The Princess and the Pea

All three of us (me, my cousin Helen and sister-in-law Liz) are upwards in years.  We're not elderly, although others probably think we are.  However, we do have a few aches and pains.  Perhaps a touch of arthritis comes painfully in the night sometimes.  But for one of us, the matress pads in the trailer are not thick enough to ease a sore hip.  After all, we are walking up and down trails to reach beautiful vantage points, and sometimes it is a steep climb, so sore hips are part of the territory for some of us.

We first folded up the spare blankets I had brought.  One was a thick fuzzy checkered blanket I have used in camping for years, and it makes a nice layer.  Then, we placed the soft and fluffy quilt.  Next we placed an ultrasoft fleece.  Then we made the bed with sheet and down blanket topper.  That night was a "no-go."  The little princess' hip was very sore, even though she had tried to squeeze her pillow under the hip.

We decided to get memory foam at the next Kmart or Walmart we encountered, or anything similar to those stores which sold it.  Until then, we made a layer of pillows for the Princess, which worked fine, exccept she would roll off the pillows in the night, and that, too, was a "no-go." After some sleuthing, we found that the closest we got to one was 190 miles from Ely, and we decided we wouldn't drive that far.  But in Ely there was an all purpose hardware store, and it had a thin eggshell foam bed top.  We bought a king size and folded it in half--it fit the Princess' bed perfectly, and we used all the other usual softeners, except the pillows were used for the head and not the hip.  The Princess slept wonderfully, so we had found a solution.  Still, on a future trip we will have memory foam.

Our second day in Great Basin National Park included the 90 minute tour of Lehman Cave.  The cave system was discovered in the 1800s by Absalom Lehman, who then charged admission into the cave, giving tourists of the time a candle and letting them "take whatever they could break" off as a souvenir. Some stalactites of small size were clearly broken off by those tourists of 200 years or more ago.  But for the most part, the cave is unspoiled and breath-taking.  Stalactites, stalagmites, helactites, columns where Stalagmites have joined their dripping stalactite partner, shield formations--rare and unusual--and more fill the caverns.

 You first enter the cavern through an artificial tunnel into the mountain, which replaces the old entry through a small open hole in the ground surface.  Then, one climbed down a rope to enter the cavern.  Today, the path into the cave is mildly sloped, and artificial with a non-skid surface.  Some stairs go up and down, and water occasionally makes the ground slick, but there are hand-holds.

We saw one, lone bat (they usually hang out around the old, natural entrance), and learned that white nosed bat syndrome, which is killing thousands of bats mostly in the east, has not been detected in Lehman Cave.

As we descended--or more accurately penetrated into the limestone mountain side--we encountered great cavern rooms, as well as narrow passages.

The 90-minute tour takes you into more of the cave than the other tour, but still portions are sealed off from the public and restoration from the 1800-early1900 tour damage is being conducted.

The exit from the cave follows a different route, and once again you leave by an artificial tunnel. The tour is well worth it, and both fun and interesting.

Later, we took the nature hike above the cave which takes you past the natural opening which is sealed from access, but surrounded by a bat-friendly entrance enclosure.  Skinks and lizards were the most common animal life we say along the trail.

The road from Ely, NV, is mostly open range, and cattle on and near the road were common as we headed to the Great Basin National Park, the newest park in the National Park System. The new visitor center in Baker is very nice, and the older visitor center up by Lehman Cave is also interesting--we viewed a couple of films about the geology and history of the area there.  The day we arrived was a bit windy with partial clouds, and that night the overnight low was about 32.  We used our heater, and every blanket and throw, but were nice and toasty in our beds--getting out of bed, on the other hand, was chilllllllly.

Snow covers the peaks around us, and the road also is closed by snow just a few miles past our campsite at Lower Lehman.  We had an interesting time leveling the trailer, as the sites were lovely, including several pull-throughs, but were definitely not level.

A nice trail connects lower Lehman Campground with Upper Lehman Campground, and it follows Lehman Creek for its entire stretch, weaving through different types of ecosystems as the elevation gained about 600 feet between the campgrounds.

We traveled south of Ely to Ward Charcoal Ovens State Park.  These beehive shaped ovens reduced pinyon pine and juniper from the high desert forest into charcoal to serve the ore smelters.  The ovens were eventually phased out due to a shortage of available timber--the ovens resulted in complete clearcutting in a circle of 36-mile radius around the site.

