Emergency Death Valley Trip

 So, some time after Christian returned to school, we sat down to do our taxes and found that all of the 2021 federal "stimulus" money were actually just tax credit issued ahead of time. We found out that we didn't qualify for as much credit as we received by the arbitrary amounts they issued, so now we owe taxes for the year...quite a lot of taxes.

We were pretty stressed out and pissed off about it. Although, we were trying to be good and not spend all the extra money on gas to go out on spring break, we decided that for our mental health, we needed to just get away. Away from home and all the things that needed to be tended to and fixed. Away from the neighbors in back of our house that are always fighting and yelling at each other in the streets. Away from the noisy bikers, and noisy vehicles idling in their driveways (sometimes for hours at a time with their music blasting). Away from the noisy kids next door who are always screaming at the top of their lungs and their parents who either ignore them or think it is cute. Away from the barking dogs and the smells of marijuana wafting into our driveway. Yeah, it's been fun. I don't know how are neighborhood has turned into such a ghetto.

Caitlyn had to work, so Christian and I packed up and headed out to Death Valley for the day. We left at 5 in the morning before Caitlyn even got up from bed.

Sunrise

We decided to travel down the Old Nadeau Road in Panamint Valley.

That was actually pretty fun. I don't think any of our other 4x4 vehicles could have made it. The short wheel base really helped getting in and out of the washes. There were a few of them that were pretty steep and crazy but we didn't have any problems.

We did have some problems finding the canyon we wanted to turn off into. All the side roads ended or were blocked by a gate. We finally gave up and went to explore other areas. 

The desert wild flowers are really starting to bloom.

We found some old abandoned mines and had lunch near one.

We took our time exploring the area while trying to stay away from where all the people were. Our last side road took us out to the Osborne Cabin which was kind of neat.

It's not quite historical as the people volunteering to take care of it, ended up getting carried away and added some additions to it that were not quite historical but it seemed like a fun place to stop off to rest.

Just past the cabin, the trail got really soft and rocky and we couldn't quite make it past a certain spot. Luckily, there was a bypass already as other's had the same trouble before us.

It was nice to test out what the Jeep could do. We can definitely do with more clearance on the vehicle and bigger tires. It was a bit nerve wracking to drive down these gravely roads with those decrepit tires. The road eventually ended at another mine.

By the time we headed out, we ran into a huge caravan of vehicles heading in to party at the cabin. There were 6 or 7 fully decked out 4x4's with only 1 or 2 people in each vehicle. Each of the vehicles were easily worth $100k. It was really ridiculous. Farther down the road, there were about 8 or more personal planes in a caravan flying over to the air strip out in the Argus Range. I don't know where these people are getting all their disposable income. It seemed so over the top.

We made it into Lone Pine around 6:pm. We had dinner and sent some messages to Caitlyn to tell her where we were. We got back home at 11:pm. Tires still in tact with probably just enough gas to get back out to the gas station later. I think we are really pushing it with the tires though and I don't think we will be going back out on the trails (or the freeway for that matter) with those tires anymore. They've been doing really good but we don't want to push our luck any more than we already have.

March

 At the beginning of the month, Emily celebrated her 19th birthday! She celebrated with her friends. We sent her a gift and had a video chat with her while she opened it the night before her birthday. On the day of her birthday, we called her again to wish her a Happy Birthday and so that Terry and Jackie could chat with her. They came over to take Caitlyn out to lunch to celebrate her graduation.

They were actually supposed to come the prior week but had to cancel as Terry ended up back at the hospital with fluid in his lungs again. Luckily, he did not have pneumonia or anything but because of his weak heart, his body was unable to get rid of the excess water he has been taking in. They gave him some medicine and extracted like a gallon of extra fluid from his body which seemed impossible. I guess he has to watch his intake of liquid and salts now so this doesn't happen again. He went home the next day but it gave us all quite a scare.

Caitlyn chose to go to Islands for her celebration lunch. Afterwards, Terry took Christian out to get him some boots as a kind of thank you for all his work on his Trooper and keeping it working for him.

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Christian finally got the Jeep TJ back together and in working order. So, at the beginning of his spring break, we headed down to San Diego to take Terry on some 4x4 trails in the Anza Borrego desert. We went to explore some places that Terry was unable to go down with his Trooper by himself.

It was a nice easy day. We wanted to take Terry out and test out the Jeep. We dropped Terry off afterwards and visited for a bit and headed home.

