February 11-13, 2019 Shoshone, California

Another beautiful sunny high 50's day. We went on a hike with the Tecopa Hiking Club. We missed our actual destination, but had a great hike anyway.

Mike topping a ridge with the moon. In the distance you can see the snow on the Panamint mountains on the other side of Death Valley.

The view both directions. It is hard to tell in the top one but all the washes are turning green. Spring is coming.

Cholla cactus. The segments come off really easily and the thorns are very sharp and with fishhook like ends. They seem to jump at you from the ground and they hurt like the dickens when they are stuck on you. Rock sandwich, scorpion weed just starting to bloom and a cool rock. Lots of cool rocks out here. Brittle bush blooming. 

We went into a cool canyon. This is one of the walls. Roger named the tree a bonsai, it was a small pine hanging over the canyon.  

Wild patterns on the rocks. The one is very thin layers on top of each other. Seed head , maybe fossils, more feathery pattern and a tiny barrel cactus. 

Canyon wall with barrel cactus and Mike helping Claudia up the dry fall.  

Lots of barrel cactus. Roger named this arch horse head.  

White forget me nots,evening primrose, monkey flower, and brittle bush flowers. This narrow canyon  opens up at the bottom to a valley full of palm trees at  China Ranch Date Farm. 

At the date farm I filled the car with date stems for baskets. Each of these bundles is about 3 feet long. Sunset light on the mountains.  

I should not take photos during dinner- I get people with their mouths full, but Toni and Roger cooked us a delicious dinner. Wanted a photo before we ate it all. Sunset tonight. Another fine warm day. Supposed to rain tomorrow. 

I had a little basket workshop today at my house. We made baskets out of the date palm stems I collected the other day. Toni, Claudia and Judy came. Here is Judy with her finished basket. For dinner we went to the monthly potluck at the community center in Tecopa. There was a delicious spread of food. There is a big population of Koreans in Tecopa in the winter for the hot springs so there was also great Korean food too.