A quiet and lovely campground with several pull-throughs is next to the oven site, along with trails through the high desert.

Every day around 3 p.m., a large wind has come up, and blows fiercely, usually dying off by around 6 p.m.  Thunderstorms were predicted for today, but have not materialized.  They are also predicted for tomorrow when we travel to the Great Basin National Park.

After the lovely stay at Mono Lake, exploring the nearby historical sites, we headed into Nevada and across the high desert toward Gabbs, then to Berlin Ichthyasaur State Park.  Here, we were the lone campers at the entire park.  The first place I tried to set up camp was steeply sloped, although pretty level side to side, and it didn't work, so we just stopped there and lunched.  Helen wanted me to try a particular pull-thru but it looked like a tough leveling site, so I found a nice level site and was backing in, with Heln behind the trailer on one side and Lizzie behind the trailer on the other side.  Each was giving me different instructiions as I backed, usually dead-opposite of each other.  As I was very tired, this began to be just a wee bit frustrating, so who could blame me when I pulled forward rather quickly to try to straighten out on my own.  I mean, a little pine branch through the open camper door with needles all over the floor was just a memento of the place, right?  The slight damage to the screen door latch was easily fixed with a new screw...

After setting up camp, Liz took a short walk behind our beautiful campsidfe (pictured) and found a desert-bleached dried set of giant antlers from a deer, then we explored the ghost town ruins of the old mine area, and lastly went to the Icthyasaur State Park museum.  Although the museum, which is a large barn-like building encasing a set of icthyasaur fossils, was closed, it has a self-guided tour through large windows where you can view the dig below.  These ancient sea dinosaurs once roamed throughout the great basin area, but here at Icthyasaur SP are large groupings, including the only one preserved in-situ where it was first found, and is now displayed.

That evening, the wind came up and blew in strong gusts (we did not have our awning up as there was plenty of shade around) that made tremendous noise coming up from the desert floor into our canyon.  We saw a ranger drive by, but other than that, we were the only people around and it was very quiet, with only the birds--lots of those, including a beautiful bluebird Helen saw. 

The next morning, we drove nearly all of the rest of the way across Nevada, through many mountain passes of about 6700 feet, up-and-down, with snow covered ranges all around us.  We reached Ely, and are camped in a KOA there, where we could at last have a nace hot shower.  We plan to be here two nights as we re-plenish supplies and explore the area around us.

We were planning on heading to Death Valley, but the heat wave that started on April 20th would make DV roasting at 112 degrees on the day we would arrive, so we went to plan B.  This plan took us down to Mono Lake as originally planned, and then we would head east and away from the hottest areas.

The Mono Lake area was beautiful, with snow covered peaks panoramic around us.  The scenery was spectacular, and the RV park we stayed in was easy to find and set up.  The older lady who runs it with her family, we think, was very nice.  They told us that Lee Vining had been pretty slow from a tourist standpoint so far, so that was why so many things were still closed in town.  The helpful ranger at the Mono Lake Visitor Center (a must see, and do view "Fire and Ice," the 20 minute film about the area), explained about road closures, so we could not go to Devil's Postpile, which was still closed by snow.

That night, I had a nice couple of glasses of Navarro's lovely rose wine and then cooked BBQ'd hot dogs, which were great.  Lizzie had made her fabulous macaroni salad, and we had a feast.  The wind came up, quite gusty, as the cold mountain air and the warm desert air mixed, but then it died down.  The next morining, Liz, Helen and I went down Hwy 120 to the turnoff for the Panum Crater, one of a series of cinder cones that bisect the area around Mono Lake, including the Lake itself as Negrit Island is one of the cones, too.  The trailhead had two choices--a rim trail or down to the plug of the volcano.  We chose the rim trail (pictured), and thus began the Mono Lake version of the Death March of Bataan. 

Helen and I were taking pictures, and looking at the sharp bits of obsidian everywhere, while the Energizer Bunny led the way.  And led, and really led, then we were in her dust and the Energizer Bunny became a mere speck in the distance (Helen is shown in the near distance, and the tiny speck on the trail horizon is Liz, or the EB).

A couple of miles later after the trail went  up then down then really up and really steep down, we were finally around the complete rim of the volcano, and caught up with Liz sitting in the shade of the trailhead sign.







