Calico Trails

 At the end of the month, on one of Caitlyn's days off, we set off for Calico Ghost Town. There are supposed to be some interesting 4x4 trails going to all the different mines that used to be worked out there.   In fact, trails spread out all over the place like spiderwebs so it was a little hard to figure out which trail we were looking for. Sometimes the trails lead to something and sometimes you just want to avoid the super hard trails that you know are out there.

Our main trail was the Wall Street Trail. 

We mostly came out to test on the new suspension lift. The Jeep handled great. It just rolled over everything! We were pretty excited about it. We did end up breaking the other stabilizer bar link though. We have plans to replace them anyway and have parts on order.

Some of the mines were closed off while others were left open for people to roam through. The Bismarck mine was mostly open but that means morons end up chucking their trash into the pits and tagging their graffiti everywhere. Since it was blazing hot out, we at least got to explore in peace.

We explored some of the off-shoot trails but we didn't care to spend too much time in the area. It was getting too hot to really enjoy getting out to take pictures and stuff so by early afternoon, we headed off to find the tail end of the Mojave Trail. It is a famous trail that we've been talking about going on but have thus far ended up going elsewhere. We didn't have time to do the actual trail but we wanted to find out where the opening was. Unfortunately, we had many false starts as a bunch of places seemed to claim to be the Mojave Trail. 

We finally found it in the end but our enthusiasm for the trail was waning. There is a famous water crossing that everyone loves near the end of the trail, so since we found it, we decided to check it out.

It was actually quite beautiful there but it smells like the Salton Sea...not so great. We probably wouldn't have tried it, but we knew that someone had partially filled it in with gravel somewhat recently, otherwise, it would have been too deep for our taste. Anyway, it was fun.

We were done after that and headed on the long trek home. It was actually very long. We took the scenic route back and miscalculated exactly how much longer it would be to get back that way. We got home very late.

June

We returned home Sunday, June 12th to a roaring party down the street from our house. We deeply regretted not staying out in the mountains longer. I quickly threw a dinner together while Christian brought our stuff in from the Jeep. Caitlyn had gone to get her Patriarchal Blessing earlier that afternoon.

We sat down for dinner and did our weekly video chat with Emily. During the week, Emily had been helping Caitlyn register for her fall classes. Caitlyn worked most of the week but took off Wednesday to hang out with her high school friends. One of them turned 18, so they had all taken the day off to go to the beach to celebrate. Aubrey had already turned 18 and was able to drive them all to Laguna Beach. 

Caitlyn had the next Tuesday off, so we decided to go for a drive. We let Caitlyn choose where we were to go. She decided that we were going to go to Salton Sea. She saw some pictures in our archives from when we took them when they were little but she could not remember it. Since she is into photography these days, she wanted to go back to take pictures of all the birds and dead fish and stuff.

Before we went, we decided to start our Father's Day celebrations a bit early because we got Christian some little accessories for his Jeep that we knew that he would love to try out on this trip.

I got him some little entry guards and Caitlyn got him some side mirrors so that he can take the doors off his Jeep and still drive legally. So he put them on and we left the door behind!

Unfortunately, Salton Sea is pretty much a dump. We went through some pretty sketchy neighborhoods to find the marina we visited years ago. Also, some company bought a lot of the land up so much of the access to the beach was no longer open to the public. It was pretty frustrating. We also did not really see any birds anywhere. We decided to go to the Sony Bono National Wildlife Refuge...where we saw no birds. The water has receded so far that you cannot even see it from the observation deck. We travelled a long way, it was getting really hot and poor Caitlyn was so disappointed at there being no birds there.

We decided to traverse up the other side of the sea to see what we could find and started to talk about alternative plans. We found ourselves at the boat launch.

It was bone dry. We could have driven off of it. You can almost see the sea off in the distance. It is astounding how much it had dried up. But I guess if you think about it, we saw the same issues at Lake Powell and Shasta Lake. We have, however, passed a lot of smaller lakes that don't seem nearly as affected. A few of them look totally normal, so I'm not really sure about what is going on with these lakes and if there is more to it than the drought to contend with.

