Dory transits cross country

[Ronnie]

Just south of Grants. Bandera volcano & ice caves. We have been a few times over the last few years and were able to go inside the caves.

[Ronnie]

Red rock canyon park? I know of one in Oklahoma, near Hinton, it even has a campground. Great hiking trails, barefoot friendly trails. It is very close to were my wife's father grew up, and she played there as a kid visiting her grandmother.

[joeblack5]

Thanks JD and Ronnie. El malpais is on my list although my interest in national monuments is waning quickly with all the no no's .

We thought we would make it from Barstow to red rock in one day but luck of the draw made us stop and overnight at the rest area along 58 in Boron. The rest area had great water so we filled our spare gallon jugs up. Had a good night sleep. It is nice that California has this anti idling law......at least for us.
Woke up a little sore from the caving ...then it turned out that Boron has a boron mine information / museum overlooking the pit mine. Nice display of hauler and 20 mule team..Real cool. Also a small town air force museum. For me it was great because no limitations...please touch and check it out. ... They had a working cut open display of a rotary but the electric motor had a loose / slipping pulley. Got my toolkit out and fixed it up in the museum... The attendant was pretty happy and so were we. Had a late lunch at the 20 mule cafe.. Outside the restaurant stood an Electra Haul. Not sure how rare but it had diesel electric propulsion. The rear axle hatch was open so I had a good time.
Then there was the Boron library so the kids new what to do. I ordered some fuel filters thru Napa. They are waiting for me in Ridgecrest.
Long story short we did not make it to red rock and are now along rte395 close to Cantil.

[joeblack5]

Howdy all. We are back on the radar.
After boron we moved closer to Mojave. Mainly because the local Napa there had a fuel filter for Dory. But after some telephone calls they referred to the napa in ridgecrest . it works out well. We stopped in red canyon state park and decided not to pay their fee but boondocks in jawbone canyon 6 miles south. It is quit windy and there are a couple of fields of windmills visible in the distance. First night we had a poor campsite.....riddled with broken glass. Shotgun and other Shells. We were also pretty deep in the canyon and did not have a lot of hours of sun on our panels. After that we became a little more adventures and drove Dory thru a couple of washes to a nicer site. Still riddled with glass and shells. Kind of funny as the organisation friends of jawbone canyon is all about restoring nature and habitat. In all reality it is just an off road ohv ATV and motorcycle drinking and shooting park as it showed during the weekend. Here some pics of the first couple of days.

[joeblack5]

See if it works now...

[Native]

Much better! I had just changed my profile settings and did not see any of the pictures. I am glad you posted them quickly.

[Ronnie]

Nice pictures. Thanks. Bummer on the trash.

[joeblack5]

Sorry native the pics did not want to upload and I did not want to loose my scribbles..
Ronny, just to be clear , the last pics are yellow and orange flowers and not trash. The lines thru a motorcycle runs. Regarding the shooting .. I am really surprised that nobody seems to care about the environmental lead poisoning besides the thousands and thousand of empty steel and aluminum casings. Most of the brass ones were picked up.

While boon docking at jawbone we took the jeep on a trail to the burrow Schmidt tunnel..hand dug ...0.8 mile thru a mountain top. We were surprised that Rosie our dog did not mind the tunnel one bit. Another day we took a walking nature trail thru red rock canyon.

The there were the countless abandoned mines we explored.

Now we are in ridgecrest ..library...Napa..wally supply..China lake weapon museum.

[joeblack5]

Hmm..did it again.

First one red rock canyon
Second...holly ash mines
Third..exit of Schmidt tunnel
Fourth ...random gold mine
Fifth..hagen trail in red rock...several science fiction scenes were filmed in this area..

Later johan

[JDOnTheGo]

Very nice Johan! I'm betting many folks are very envious!!

Originally Posted by joeblack5

I am really surprised that nobody seems to care about the environmental lead poisoning besides the thousands and thousand of empty steel and aluminum casings. Most of the brass ones were picked up.

Rest assured that many of us do care. It is the reason that I keep preaching that everything we do matters. Dump five gallons of icky water... that can't matter, right?!?! Ten thousand people dumping five gallons of icky water....

Regardless of whether it is a gum wrapper, aluminum can, shell casing, gallon of urine, sack of poo, cigarette butt, etc... It matters.

[Native]

Originally Posted by joeblack5

Hmm..did it again.

We forgive you ...


I sure am enjoying your photo essay of the desert southwest!


So that tunnel was dug out by hand ... amazing! You think they were tunneling while they were prospecting and just ended up tunneling through?

[joeblack5]

JD..yeah..the true cost of our endeavours can probably be not covered by our income. Everyday a part of the human race and nature are paying for our follies.

