Saturday 19 and Sunday 20 November

I seem to have been two days behind for a while... so, catching up on the last two days of last week today.
Saturday we headed by 10 A.M. to Rock Spring, where a ranger was going to lead a walk. There were three pickups with laughing guys on the sandy parking lot at the end of the sandy road, no ranger, so we wanted to go ahead on the trail to the spring. We shouldn't drive that car (the Prius) to the spring, said the guys, it was a sandy road, it would never make it. ;) Little do they know what we put the poor Prius through... But we preferred to walk anyway. Off to the spring through a cool little mini-canyon. No ranger there either, so then we circled around on the return section over a few nice stony ridges, back to the parking lot; where we noticed a fourth pickup - with ranger logo. But no ranger, and also no laughing guys. Oh well.

Next on the schedule: Kelso dunes. Supposedly there would be a ranger there at 11 A.M. We do like to catch rangers, they know all about the place and can tell you neat stuff you'd otherwise never find out. Down an unpaved road, a paved road, an unpaved and sandy road to the next sandy parking lot... But no, no ranger there.

We looked up at the 800' tall dunes, saw the gritty trail and decided to give is a try. Water bottle in hand we took off. After a few hundred feet, no more gritty, just sandy. I don't think I've ever seen so much sand in one place! All the same, there's quite a lot of vegetation all around. The trail went mostly up (obviously) with level pieces in between and the occasional dip. We loved seeing the tracks of the wind in the sand - whipping grassblades around, for example - as well as lizard tracks and rodent tracks. Later on we found out those must have been from kangaroo rats, little mouse-sized critters that leave tracks like bunnies but much, much smaller. Also a very curious track that looks like a tiny dirt bike tire track; and a while further we saw the fat beetle that makes that track with all its six little beetle legs. 

And we heard the dunes boom a number of times - no singing but more the sound of a plane going through the sound barrier in the distance, with a bit of a rumble after it. This happens, we were told, when dune climbers start running down from the top and create avalanches of sand.

We made it up the dunes at least three quarters of the way. Then we got overtaken by a gaggle of boy scouts, took a break, watched them struggle in the soft sand the rest of the way up, and decided enough for us already! We slid-walked down 500 or so feet of sandy dune, in cool air, under a glorious sun, with a great view all around. Then we briefly talked with the ranger who had meanwhile arrived at the parking lot. (Shaking our wise heads)...

Well, we missed the next ranger-led event, but chances are, the ranger didn't get there either. So then we aimed for the 7 P.M. talk about mining in the desert. Which was unexpectedly interesting.

Sunday: All that remained to be done was drive to L.A. and get to the Dixons by 4, so we could babysit our little Dixonitos while the parents went partying. We did this with our last adventurous route change - oh, Ms. GPS must be so exasperated with us. So we did the northerly portion of the trip behind the mountains, where, by the way, it didn't rain buckets, like on the L.A. side. We did get the RV plus Prius washed from the desert dust though once we crossed over to the L.A. side...

And now the RV is parked in Santa Clarita and we're ready to hang out in California for a few weeks. Because then we're going back to New England for the Holidays!

Time flies...