We eventually found a few birds here and there but you had to be pretty quick on the draw. To be honest, we saw more birds going through the farms than anywhere else.

Once we had our fill of the Salton Sea, we decided to head over to check out the Painted Canyon Canyon near Mecca (unfortunately). But it was a really neat canyon. We just kind of drove through it. If it wasn't so hot and getting late in the day, it would have been nice to stay here much longer to explore, but as it was, we were on the verge of getting heat stroke.

We headed out of the desert and went in search of some Icee to refresh us for our drive home.

For the actual Father's Day, we had Terry and Jackie come over for dinner after church. Christian smoked us some ribs.

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Emily has just been spending most of her time working to get enough money to return to school in the fall. Her new job is very tiring but she has gotten some good experience working there and the money is definitely better. In her free time, she hangs out with her friends. Her roommate, Lanie, has decided college is not for her and will be returning home to Tennessee to pursue a nursing career. So they have been trying to spend as much time as possible together. We are sad that she won't be up there with Emily anymore.

Grandma Jackie gave Emily some funds to get a top for her truck. She decided to get a soft top so that she can take it off if she needs to or just put it down. Traveling with her stuff back and forth to or from California will be a lot easier to deal with with a top.

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It has been difficult for Christian to work in the shop in the extremely hot temperatures we are currently having but Christian will try to get out early and get some things done before the heat gets totally unbearable. We need to finish Caitlyn's vehicle for her to go to college so we have a deadline to make. 

We had a brief summer thunderstorm on day, but we didn't get any rain from it. It was really neat but we didn't get more than a few drops of rain. Christian took Caitlyn in the out just in the neighborhood to teach her how to take pictures of lightning. She got some really good shots.

Also, the TJ got a bit of a lift. Although, it should have just taken half a day, it ended up taking a full two days in the usual fashion. So that set us back a little, but boy does it look so much better. I think we will not have as much problems getting over things now. We drove it around a little to make sure there were no problems but haven't gotten a chance to test on it yet.

Return from Oregon

It was late morning when we left, but Christian didn't want to stay a moment longer with the psycho pup. We originally was supposed to stay the weekend and leave Monday morning, but it was just getting miserable. So we decided to brave the weekend traffic over staying longer in Oregon for all the reasons I outlined in my last post.

We knew that there is no way to make it home in one push safely while starting out so late, so we planned to take the scenic route back and camp in the Mono Basin area. We decided to head east in Oregon and travel down to California from there as we have never gone through there before. We drove to Ashland and headed over to Klamath Falls. It was a beautiful drive. We enjoyed it very much. Christian seemed to even breath easier by the time we got to Ashland.

I don't know if it was the mountain air or that maybe he is even allergic to dogs but he seemed to revive shortly after heading back out on the road. The dog thing didn't seem likely as he grew up with dogs but they generally lived outside and we've even spent the night where they had dogs in the house before, but we never spent that much time with a dog living in the house and he did seem to get sicker and sicker the longer we stayed, so it might be a possibility. He had some lingering symptoms of his sickness when he got there but it was much improved. By the time we were out on the road, he was back to just having some lingering affects again. 

A couple of older people in our ward died of a lung infection recently and while we were away, another person died, but we were not made aware of who it was or what they died of. Either way, there seems to be something new going around.

We stopped by to check out Glass Mountain. We wanted to come see it last year with Caitlyn but there were a lot of fires here that mostly closed the area. It is a big mound of obsidian. We scrambled up a little way but did not venture far from our vehicle. The volcanic rock were really sharp and you didn't want to take a fall on this stuff. 

We had dinner in Susanville and found our camping spot near Mono Lake. It was a bit trashy as other people definitely used this spot a lot for camping, partying, and target practice. But we were tired and it was sufficiently out of the way for us to rest for the night. We did not plan to stick around.

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It was a pretty pleasant night when we stopped but shortly after we got up he next morning, the wind started blowing again. We quickly packed up and explored some more roads on our way home. We found some neat rocks we are considering returning with the kids to climb. 

