Awesome Lucy

 

 

 

 

I was in my early twenties in 1974 when the skeletal fossils of an early hominid that came to be known as Lucy was found in Ethiopia--3.2 million years after she had died.  I had finished a year of geology, including a semester of historical geology, and thought I knew something of paleontology, but Lucy turned the paleontological world on end when she was found.  I remember discussing the findings with my father, and speculating on the human family tree.  I never in my life felt I would make it to Ethiopia, nor ever see Lucy's ancient bones, but today in Orange County at the Bowers Museum, I saw Lucy--the real Lucy, travelled across the world, and carefully displayed in her airtight case, with each fragile fossil anatomically placed.  Only 40 percent of Lucy was found, but she changed our way of thinking back then.  So, today, I was in awe, looking down at her.

 

This remarkable experience came about because Liz and I decided to postpone our visit to the Getty Museum until we were based closer to Topanga Canyon.  Holly had told us about the Bower Museum in Orange, and said that it often hosted visiting exhibits.  I had checked it out online, and saw that one exhibit titled "The Legacy of Lucy" was running, so I thought we would visit the museum and see this exhibit.  I never thought that Lucy herself would be here, but she was.  It was a wonderful once-in-a-lifetime experience!

 

No photography is permitted in the Lucy exhibit, so these web pictures from Wikipedia are the best I can do, but the Bowers displayed a full-sized (about 3.5 feet) reconstruction of the adult Lucy, and this is her haunting image:

 

 

 



The Bower Museum also had many other wonderful exhibits, and non-flash photography was permitted:

 

 

The above exhibits and others from micronesia/polynesia locations including headhunting artifacts, weaponry, and more--all seemed to have a darker side, and we finished those first, then saw the Lucy exhibit, moving on the Mayan works, and California History.  We lunched at the museum restaurant, which was good, then came back to get ready to leave tomorrow.  Tonight we will have dinner with Holly, Lary, and Shane, then  have an early night, we think.

Visiting The Kids

Last night we had delicious barbecued hamburgers with Holly, Lary, and Shane, and their friends Kerry, Gary, and Gracie--Chef Lary prepared the BBQ for burgers and turkey burgers, and outdid himself as usual!  Holly's back yard is lovely, and we had a good time with wonderful company.  Kerry & Gary bought the tent trailer from Liz, and said they are throughly enjoying their camping adventures in it.

Thursday, Holly, Shane, Liz, and I headed into downtown LA (thank goodness Holly was driving!) to visit the la Brea Tar Pits, where Shane could pick up some special extra credit for his biology class if he went to the museum and learned some interesting facts.   It was a beautiful, warm day, and we saw the bubbling pits (from methane and sulfide gases), and outside displays, as well as the inside museum.   The outside display includes an open oily asphalt basin with water covering the surface, much as it may have looked ten thousand years ago, and they have added realistic sculptures of animals struggling to free themselves from the sticky tar.

Adjacent to the Tar Pits is the Los Angeles Modern Art Museum, which we didn't have time to go inside, but did walk around enjoying the outside sculptures:

fterwards, we lunched at the museum square at Johnnys of New York--a great place where Shane ordered a cheese pizza with extra mozzarella!  He took most of it with him...

They Call the Wind Mariah

We left the Joshua Tree National Park area, and travelled south and west toward the eastern shore of the Salton Sea, where we stopped at the visitor center--bird life abounded, especially the many shore birds like the black necked stilt.   We also heard a melodius call from a large black bird with a long tail darting between the palm trees--I could not identify him, although he was longer and narrower than a crow but about the same size with a longer bill and much longer tail.



The shore of the sea is made up of crushed shells like those from a barnacle.  A  few dead Tilapia lined the edge, but the water was blue and seemed serene:

We continued on to Anza Borrego, although we found service stations to be few and far between once past Mecca--the casino and the truck stop are the best bets.

Once we turned to climb up into the park, we passed miles of Ocatillo--so many
blooming that the barren desert had a red cast to it. 

Although we missed our campground turnoff due to a miscommunication between Liz and me, we eventually got to our reserved campsite, which is nice, although a little hot until the breeze kicks in (later, we would wish for the heat and lack of "breeze").  Lots of nature walks start from this campground and tomorrow we will be taking one very early.

