December 30-31, 2013 Shoshone and Tecopa, California

We took off on our back packing trip. Poor John is sick, so he stayed home. We left from right behind the house. I am such a wimp, I have not carried a heavy pack for so many years Judy drove me-and everyone else’s packs as far as you could go on a road, this is where they all picked up their packs.

The before shot. Christine, Lauren, Rod, Mac and Judy. Christine and Lauren are Rod and Mac’s  grand daughters. Scenery along the way. We had perfect weather.

Red cactuses seen. The lower left is a cactus exoskeleton. The needles were intact, but the cactus was gone. Camp. Amazingly for the desert there was no wind.

A shot of camp from the other direction. Lauren, Rod, Mac, Judy and Christine.

Various cooking methods. Judy’s heat tablet, wind screen, Sue’s heat tablet, no windscreen borrowed from Judy, and she also supplied me with yummy dehydrated food. Rod with the method I am more familiar with, the whisper light stove. In the morning Rod supplied everyone with hot water, delivered right to the tent for morning tea, coffee and hot chocolate.  Sunset from camp.

Dinner with Christine, Rod, Mac, Lauren, and Judy. Sunrise from my tent.

First light near camp.  Me in my tent- a one man (woman) tent borrowed from Judy that weighs 2 pounds. I stayed in my sleeping back until sun hit the tent. You will notice my tea that Rod delivered to me.

Breakfast with Rod, Lauren, Christine, and Mac still in her tent and sleeping bag.  Christine climbing up to the geodes.

Geodes. Christine and Lauren enjoyed their time with us adults. Christine is in 6ht grade and into volly ball, Lauren is in 7th and an actress.

A sight that has not been seen for a really long time, me with a back pack on. I can still do it! We went to Tecopa for New Years eve. They had live music. Pablo Tecopa and the Dusty Butter Band and Griffith Hill band.

This is Yestyn Griffith, he is an incredible 15 year old Ukulele player. He lives part time in Las Vegas where he is first chair violin. John with Mark Hamblin and Mark’s homemade telescope. I wanted to wait till dark to see stars, but the rest of the group wanted to go home and have dinner.

Vikings came to the celebration. The young woman on the right said she is wearing the Golden Globes. Laurie, Judy’s husband was taking photos.

 

Lovely sunset for New Years eve. Sue dancing with Vikings.

John dancing with Vikings. Then for the finale of New Years eve we celebrated the resupplying of toilet paper. We are easy to amuse!

December 28-29, 2013 Shoshone, Ca

 

John working on the car. The plate on the bottom that the hitch attaches too is loose. John tightened it up. These are the hiking boots John got for Christmas for the big backpack. He has a horrible cold, so may not come with us.

Judy and Laurie arrived today. Laurie drove his Tesla-which is an all electric car 500 miles to get here. He had to stop and recharge it 3 times on the way at special Tesla charging stations. Here they plug it into the house, but for a better charge they take it to the RV park and plug it into the 50 amp sockets there. The dashboard is this huge screen.

Under the hood it has no engine, just another trunk. The motor is a small one under the back seat. It is powered by 7000 AA lithium batteries that are on the bottom of the car.  Our friends Rod and Mac arrived with two grand daughters Christine and Lauren.  Pictured at dinner. Laurie, Lauren, Christine, John, Rod , Mac and Judyu.

For dessert we had fruitcake, Rod made his fruitcake flambe`. This castle is a homemade RV that is at the RV campground. They travel around the country doing renaissance like fairs. The drop the drawbridge in the front and have a blacksmith show. The living areas are the turrets, they go up when camped to form the bedrooms, then back down when they drive. Kind of like the slides we have on the side of the bus.

December 26-27 2013 Las Vegas, Nevada

 

We left California into Nevada, then to Pahrump, NV for a birthday party, then on to Las Vegas for the night. This is George Ross at his 88th birthday party.

The strip in Vegas. We could only stand a couple blocks, the traffic was bad and really slow. Our room at the MGM Grand and the slot machines in the casino. It was crowded, smoky, loud   and way too busy. Culture shock after the nice desert.

We came to Vegas to shop and to see the Cirque du soleil show Ka. The show was wonderful. Here is ad on the wall, the theater before the show, with flames on stage and the dragon in the lobby. The next day we shopped, Costco, Trader Joes, REI and Albertsons. I bought John some hiking boots for the back packing trip this week for Christmas. I accidently bought myself a nice pair of on sale lighter hiking boots for summer. We saw this rodent on a street corner.

The Calico Hills in Red Rock Canyon on the outskirts of Vegas. This is a view of the canyon from the highway with the Calico Hills at the far end. The mountains on the left have wonderful slot canyon hikes. We camped here a few times and hiked them.

The view coming into Tecopa, California on our way to the hot springs.

December 25, 2013 Shoshone, California

 

These two photos are from yesterday, didn’t fit on the page. A historic home in Shoshone near sunset. The new pupfish habitat in Shoshone. Pupfish are about an inch long. During mating season the males turn this beautiful blue. They theorize that the pupfish lived in the sea millions of years ago that covered the area, when the desert dried up they lived in the springs. Each spring now has it’s own specialized species. The Shoshone species only live in one small pool, so with a grant they are building two more pools so that they don’t die out if there is some kind of accident in the one. This is the newest one, open to the public to view the fish. The other one is on private property to protect them. The warm spring is huge, it supplies the drinking water for the whole town, fills the fabulous pool, and there is still some to run off into the river.This is just a small part of it.

Christmas day. John relaxing in his new Christmas cargo shorts and me in my new smart wool sweater, with the purple one in my lap and buffs, one on my head and one around my neck. We made a bit of a mess with the wrapping paper!

John with the new loaded shelves. We made some bows out of wrapping paper to surprise them when they come in tomorrow to see them done.

Seed pods seen out hiking. A bobcat was in town by Judy’s house. At first I thought is was a coyote, it is a big bobcat. First bobcat we have ever seen, a cactus on the trail, and the bunny was probably what the bobcat was going for when we walked up. We probably saved it’s life. Merry Christmas.