This morning I took the stones that we found yesterday to the Ranger station. Ranger Myke had a look and, in his well-educated rockhound opinion, what we have is petrified ironwood and pine, and a few little pieces of the colorful agate like the petrified wood in Petrified Forest N.P. There’s a piece of unidentifiable wood as well, you can see the tree rings, it’s like a bit of driftwood. How cool is that! We also bagged a big jasper pebble, a cute chalcedony marble, and a few bits of deep brown/black basalt. One giant pebble of basalt conglomerate. And the funny bit of crumbly stone, the bit I tried to smash in two to see if there were crystals in it – that, he thinks, is fossilized brain coral from when there was a sea there. I put all the pieces with sticky notes in ziploc baggies, because I won’t remember the details for long…
When I came back from my shower I noticed there was a cute bunny at the RV again, and I tossed him one of our leftover limp carrots. The carrot, limp as it was, snapped in two when it landed under the little tree. Then I snuck around the back so not to scare him off, and went inside to look from the window. It didn’t take him long to find one of the pieces. We know how much he liked it because when his little cottontailed girlfriend came over to see, he hopped off with it in a hurry. She found the other piece though, so they were both happy.
All this while Henk continued a very long phone meeting. So I did dishes and packed up the RV inside. When he was finally done he folded up the RV and we left exactly at checkout time, 12 noon. We drove car and RV separately to Lake Havasu City, picked up the repaired dolly and the new bike rack for the Prius. Next a visit to the grocery store - Albertsons, the one that bought up Shaws a few years back. We bought ourselves a large sub to share because with all that, lunch had gone by and we were huuuungry. Then we tried to fill up on diesel. Unfortunately the RV only took half a tank - it was leaning down in front, maybe it thought it was full? Pity, because in California the price is going to be significantly higher.
So far, we have paid per gallon of diesel: $ 3.80 in Windham, NH; $ 3.86 in Ohio; $ 3.94 in Indiana (just enough to get us over the border). $ 3.77 in Missouri, in Oklahoma only $ 3.70. In New Mexico $ 3.95, $ 3.99 and $ 3.96, the pumps there would only give us $ 100. Henk called the credit card company, but somehow they don't see it as a good risk to give you more, after you put your card in the slot and then start up the pump. We do pay off every month, so we have the whole credit limit available. But no, made no difference... Here in Havasu, Arizona it was $ 3.93. We were finally on rte 40 by 2 P.M.
We didn't have far to go because today's goal was Mojave National Preserve. We were here in March and loved the desert, stayed too short, so we want to spend some more time. We arrived 2 hrs later at 3 PM. (gained an hour, of course, we're now in Pacific time). We drove twenty miles into the desert to the campground at Hole In The Wall and right away I saw a new bird for the list - a roadrunner. Very fast, I only saw it for a moment, but no mistaking that bird! We got their only good pull-through site, but took out a yucca when we rounded the corner - I won't mention who was driving. But it wasn't me ;) There's a yucca leaf stuck in the cover of one of the storage compartments now...
It was lovely, around 70 degrees, until the sun dipped behind the mountain with the holes in its wall, right behind us, and it got chilly right away. And then there's the Wind.
We're going to the Kelso dunes tomorrow, with that wind they might sing.
It was Eva’s birthday today. I'm suppressing thinking about it, I miss her a lot.
No comments:
Post a Comment