Winds began to kick up during the night, but we had been experiencing mild windy conditions on the desert for some days, so didn't give them much thought.  Liz and I rose very early for our morning wildlife walk, remarking on the blustery winds, then headed out.  By the time we had driven the short distance to the trail head, the winds were much stronger, but we headed up the canyon trail anyway.  It was well marked, and an easy uphill grade, leading to an oasis.    Soon, the winds grew wto what can only be described as fierce, and I turned on the trail to avoid the stinging sand-blast of small gravel and sand--our footprints had already disappeared in the blowing wind.  Liz (Energizer Bunny, up ahead a ways), came back to see what I was looking at, and I told her I was just turning from the wind.  We walked a few more steps on, then the dust became unbearable, and back we turned to head home to the campsite.  I caught a glimpse of a roadrunner on the trail, but it quickly hid.

The wind was blowing steadily at near gale force by the time we got to the trailer, and the beds were hopping, with the canvase slapping and popping more than I had ever seen it before.  The winds grew in ferocity, and cointinued to buffet the trailer, and we brought in the slide-out.  I wanted to put up the beds, but Liz didn't think we could, and was afraid that we might be hurt.  At last I couldn't stand it anymore, and so we collapsed the beds from inside, hoping they would tolerate the wind better, then I went out in the gritty dust storm and put up one bed, rather easily, latching just one side, and leaving about two inches of fabric poking ou the other end--that bed would survive, I knew.  The back bed, which is heavier and higher, seemed to catch on something as I tried to put it up, so I couldn't do it.  Instead, I tied the canvas down with a rope and the secured the bed to the back bumper of the trailer, hoping that would help it survive. 

Lizzie was worried the trailer might topple in the constant windspeeds of 35-50 mph with gusts up to 80 mph, so we sat inside my car, which was also getting sandblasted.

 

We didn't realize that we had also experienced a power outage (as we were in the car), but decided to drive into Borrego Springs for lunch, as there was nothing more we could do at the campsite except watch, and maybe we could pick up some information on how long the storm might last.  That was where we learned of the power outage--no gas stations operating, no restaurants working, no stores open--the town was closed up.  We returned to the trailer, and as we drove into the campground there was a strange calm, a lull in the winds.  I hurriedly put up the other bed, closing it tightly into place and fully closing the other bed which had the bit of fabric left poking out.  Some sand had penetrated the inside, and I knew I would have a major cleanup of the trailer when I got it home, but at least it seemed to be surviving, and now the trailer was locked and secure.

A fan palm tree, the only native Southern California palm, is located in each campsite, and ours had held up well.  But across the road from us, a man in a campsite had over thirty huge vicious palm fronds fall on his site, landing fortuitously between his vehicle and his trailer, but piling up into a wooden hill over eight feet tall. He moved his truck to the next campsite just as the winds
picked up again, and there more palm fronds fell, still missing both his truck and the trailer.  We rode out the day in the trailer, slideout in, beds up.  That night, we cautiously put out the sldieout--the winds were still blowing, but probably only about 20-25 mph, so we decided to sleep on the sofa and the dinette table/bed, leaving the main beds folded and secure. The winds buffetted us during the night, bouncing the trailer, but we made it through the night. 

The next morning, we began to prepare to leave, and I noticed that my windshield looked like it might be micro-pitted--it will need a thorough cleaning at a service station to tell.  But it was obvious that the trailer had a dull finish--the sandblasting had stripped the wax from the new trailer.  Jose and I will have to re-wax the little Roo once it gets home.  As I put up the hitch, locking it onto the 4R8unner, the hitch sprung in little increments as I raised the jack--clearly the trailer had been bounced enough to move and put strain on the tongue jack, but it seemed to be okay.

We were constantly using Safari on the Iphone to check on the status of wind advisories for the highways around us, and decided our best route with the trailer was a southern one, as the higheway to the north was still under a wind advisory until the afternoon.  We headed out, catching a glimpse of a roadrunner just as we left camp.

We headed up the mountain toward Orange, and had absolutely no troubles climbing over the pass and dropping into the Lake Elsinore valley area, and reaching Orange.

The Orangeland campground is very nice, we have a pretty campsite #24, and I would readily stay here again and use this as  a base for visiting Southern California sights.

We met Holly, Lary and Shane for dinner on our first night, and ate in historic downtown Orange, which is really pretty.  The restaurant, Citrus City Grille, was great--the owner was wonderful and very solicitous, and we had a good time.

