fortunately, we got set up in time for the 3 o'clock cave tour.

We entered the cave through a wire gate (no closed system here) and descended 138 steps on a spiral stairwell down the original sinkhole opening.  Jimmy in pink shirt, above, follows Andi, our guide.  One other couple joined our tour.

Sure enough, we looked up and could see daylight!  Zoomed in.

They've mapped three miles of this cave system, but we'd see only a part.  We saw a "scream" face in the above pic!

Stalagmites and stalactites, columns, cave bacon and cave popcorn,

flowstone, soda straws ... this cave had it all.

And BIG chambers!

I received lots of cave "kisses!"

Beautiful decorations, but they're using old lighting (which sucked, IMO), not having switched to LED lights.  We hope they do switch as they're better for the cave.

While there is glare in this photo, you really are seeing white, which indicates new (recent) growth.

The formations in this, the "Queen's Throne Room," were spectacular.

Some areas have pools of water.

Andi occasionally sees a cave cricket.

Looks prehistoric!

At the back of this photo is a dark, small/ish opening.  Experienced cavers can go into and through the caving system here; in fact, that's how they discovered and mapped the three underground miles.

Only one species of tiny bat occupies this cave:  A tri-colored bat.  Looking up on the ceiling, we spotted this one li'l fella today.  

The cave was found by the three kids above in 1938. They entered the sinkhole (with a lantern) and using a rope they found, they explored parts of the cave, by themselves, no grown-up. The youngest, a girl, was only ten at the time.  Wow.  No way would I have had the guts to do that!  I believe the girl is still alive, and in her 90's.

This was a good cave, not the best, not like Postjona Cave in Slovenia, which was superb.  We were happy to have taken the Cave Without a Name tour.

After our nearly-hour-long tour, we wandered around the grounds, finding trails, like the Sinkhole Trail that led us to three or four sinkholes (more potential cave entrances?) and this old rusted truck cab.  The temp was warm, not hot, and the walk was kinda fun.  Once dinner time was over, we relaxed and watched the wildlife.  As I said, being here was soothing to the soul.

 

We have one more HH site in mind for tomorrow night.  Then, it's pedal to the medal, Mable, let's head for the barn.  Time to go home.

One last look, Friday, 3/1/19

Not a long distance to drive today meant we could spend the morning recapturing the fine moments we experienced yesterday at Manatee Springs.  The boardwalk remains the same, of course, but the sights are ever-changing.  We could soak in another round of visual beauty, listening to chirping birds, watching the black vultures circling overhead.

Like peacock feathers, the spring parades its colors for all to enjoy.

And it pumps out water like a champ!

I can't help it -- looking up, I always call to the carrion-eating buzzards:  "Hey, we're not dead yet!"  So far it's worked ... they haven't gotten any closer! 

This morning the spring run looked placid, but I know it's teeming with life beneath the surface.  We spotted a foot-and-a-half long gar, and a couple of swimming turtles.  No manatees, though.  Not today. 

A fresh breeze blew inland off the Gulf, ruffling the Spanish moss and creating wavelets on the Suwannee.  How to spell the word?  Some use two "n's," other's only one.  Suwannee is from the Timucuan Indians, meaning Echo River and it's believed to be the origin of the word.  Others say Suwannee means River of Reeds, Deep Water, or Crooked Black Water.  But either spelling seems to be accepted, though the informational material we were handed uses two "n's."

New colorful growth on Cypress knees is rainbow-pretty.  Growing in shallow swampy water, these knees seem to be just topping the surface.  Submerged water plants add a touch of green to the picture.

Soaring on thermal currents, buzzards stay aloft for hours, circling.

Early in our walk, the sun glinting on their backs was the only reason we saw the turtles perched on the log.  On our return, one turtle had moved from top to bottom, joining the other four.  But wait -- someone else had joined the party!  Jimmy spotted the small alligator sunning itself on the log above the turtles.  Good eye, Jimmy!

The man in the blue Sea Eagle kayak had a spotter dog tethered to the bow, maybe to protect them from alligators, or to look for manatees, or perhaps to simply enjoy the morning's sights and smells! 

