Shaken not stirred

12/11/2018

We bounced and jostled around in the desert and mountains of the New Water Mountain Wilderness. This is a mountainous area, the mountains are not that tall and made up of jagged rocks covered with Swarros and Chollas catch and bushes, probably creosote bushes.

We started off looking for a spot for a bite of lunch, the spot we were looking for was one we found last year. After bouncing around for an hour or so we recognized where we were at, it was a place called Dripping Springs, it’s the only water for miles around so many animals come to visit and there are several Petroglyphs within an easy walk.

Now, to get there is interesting, first there is a pretty long, somewhat steep downhill, then at the bottom you travel through a narrow wash, the sides are sometimes 15-20 feet tall. In the wash you need to navigate around trees and rocks. Let’s not forget the tight turns, where you worry about hitting something with the front bumper or turn to sharp and hit something with your door or rear bumper.

There were 2 other groups there when we got there, one group left and we got to talking to the remaining two guys there. We ended up tagging along with them for the rest of the afternoon. Lin drove the white Jeep from Idaho, and Tom driving a Suzuki Samuri from Utah. Both were stick shifts and with the slow speeds and up and down hills they both were getting a tired clutch leg, lets just say they had to shift a lot.

On one hill we went down, now I’ll admit it was a might steep. Once we negotiated our way to the bottom, Tom, in the smaller Suzuki, said he was afraid that he might start cartwheeling end over end. His Vehicle is short wheel base and he had bigger tires and a small lift kit on it, I could see why he felt that way. As for us with the automatic transmission, I just put it in low range, low gear and eased our way down, at times I needed to add some gas peddle other wise we still might be making our way off the mountain.

It was a great day, no wind to speak of and it rained a few days ago so the dust was not to bad.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention Lin’s dog Daisy, at every stop she would find some kind of stick, with wood scarce the desert, most of times it was only about 2-4 inches long and about 1/4 inch around. If you ignored her to long she wasn’t afraid to give a bark or 2 to get you attention. She had a ball also but being in the desert often times it would hit a cacti and you needed to get it and de thorn it. She also would get out and run besides the vehicles for a ways.

12/12/2018 Vitamin D

While we were sitting in the hot tub and relaxing in the sun soaking up some vitamin D, working on our tan, I couldn’t help but think of  you folks stuck in the frozen north with all the rain, ice, snow and COLD ( burrrrr) ….. Man, I’m sure glad I’m not there:)