The next morning, Liz and I helped Holly and Shane clean and organize sopme of Lee's household materials.  Today, we are going to the La Brea Tar Pits.

Joshua Trees Themselves

Today Liz and I explored the northern and eastern portion of Joshua Tree National Park, and here we found the famous namesake trees everywhere, on spiky single stems, in shapely tree-like foms, and in twisted, bizzare shapes--and most were blooming.

Our first short walk was at Split Rock, where the trees abounded, and the massive rocks were impressive.  A short time later, we pulled into a picnic area, and came upon an Indian mediating or performing a ceromony high on a rock--he sat motionless for many minutes with one arm extended:

We travelled on to Skull Rock, which has a wonderful nature hike where we encountered tent caterpillas, a charcoal black lizard, another western whiptail, and even paintbrush blooming:

 

 

It was on this easy 1-mile walk that we also encountered a desert Jay:

 

We took the shorter, fully accessible 0.3 mi nature trail around cap rock, Lizzie in the lead, and here saw a western shrike, and more beautiful rocks:

 

 

 

 

We travelled to the end of this spur road, to an overlook that showed the sanAndreas Fault, the Coachella Valley, Palm Springs, and more.  The haze (attributed to pollution from the Los

Angeles basin) made it difficult to see details, but the snow capped Mount San Jacinto to the northwest stood out:

 

 

We returned to Cap Rock for our crackers, salami, and cheese lunch--just as good as yesterday--and then continued on our way out of the park, coming back to the highway at the town of Joshua Tree.  We had planned shopping and laundry, plus organizing the camper to take off early tomorrow to Anza-Borrego State Park (where we may not have wifi, so the blog may be a few days later).  Although it was a comfortable temperature within the Park, it has been hot in 29 Palms, and I will be glad to get to some place a bit cooler.

Joshua Tree National Park

We left the KOA in Barstow and headed on Thursday to Joshua Tree National Park--we were unfortuante, however, in that it was spring break and all the campgrounds on the north side of the park were full--a campground on the southside was apparently open with a few available sites, but the ranger did not mention this, probably because it would take an hour to reach it through major road construction.  In any event, we ended up at the 29 Palms Resort (Good Sam) in the lowlands of 29 Palms, where it is much warmer than in the Park elevations.  The A/C is getting a good test. 

Later that evening, however, the wind kicked up with strong gusts that shook the camper throughout the night, and a nice cool down came with the wind. 

The next morning we planned to explore the souithern area of the park, including Cottonwood Oasis, Cholla Gardens, and the Ocatillo Patch.  Regrettably, the road construction was a 15-mile pilot car led portion, that would not let us stop at either the Ocatillo Patch or Cholla Gardens. 

The Ocatilla Patch was amazing, and it was disappointing that we couldn't stop--the tall tree-shrubs looked dead, leafless, except the bright crimson 7-inch blossoms that draped from the tips of all of the dead-like branches--the following images were captured as we drove past, so they are not as crisp and clear as we would like:

Then, the Cholla Gardens were backlit in the early morning light, and were quite magical:

Once at Cottonwood Spruings, one of the desert oases in the Park, we saw barrel cactus, a blue flower alone in the sands, and the wide-spread, blooming Yucca, and other plants:

 

 

 



 

The Yucca was more prevalent on this side of the park than its cousin the Joshua Tree--we hope to see many of those tomorrow.  The Yucca blooms, then forms deep purplish-brown seeds:

 

 

 

On the return, we were again stopped for the roadwork, and as we waited, we decided to have our picnic of crackers and cheese in the car!

 

We stopped at White Tank campground to go on a short nature hike to Arch Rock, and it was here that we saw the rounded granite boulders up close, as well as more plants and even a western whiptail lizard (he was moving so fast that I missed part of his tail in my picture):

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The weathered granite was rounded below the ground surface from the eons of percolating water, then exposed by erosion.  The arch is shaped similarly tothose in Arches National park, but here it is white granite instead of soft red sandstone.

 

After leaving the Arch Rock area, we went to the Oasis of Mara which is reached from the Oasis Visitor Center.  A fully accessible trail of about 0.5 mile loop leads to the oasis, which is now artifically kept watered as the lowering water table from human activities was threating the native flora and fauna of the oasis.  Here we spotted a desert rabbit resting in the shade about three feet from a pool of water:

 

 

We also saw an unusual white lizard, perhaps not a whiptail as the tail was not as long as the last lizard`we encountered, and have not yet identified this one pictured below (we have now identified it as a desert iguana).