Nomad life as we like to experience it takes a heavy toll on the environment. Not sure if our kids can pull of a stunt like this 15 /20 years from now with their kids.

Native ..glad that you enjoy it.

After a wally night and a library day..another wally night and a Denny's breakfast we took 178 out of ridgecrest. After 4 miles we turned left and another 15 or so arrived at pinnacles dirt road. I crept along at 6mph ..about 1000rpm to keep the oil pressure at 40 psi. Had to make liberal use of the high setting on the airbags to clear rocks , washes and railroad crossings. Altogether the lesson was go slow and when in doubt go slower. It is fun to estimate where your tires are relative to the holes. After a good hour we arrived at Trona pinnacles.
We will camp here and take a couple of small hikes.

[joeblack5]

We did a 3 hour hike to the northern pinnacles. Our dog Rosie held up good in this very sharp and abrasive terrain..
We tried it our selves with taking our shoes off but leaving the socks on. Did not last longer then a couple of hundred feet.
A couple of weeks or longer I had found a cholla cactus skeleton branch at tom mix's memorial. I wanted it for decoration the middle pillar in Dory's front windshield.
Used an 18 volt electric chainsaw to carve a groove in one side. It fits snug around the pillar.

[Native]

Originally Posted by joeblack5

A couple of weeks or longer I had found a cholla cactus skeleton branch at tom mix's memorial. I wanted it for decoration the middle pillar in Dory's front windshield.
Used an 18 volt electric chainsaw to carve a groove in one side. It fits snug around the pillar.

That adds quite a conversation piece to Dory.

[joeblack5]

It has been a while. Another evening shot of the trona pinnacles. Then we left on the north side direction trona.. Did some shopping and traveled further to Death Valley with the plan to go to the hot springs along saline valley road. Smita and I had gone there 14 years ago during our pre-honeymoon trip. To get to the hot springs you have to take the southern or northern pass. North is shorter and better maintained. South is longer less high and poorly maintained. According to the ranger website both are closed. Either way we came from the south and decided to take the road to the southern pass. The first 6 miles of dirt road was pretty flat but washboard and potholes. We camped at a watering hole at Lee flat. There are a lot of Joshua trees there.. It was Friday and we wanted to delay to late in the weekend before we would reach the hot springs. So we decided to do a cross country hike to a far of water tank that was visible with binoculars. Had lunch there and late in the afternoon we tried our luck on the pass intersection saline valley and hunter mountain.

[joeblack5]

Saturday afternoon after the hike we moved Dory up the south pass to the intersection hunter mountain road and saline valley road. Death valley travelers will know where it is. Essential the highest point on the southern route. We had read there were some large boulders on the road and indeed there were. We camped against park rules right on the intersection out on the overlook.

Him some problems with images again. Will restart the phone and see if it clears up.

[joeblack5]

To bad the large boulder picture is on the "real camera" will see tomorrow if I can upload it.

The navy air force planes play in these canyon and several flew at 150 ft or so over Dory when they were jumping over the ridge.

[cadillackid]

yeah!!! the southern pass! i remember when we travelled it in a diesel IH scout-II, wow that was a long time ago.. it was july and we busted our A/C belt...



we ended up staying at Furnace creek lodge that night..



awesome stuff!!! love this trip you are on!!
-Christopher

[joeblack5]

Hi Chris. July...without AC that would be murder in DV. 25 yes ago I bought a 73 corvette stingray in San Francisco on a swap meet as part of a bet that we would drive it with T top of back to Pennsylvania. We drove reno and the DV red rose canyon dirt road. Still have the vette. Still no AC. Could not stick your head outside the car. The hot air would burn your skin at 55 mph.

Dory would have to much of a risk going down in the valley. Or we would have done a couple of days road improvement/ rock removal... In the morning the kids and i did a little hike to find the spring of Lee Pump. C. The trail went along the waterline that fed into an abandoned cattle water tank. In the afternoon we left Dory at the south pass and took the bedding from Dory in the jeep. 7 mile at 10 mph down grapevine canyon and then 15 mile saline valley washboard at 45 mph. The hot tub and old memories were worth it. Camped at the hot springs. Amazing amount of stars. Next morning at the hot springs we had some burro's chasing after a female in heat. Got to wonder if the naked people turned them on? Haha.

[joeblack5]

So back in cell range..we left the hot springs early afternoon.... 17-18 yrs ago , off reading they death valley I found an abandoned building and found some very old unidentified scientific equipment in the basement. Twice since then I tried to find the same place again and failed. This time more determined to find it and we did. Equipment still there. Mining , nuclear, ??? Please provide input..

We also stopped at the salt flats. Remains of a cable cart systems still remaining. Amazing how busy people have been in such a harsh place.
After that we drove back to Dory and spent another night at the southern pass.