The next stop was the South Tufa formation, where the stacks of carbonaceous subsurface vent deposits rise like thousands of ghosts from the lake itself (its current level is much lower than historic high water in the Lake, revealing the tufa) as well as from shore lands below the ancient lake rim. This view shows Helen and Liz on the lakeshore. The tufa are remarkable formations, and the trail winds through ancient deposits.

We returned to our camp for lunch, then headed off to show Helen the Historic State Park of Bodie, an old mining town forever preserved in an arrested state of decay.  We had about an hour to stay in the Park as it closed early at 3:00 p.m. off season, and then headed back out the narrow, winding road through open range.  It was here that Helen spotted three pronghorn antelope in the distance.  This is a picture of one of them.

On Sunday night, four rented, identical large motorhomes came into our park, and camped on either side of us.  They were filled with very noisy tourists from somewhere "down under"--either Australia or NZ.  They partied loudly until midnight, despite the quiet hours after 9 o'clock, and Liz and I got very little sleep. 

From Benbow to Avenue of the Giants

Three trailers traveled to Benbow, camping along the Eel River.  Friday, the day of the tsunami from the horrific earthquake in Japan, was our departure day.  The news was full of the devastation in Japan, and the oncoming tsunami's impact on our coast--hitting Crescent City, Noyo, and Santa Cruz with damage-causing waves.  Crescent City, because of its shape, was particularly hard hit.  Despite this terrible news creating a pall across the world, the day itself was sunny with a few clouds, and a beautiful travel day.  Later, rain would start early on Saturday morning and last until we left Sunday.  Still, the weekend was fun and served a good purpose of testing out one of the trailers on its maiden trip.  The new trailer actually had a small leak which would not have been found had it not rained on our weekend get-a-away.

The RV park, shown at left in autumn, has pull-throughs which made it handy for all of us to setup--even Erich's 32-footer fit easily.  Judy took some pictures of our campsite and trailers, and some of these photos are posted here.   Four dogs were part of our group:  Tillie, Brody, Pancho, and Scooter.  All of the animals did well, even Tillie (above right) on her first time away from home in the trailer.  Emily's bike was soon unloaded on our arrival, and she biked around the park, thoroughly enjoying the ins-and-outs of the lanes.

Despite the weather, on the next day, we piled into two of our vehicles and drove north to the Avenue of the Giants.  Here, the beautiful Eel River parallels the old highway.  The river was running high and wild, a milky green in color.  We stopped first at the Visitor Center for the Humboldt Redwoods State Park.  The 53,000-acre Park has some of the world's most majestic ancient trees, with over 17,000 acres of old growth redwood groves.  These massive trees, some older than Christianity, were first set aside with the efforts of the Save the Redwood League back in 1917.   The Visitor Center has a pictorial history of the area from the first settlements forward, including pictures of the devastating 1964 flood.  Dioramas of wildlife and aquatic resources are only a few of the interesting and educational displays within the Center.

On the outside are equally informative signs and displays--including the one at the right of a cross-section of one of the older redwoods--although this one isn't as massive as many found in the Park.  The tree's rings have been dates, and key times in the chronology of the last 2000 years are shown in tabs on the rings.  The Center also has specimens of the other two redwoods--the Giant sequoia  and Meta sequoia (or the Dawn Redwood) a deciduous redwood native.  These trees are very localized now, but were once much more widespread 65 million years ago.  In those ancient times, both the dawn redwood and the coast redwood were widespread throughout the northern hempisphere.  Today, they have retreated to small outposts in Northern California (Coastal Redwood), China (the Dawn Redwood), and the Sierras (Giant Redwood).

After leaving the Visitor Center, we traveled further north to Founder's Grove, which has a lovely short hiking trail with interpretive signs starting at Founder's Tree.  However, the rain became heavy at that point, so we only walked a short distance along the trail.

Still, Founder's tree is impressive, and its top was far from view.  

We continued on our way, returning via the freeway to Garberville and a lunch at a family-run cafe.  It had Emily's favorite on the menu--chicken strips.  The meal was mezza mezza, but better dining was ahead!  That night we had barbecued hamburgers and had hoped to sit outside around Erich's fire pit, but the rain made an indoor cook-out more comfortable.  We stayed warm and dry inside Brad & Judy's comfy new trailer--twice dining around the U-shaped table.  Friday night was hot dogs, and Saturday night was hamburgers!  Delicious camping cuisine.