 

 

Tomorrow we are exploring the north and middle part of the Park, and hope to see more wildlife--perhaps even the desert tortoise!





Beautiful Barstow

We left Visalia, where the trains had passed by periodically in the night, and continued toward Bakersfield, where we stopped at the Camping World and purchased some folding steps that were sturdier on uneven ground than the little step ladders we have, plus some over-the-door hangars for towels and other sundry items.  That store is a temptation to any camper.

On we travelled, now heading east toward Tehachapi--the terrain was first miles-upon-miles of citrus trees and almonds, just like through the central valley, then we passed into open rangeland where the hillsides were green, dotted first with oaks, then pine-oak mixed woodland.  We dropped suddenly into a desert terrain, with miles of sagebrush and not a tree to be seen, finally just pulling over at a wide spot to have our lunch (see the instagram pix at mendosue).

We planned to stay at a KOA just north of Barstow in the town of Yerno.  The campground is actually one of the few places that is green, with trees and plenty of birdlife.  The have planted oleander between the campsites (see below) separating one from ones neighbor.

 

 

The overall campground is typical for a KOA (below) and we sat out under the newly extended awning--a power awning tested today, which worked well.  We hear an occasional sonic boom from Edwards Air Force Base (shakes the camper), but otherwise it is pretty quiet.



And here's the awning!

We're Off!

Easter Sunday morning came--Tillie was worried as I loaded the last supplies into the trailer, and knew that she was not going.  But my great neighbors will protect her from any thunder and lightning, and her good buds are coming to visit on Easter, and she and Smokey will be fine. 

The new Rockwood Roo 21ss pulled well as we headed down the coast at the beginning of a cloudy day--the grass along 128 was deep spring green, daffodils were in bloom spotted along the highway, especially near Philo, and hardly another soul was on the road.  The drive was among the prettiest I ever recall.

The RV Park at the Santa Rosa Fairgrounds is a Good Sam park, and the overnight stay was $22.50 for a 30 amp site with full hook-ups.  Only a few large trees are located on the site, but many young trees have been planted  and when these leaf out the greenery will be there, growing thicker as the years go by.  The people are friendly, and the park is less than 3 miles from  my Easter Brunch destination.

The Easter Brunch at Chris & Deidra's was delicious--both vegetarian and non-vegetarian fare.  The kids really out-did themselves  One of my favorites was the apple bread pudding (or something like that), and the bacon was done perfectly and the egg dish was great, as was everything else. 

Both boys love their cousins, and Lincoln follows Hope everywhere, while Chloe tries to keep the boys a little controlled (below).  Easter bunny ears looked adorable on both girls.

Afterwards, during a break in the rain, the Great Easter Egg Hunt was held in the back yard with five (six counting the littlest one) children scurrying around looking for eggs--some real, some plastic ones filled with candy, and three special ones filled with cash.  Some easily-found eggs were placed where the three and under crowd could hunt, and the older girls had to leave those alone.  Lincoln found many, but Parker (at right afterwards) was pretty good at locating them also.   Then, to finish up, we had a birthday cake for Laura, whose birthday had been the day before.

Later, I collected Liz and we returned to the RV park to set up the rig.  The day was growing more stormy, and we had no sooner completed the setup and were relaxing inside when a sharp clap of thunder heralded a huge downpour.  We stayed warm and dry inside, then headed back the Chris & Deidra's for dinner--Gary Chu's Chinese fare delivered--it weas great, especially (believe it or not) the tofu and mushroom dish.   The two boys were really getting tired, but just wouldn't try to sleep--still they did pause in cascading over the back of the couch for a little rest with their dad.

We left them to their rest, and returned to the RV park.  The next morning was a slow and pretty trip east to the walnut ranch, where I nearly got the trailer stuck in the mud from the overnight rains.  Then, today, we headed south to Visalia, where we are overnighting, then heading south again to Barstow.  From there, we enter the desert and stay at Joshua Tree National Park.   The little Roo is performing well, and I am beginning to enjoy pulling it, even though my navigator, Lizzie, made me do a few u-turns I hadn't planned on.   But we got them done, and are now relaxing to the sounds of birds at our nice KOA campground, shown below.

Tomorrow we plan to stop at the Camping World in Bakersfield and do a little shopping before continuing south.