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The next week, we did some more exploring in the Jeep on one of Caitlyn's days off. We hit a trail near Joshua Tree called Pinkham Canyon.

The trail was pretty easy but at some point, the sway bar link popped off on the driver's side. The bushing was damaged so there was nothing to hold it in. Christian initially put it back on, but after going down the trail a bit farther, it popped off again, so he had to just remove it.

We left the right side attached to keep the vehicle from swaying too much but we should probably have removed it as well. 

We had lunch in a bit of shade we found in the canyon and took a short hike afterwards. The trail was relatively short so, we went in search of more adventures. We found ourselves going down the Red Canyon Trail south of the 10.

It started off a little sketchy and only got worse as we went along. The trail is totally ruined. People have been tearing up the trail for quite some time, racing their side by sides and quads up and down the trail obviously. The trail was near undriveable. To make matters worse, we would run into these Mad Max type encampments along the way. It was a bit scary to be honest, so we didn't want to just turn back around. It did pay off at some point quite a bit farther along where the road was less damaged.

The Ocotillos had started blooming, so that was really nice. The trail followed this neat ridge at some point and you can see some neat red canyons down below. You can tell that this was a fantastic trail at some point. 

The trail bordered a military bombing range, so you had to stay on the correct side of the trail as there might be unexploded ordinance out there.

We brought our stove and had dinner out there before it got too dark. We headed out after a long day. With the price of gas over $6 a gallon, we wanted to explore as much as we could before heading home.

There was a beautiful sunset as we headed out. Unfortunately, when we finally back onto the paved roads, we ended up in Mecca which I never want to set foot into again. To begin with, we found out where most of the people that tore up our trail came from as every house nearly had a side-by-side, or three. We wanted to air up our tires but didn't want to stop in front of someone's house to do it. At some point, there was a big accident right in front of us. We were just leaving a stop sign when a car heading in the opposite direction, rammed into the truck in front of it (which was also stopped at the stop sign) at full speed. It then swerved into our lane as we had to swerve to avoid it. We were already on edge as this city bus was tail-gating us the entire way down this road. 

We made it through without any damage and stopped next to the fire and police stations to air up our tires. Both buildings were completely empty and dark by the way, so that wasn't comforting. The bus that was tail-gating us, finally got to the same area after being delayed by the accident. After nearly running us down in it's haste to get here, it just sat there on the street idling the entire time we were there and was still just sitting there after we left. The whole city had a weird disquieting vibe about it and we could not leave the place soon enough.

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Christian ended up spending the rest of his spring break, just tinkering around in the garage. He had a lot of cleaning to do after all the work and tools he had out for the Jeep. He was able to finally address some of the other problems we were having with water getting into the weather seals. We took the hard top off to address some of the issues. He got most of it figured out except for one spot in the front around the windshield. The weather stripping around the windshield area has some damage that cannot be fixed without removing the windshield had completely redoing to seals. This caused some major rust problems hidden behind the dash and will also need to be addressed some time in the near future. 

We drove with the top off and went to harass Caitlyn at work and to get a milk shake. : )

He also did a bit of welding as he started to make his grinder stand. We had other grand plans to get away but ended up putting the plans on the back burner as gas for this tiny Jeep with it's relatively small tank cost over $100 to fill...that's with the fuel rewards discounts from Marian!

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On the weekend before Christian had to return to work, we did go to visit with my family. Immediately after work, we went to do tomb sweeping for our ancestors. We had a quick lunch and then afterwards, we had some more food and sat around to chat and catch up a bit.

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We had to get Caitlyn new wheels for her XJ. Christian gave her the tires off of his TJ since they were nearly new and he wants bigger tires. But the bigger tires rub a bit, so she needed wheels with more backspacing so that it would fit better. New wheels are a lot cheaper than new tires. It looks really good and works even better! Her old tires are currently on the TJ until we can afford to get them replaced but I'll tell you, they are scary to drive on. We leave pieces of it here and there when we go off-roading. It is only a matter of time before one (or more) of them fail. They still have plenty of tread, but they are so old and decrepit, that it is falling apart.

Now that the TJ is back up and running, we will let Caitlyn drive that one around while we get back to work on the XJ. Of course, we will have to move her tires over to the TJ at that point as we can't let her drive on the old tires! We need to really concentrate on finishing the XJ so that it will be done on time for her to take it up with her to college. Hopefully no more TJ or Trooper distractions until it is done. Emily is excited for Caitlyn to bring up her Jeep to Idaho...oh, and for her sister to come up too!