January

Once Christian went back to work, the girls hunched down to look for jobs in earnest. They are also taking an online class from BYU. Actually, Emily is taking two. They are both taking a religion class and Emily is re-taking an English class.

Besides that, both girls have been trying to help in whatever way they can with cleaning parts and stuff for the things Christian is currently working on, which includes re-gearing Caitlyn's differential's on her XJ and trying to finish working on Terry's Trooper so that we can get it out of our driveway so that we can concentrate on our own vehicles. Christian has also been trying to troubleshoot the stalling problems with the XJ.

We celebrated my mom's birthday this past month. My sister was in town and getting ready to take my mom on a Caribbean cruise for her birthday.

They spent about a week on the cruise, but my mom came back kind of sick. She had a dry cough when we got back together to celebrate Chinese New Year.

We spent the majority of the day making and eating dumplings. It's everybody's favorite past time!

We were supposed to go back a week later to take my mom to the doctor. She has been having problems with numbness in her fingers in both hands for the past year and her doctor finally decided to try to operate to fix her nerves in her hands. Of course, she would do them one at a time but she ended up having to postpone until March as she still hadn't completely recovered from her sickness.

Back in California

After gassing up and leaving Arizona, we hopped back into California thinking that we would stay in the Mojave area, but it looked like a new storm system was going to be coming in. We still had some daylight left, so we decided to continue on and maybe find a place in Death Valley that might offer a more hospitable campsite. We made it into the Panamint area before we found a place to stop. The weather was not great. We got rain on and off through the evening but there was so much wind in between that it would dry off the tent shortly after. 

The clouds did provide some beautiful views in the morning, however.

Our ultimate goal, however was to cross over to see the snow in the Sierras. Unfortunately, we could not see much when we got there. The snow did not make it down to the lower elevations and the clouds covered the higher elevations where there were snow. 

We decided to head up to Mammoth to see the snow even though we did not plan to go that far North, but after we made it most of the way there, we found out that the road to Mammoth was closed from Bishop! We ended up having to just turn right around and head back down the 395. We were pretty frustrated as we had driven a very long way out of our way to go see the snow. 

In the end, we decided to go investigate the Cerro Gordo Mines. It is a privately owned collection of old mines. The people that own it have been working to improve the road and build a kind of resort up there. They have had several set backs because of the weather this past year. We wanted to go up and see it before it became crowded with tourists.

They fixed up the road pretty good, otherwise it would have been pretty rough and sketchy to go up the steep and narrow road that was usually there. It afforded some beautiful views, although most of it was still covered in clouds. The XJ was still giving us problems. It was a bit frustrating that the engine would keep cutting out on us when it became hot while we were idling. We then had to sit for about 10 or 15 minutes waiting for it to cool down enough for us to continue. 

What is left of the town was pretty neat, but you have to sign in in order to explore it. I think that they make people sign a waver or something in order to go look around on the land. But it was bitter cold and windy out. We even got a bit of hail towards the end and we did not want to disrupt the people there, so we took a few pictures and left.

We then continued back down the 395 heading home. We stopped by Olancha Dunes to have a bit of fun. Caitlyn had been there with us before but Emily had not stopped there before. The Dunes were soaked in water so the sand felt more solid than usual.

We drove up and down and around a few times. It was pretty fun because there was no one there. We stopped to make dinner while we aired up our tires and then continued the rest of the way home. We were basically out of time. Christian needed to get back and clean up and get some rest as he needed to head back to school on Monday.

Kofa National Wildlife Preserve

After the smoke from all the fireworks and gunshots settled throughout the city from New Year's settled, we once again, headed out for another adventure. Once again, the weather would not cooperate for a long enough period to make going to Utah feasible, so we searched for yet another alternative. We decided to try something different and chose to go to Arizona to explore the Sonoran Desert. We settled on exploring in the Kofa National Wildlife Preserve in the Yuma Desert region. 

When we got to the area, we had some serious regrets. The place was just packed to the brim with snowbirds. Also, a lot of the maps we looked at were not really helpful as a good amount of the trails we traveled down was closed off at the end. We wasted many hours not getting anywhere. We did stop to take a look around though at one of the closed off sections and it was really beautiful.

We stopped to walk around and take some pictures but because we didn't know where we were going to be able to stay night since we could not find our way into the wilderness area.

It was quite frustrating that we drove all this way out to Arizona and were having trouble entering the area. We did not want to stay on the outskirts as there were too many other campers, RVs and such everywhere and we had no idea what they were going to be like. We generally stay away from people because out experiences with them around is never good. Our atlas wasn't very helpful, nor the posted maps. None of it seemed very updated or accurate. We finally found a place to camp that was relatively away from other people and settled down for the night. 

In the morning, we again, went in search of the road that might take us through the wilderness area. We picked up a park map and finally figured out a way in. The trail was pretty rough, but the area was quite beautiful. I can't say that it was peaceful as we had to pull over to let a train of at least 15 side-by-sides full of clueless snowbirds through.

We took more video footage than pictures. Our trail led us in and out of washes. Some even had some water in it. I don't know why it seems to be a common thing to put signs where the trail is obvious and you are just left to wander where the trail is obscured, but we made our way through. Caitlyn's XJ kept dying on us while idling and after it heated up. We spent some time trying to isolate the problem and come up with possible ways to fix it. After the vehicle sits and cools down, it starts right back up without any issue. At one point, the TJ was complaining of not having enough gas, but there was at least a quarter tank the last we had checked. We figured that it was because we were driving on some steep roads but the low fuel light didn't go away once we leveled off, so we were a bit concerned as we pulled over to camp for the night.

The next morning, we broke down camp and headed back on the trail. The fuel light went away but we were a bit wary still of how much gas might be in there. Once we got back on the main trail, we whipped around on a different trail that would take us back out of the wilderness. We knew we would need more gas but we didn't know how much was left.

We made it back out without any problems, while playing and splashing through some muddy puddles since we planned to take the XJ apart to work on the axles when we got back. We got to the gas station with gas to spare. We decided to work our way back to California afterwards though. I think if we come back, we need to come back with extra gas tanks. We had one small gas can but it wouldn't have been enough for us to stay out there with two cars. It takes too long to get anywhere so you don't want to have to stop to get gas and go all the way back in, even if you take a more direct route.