We took the Casa Diablo trail that let out near Bishop. It was a really nice trail and I would love to return there some day...hopefully when it is cooler because it was quite hot out by the afternoon. We were enjoying ourselves so much, we considered staying an extra night out in the Sierras and return Monday after all.

While traveling down the trail, however, we found a lost sheep. It was either hurt and/or lost as we passed a flock of sheep five miles back and this one was sitting despondently on the side of the road. Christian tried to give it some water and it sucked a quart of water in no time flat. When Christian tried to walk away, it finally wobbled up on it's feet to try to follow Christian. We gave it another quart of water and decided to go back to alert the shepherd of his missing sheep as we gave it almost all of our water. We forgot to fill up before leaving Oregon and figured we would refill in Bishop.

We had passed a bunch of trucks that we thought might be in charge of the sheep, but they turned out to be a big pack outfit taking tourists down the trail on horseback. They were taking the trailers out ahead of the pack and leaving water and stuff for the horses. They had noticed the sheep as well and tried to give it water too. When they heard that we had given the sheep all our water, they offered us some of theirs. We took it for the sheep.

We continued on to where we saw the flock being watered by a truck but there was no one there. Some of the sheep had wandered off. Some were sitting under the truck with a few sheep dogs trying to hide from the relentless sun. We saw a trailer not far away and decided to see if the shepherd was in his trailer. He was, but he was a Mexican guy who didn't speak a lick of english. Christian tried his best to relate the information to him. He seemed to get the gist of the information...kind of. As he closed up his trailer and started walking down the road towards where we indicated his lost sheep was. Unfortunately, he was walking and had no way to really rescue the sheep and he didn't even take any water for himself so he was likely to end up needing to be rescued as well. We tried to tel him the sheep was five miles away, but we are not certain how much he understood. 

We only had two seats and the back of the Jeep was packed to the gills so there was no way to offer him a ride and could not communicate the situation to him clearly since he didn't speak any english and we did not know enough Spanish to explain the situation to him. We were very frustrated but there wasn't anything else we could do. We returned to the sheep and gave it another half gallon of water. It got up and tried to follow Christian a bit, so he thought many he could just walk it back partway and meet the shepherd down the road but it would not walk more than a few steps before slumping back down on the ground. It was then that we knew for sure that it was suffering from heat exhaustion as we do not know how long it was separated from the rest of the flock and it was really hot out. It wobbled back up on it's legs and limped over to the Jeep. It tried to get under our Jeep for some shade but it was next to the hot engine block and couldn't really fit anyway so it was in a bunch worse position. 

We couldn't just leave the sheep there though because now, it was in the middle of the road. In the end, Christian build a little shade for it with some tumble weeds and bushes. We cracked open another little small bottle of water and gave it little sips to lure it across the road to the other side and into the little shelter next to the road. It took a while, but it finally managed and slumped into the shade where hopefully the shepherd would find it. After all the water it got, we hoped that by the time the sun went down, it will have revived enough from sitting in the shade to be able to move on it's own.

It was a pretty crazy day so far. We had a headwind the entire way up to Oregon and a headwind half the way back down. I'm not even sure how that is possible. The hardtop on the Jeep doesn't fit really well so when the wind hits it just right, it makes it really loud and obnoxious in the vehicle. We had a headache by the time we reached Oregon from the noise. We figured that since we had a headwind all the way up, we might have a tail wind on the way down, but it was not to be. In the end, we stopped and put duct tape across the top where the top meets the windshield and it made it tolerable again.

If it was not for the infernal wind, I think we might have stayed an extra night out there.

Oregon

As soon as Christian's school year was ending, Christian's mom asked us to go up to help her with a few things around her house. We had originally planned to go up there to watch her house and dog while she and her cousin went out on some adventure or another. I think the original plan was to go to Florida. But in the end, she cancelled her trip because she needed hip surgery. 

So, Christian's last day was Friday and we planned to drive up early on Monday. We got up to Shasta before the sun set for the day. Since it is a pretty long drive, we didn't stop very much or for very long except to take some pictures here.

There was still some snow on Shasta, or at least they might have gotten a bit of new stuff the evening before as there had been rain in the forecast. 