A flotilla of kayakers ventured into the Suwannee from the spring run, heading out into the wind.  Would that we could join them, but it was time for us to wrap up our Manatee Springs stay.  Time for us to continue homeward-bound, via the slow road, returning to our friends' house in Tallahassee for a few days.  Believe me, we'd come back to the springs in a heartbeat, it held that much charm for us.

In the sunshine, we pointed Tergel's nose northward, me at the wheel.  From Chiefland, we had a roughly two-hour drive to Tallahassee.  I don't know why we were surprised to see a darkening sky to the north.  And darkening and darkening.  Why didn't we check the weather before we started out?  Because the sun was shining?  Again (near Perry), and as only the south can produce, we ran into a wall of water on Hwy 19/27, a literal curtain falling from sky to road, like the curtain drop at the conclusion of a play.  Through light rain on the road, we saw the exact place ahead where the windshield wipers needed to be turned on HIGH.  I slowed Tergel.  The deluge didn't last all the way to Tallahassee, but the rain did.  We made it safely.  Expect the unexpected in Florida!

Lower Suwannee, Thurs 2/28/19

After a late lunch, we decided to go exploring at the Lower Suwannee NWR.  We thought it might involve a simple ten-mile drive, but it was more like 20 miles, one way on back roads.  That was okay, with little traffic and Florida scenery, we didn't mind.  We weren't sure what to expect, so we stopped at the NWR Headquarters information office. ... which closed at 4pm.  We got there just after 4pm.  Spying workers behind the office, we hailed them and one guy opened the office (NWR workers are always kind) and gave us a map, paddling info, etc.  

The Suwannee NWR covers 53,000 acres flanking the last twenty miles of the Suwannee River and 30 miles of Gulf coastline.  Several boardwalks lead to the vast delta (estuary) system.  The one above is at Shell Mound, our eventual destination.  Do you see a couple of broken lines across the water?  These are rows of oyster bars in shallow bay water, favored by birds like Oyster Catchers, Black Skimmers, gulls, and others.  Once we saw a Bald Eagle standing on an Oyster Bar off St Marks NWR, but here we saw the others I mentioned, as well as unidentifiable ducks (too far away to get a good look at).

Very quiet.  Peaceful.

Got my binocs ... looking.

Tiny crabs scampered about below the decking.

Shell Mound is an ancient Native American site at the southern end of the NWR.  The primary shell mound is a construction of oyster and whelk shells, plus fish, turtle and deer bones mixed with household debris built up over about 3,500 years (from 2,500 BCE to about 1,000 years ago) by Native Americans of the Archaic period and Eastern Woodland cultures.  We've seen a number of these shell mounds in Florida.

Jimmy is standing in front of a large bulldozer trench that was dug into the south ridge of Shell Mound in the 1970’s by a private landowner, not long before the site became public land. The pathway was paved with shell from this trench. Such was the sad fate of shell mounds throughout Florida.  Shell was mined in recent centuries for road aggregate, fertilizer, and building material.

Interpretative signage was excellent, but if there was no signage, most folks wouldn't know if they were on or off the mound, or if there was such a thing as a shell mound.

The bay would be a wonderful place to kayak or fish or both, as the water isn't very deep.  While we kayaked the Suwannee near Fanning Springs and at Cedar Key, we missed this area.  We thought it was both pretty and pretty neat! 

A homemade wooden sign here titled this "Pond Six."

Nearing sunset on the nature drive.

From the NWR site:  "This area of North Florida has been logged-over at least seven times; pristine forests and swamps are no more. More recently, in the 20th century, commercially valued non-native pines planted in perfect rows, displaced slower growing native trees -- a detriment for native wildlife. Since 2003, the Forester has thinned non-native trees and replaced them with native long-leaf pines and wire grass; this is restoration."  We call 'em:  Trees in rows -- Pine trees for paper mills are everywhere in Florida -- valueless to any native species. And so monotonous to the eyes.

I was trying to catch the sunset, the last dying rays,

but it seems I was a few minutes late for rich color.

As we re-entered our campground, four small deer were grazing a few feet from the road.  I could've opened my window and petted the one on the left.  The same one seen below that seems to be saying, "You lookin' at me?" or "Wassup?"

And so another stellar day comes to a close,

but we'll still be here tomorrow ....