We arrived in time to get a late dinner at his mom's house. Her dog, Chance, supposedly a puppy, is huge now. As soon as we tried to bring in our stuff and put them down, she absconded with one of my flip flops. Cheri had us move our stuff beyond a little gate that she had trained the dog not to pass. I moved things into the bedroom area while Christian brought things in from the Jeep. When Christian finally came in to take off his shoes, the dog stole one of his socks before he could get everything off and move it to safety. Chance was certainly an overexcited pup but we figured she'd calm down after she got used to us.

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The next morning, we got started on the list of projects she needed help with. They were just a bunch of minor house and garden projects that she needed done and had been unable to do herself, especially with her bum hips. She has been in a lot of pain for some time now. She kept falling and hurting herself until the doctors finally suggested that she get total hip replacement surgery.

We got a decent amount of stuff done. Chance didn't really calm down much but seemed to get more and more excited as we stayed. Luckily, Cheri kept Chance away from some of the areas we were working.

Cheri usually retires early and gets up very early as she isn't really able sleep very well because of the pain. We watched some movies and kicked back in the hot tub to relax my aching back before turning in for the night.

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The next day, Cheri insisted that we take a day off to see the views and we agreed only so that she could rest and stop fussing over us. We were supposed to be there to help her out, not to give her more work in having to take care of us. 

Cheri gassed up her Hummer and let us take it for a spin. We packed some lunch and headed out to the ocean for the day. We could not find ready beach access on the Oregon side of the border and decided to head down to the California side instead. After several, false starts, we explored a little hiking trail near Lake Earl. It was fairly quiet and there were lots of wildflowers still in bloom. 

It was supposed to be a short hike to the beach but the mile postings were all wrong and showed conflicting information. We never reached the beach access that was posted and turned back when we got to the lagoon and saw that there was no way we were going to hit the beach access on this route. We doubled back and briefly tried another direction, but the trail was mostly obscured and we were getting quite hot and tired. I was also developing some blisters on my feet!

We did not take our lunch and drinks with us since it had been early and they had posted on the signs that it was less than a mile for beach access. We had planned to see the ocean and then continue on to see the redwoods for the rest of the day. Since we did not actually find beach access yet, we went exploring some more to see what we could find. After reviewing the map, we finally ended up at the Tolowa Dunes State Park. 

There were a few groups of people fishing  but to the north, was a large stretch of beach that was relatively deserted. A truck hauling a side-by-side was just exiting the beach so Christian decided to try driving up it as well. I was a little skeptical because she did not really want us taking it off road.

It was overcast and cool out but not cold and we had that section of the beach all to ourselves. It was pretty nice. It was filled with really neat driftwood and rocks that Christian new that his mom would like. We took a couple of pieces back with us to show her.

Plus we got to give it a quick car wash in case we got any sea salt on the undercarriage!

We never did have time to visit the redwoods any more than what we saw on the side of the road after that. We filled her gas tank back up and we returned back to her house for dinner. Christian showed his mom the pictures of our adventures and convinced her to return there with us. She was pretty excited.

Chance was still jumping all over us. She damn near tacked each of us at some point in her enthusiasm. I have to say that it was getting a bit old as she as not calming down at all. She mostly stayed off of us when we sat all the high chairs at the counter or at dinner table but we could not sit on the sofas at all to relax. She would jump on us and get in our face and lick us. It was kinda gross. She wouldn't sit still and let us pet her and for some reason, Cheri didn't want us to take her out for a walk either.

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The next morning, we headed back to the Tolowa Dunes. This time with Cheri and Chance with us. Christian has been fighting a lung infection or something from the last time he got sick and it seemed like it was getting worse. 

We only had partial clouds on this day, so I ended up taking my pictures all over again since it looked so different plus more because we brought Cheri and Chance with us.

We gathered more driftwood and rocks for Cheri. She had some projects in mind that she wanted to do and there was just so many nice pieces everywhere. Finally, when Cheri got tired and had her fill of driftwood, we decided to start heading back. Chance didn't want to get back into the truck and Christian had to convince his mom to let her run beside the truck for a while. She had the time of her life. She's an Australian Sheppard, so she likes to run and stretch her legs and is not made to be cooped up in a house. She was the most well behaved we have seen so far on this entire trip. She was just happy to explore and run around instead of jumping on us.

However, when we were turning around to head back, Christian did not see and drove over a huge trunk of driftwood which then got caught on the undercarriage of the truck. He tried to make sure his mom didn't panic and went to dig our way out. Unfortunately, we did not bring a shovel. It took a bit of time, but Christian got us loose without too much trouble and Cheri seemed to handle it fine.

We didn't stay out too late as not to overexert Cheri. We returned to the house to relax, watch movies, work on puzzles and have dinner. Chance still jumped on us but she seemed a bit better, so we hoped that she was learning and getting used to us after spending the whole day together. Christian took a much needed nap when we got back as well.

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The next day was to be another work day. We got a few more of the items on her list done and a few other items besides. Cheri's cousin Debbie does upholstery for a living...mostly automotive and marine. She had offered to re-stuff the TJ front seats for us. so Christian stopped mid-morning to bring the TJ seats to her. She had forgotten that she had to take her mom to a doctor's appointment that morning, so there was only a small window of time for Christian to drop it off before she had to leave, so he stayed and tried to help her take the seat coves off. He was going to bring it back to his mom's house to wash. Unfortunately, he cut his finger pretty badly on some really sharp edges of the seat frame. Even Debbie got a bit scratched up. 

We were a little worried about the seat covers because some of the foam was falling apart in the machine. It seemed like a disastrous decision. Cheri let it run twice through the machine and took it back to Debbie later that afternoon. After she returned, she wouldn't let us work any more. Christian's health seemed to be declining and his finger had a huge gash in it.

We tried to relax and watch movies with her, but as usual, Chance would not let Christian alone. I mostly made excuses and stayed in the areas that I would not get attacked, but the high chairs were hard and not comfortable. Cheri tried to keep Chance off Christian but every time Christian started to relax, the dog would jump on him and get in his face again. Finally, he couldn't take it any more and went in to take a nap in the dog free zones. He was pretty irritated because he didn't feel well and we went up there so he can spend time with his mom and help her out. She would not let him work any more and Chance would not let him spend time with his mom.

I just stayed in the background and worked on some insane jigsaw puzzle. Christian helped me with it on and off but we didn't like it because there was no main objects in the picture to put together and it was a thousand pieces that all looked nearly the same and even fit together when it wasn't supposed to. It was all but impossible. I finally figured out some pieces that I thought fit together but actually didn't and took them apart. Once I did that, I seemed to finally get somewhere with the puzzle and probably stayed up too late working on it. Cheri retired for the night at some point but came back out when she got a call about some new drama that Erin was entrenched in. She had remarried some rich guy in Nevada with his own grown kids. Cheri is starting to think that she is bipolar and will reck her second marriage if she didn't get help but could not get a hold of Erin.

She came back out to do some searches on the matter on her computer but chance just sat there dolefully looking at her because she wasn't in bed. She finally gave up and went back in. Chance went in to make sure she got in bed then came back out to sit and nap at my feet.  After a while longer, I retired for the night as well. Chance had gotten up several times to investigate noises around the house and settled back to nap in different places in the room. Apparently, she must have been sufficiently tired, because I was able to get up and put a few things away and turn off the lights without her trying to molest me.

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The next morning, we got up. Chance again, jumped all over us the minute we went out. Cheri would not let us do any work again. She was convinced that Christian had Covid or something. She went out that morning to get a test for him. It came out negative as Christian knew it would. That is the second test he has taken this year through his many sicknesses but it always came out negative.

She tried to get us to just take it easy, but that was impossible with Chance around. Finally, Christian decided that if she wasn't going to let us do any more work and Chance would not let him spend any quality time with his mom or let him even relax, we should just start heading home. He seemed to be getting sicker the longer we stayed and he didn't want to get his mom sick ahead of her surgery. The doctors were giving her the run around for the longest time and she finally got them to schedule her surgery while we were there and we didn't want her getting sick and ruining her plans.