Never Kick a Cactus.........

Has it only been two days since Forestiere Gardens? Wow! On Wednesday morning when I woke up and was drinking my first cuppa wake-up coffee, I walked around the rv and bakkie, just breathing deeply and enjoying the fresh air. Frank was checking the clothes at the laundromat and had doglet with him, so all was totally quiet and peaceful. And then I saw it – a little zippy bag on the hood of the bakkie. And when I picked it up, the tears flowed without me even realizing it. We still have the http://www.penniesforcancer.com/ words on the bakkie and someone had put this little bag of pennies there for us to get. What an awesome moment that was. I remember last year when we did the fundraiser, we would find pennies on the rv and the bakkie and learned to look for them before driving off. And this, a year later, was awesome.

We left Fresno early-ish on Thursday, with doglet still doing her shivering and shaking trick – she simply hates traveling and I am sure she will still be doing this by the time we get home. Frank says not, so the bets are on! She looks at me with these pathetic, tear-filled eyes, shaking so hard at times that the tiny bell on her collar tinkles merrily away, making the whole scene rather funny - for the first three hours anyway. She does not appreciate the humor at all. Today, I put her on the couch seat further back in the rv – I was ready to make her into coyote bait! Its quite aggravating to have this animal acting totally pathetic, thousands of miles down the road. Its got to be something I am doing, so I stopped even being near her – and she coped very well on a different seat. So that’s how it will be from now – and it certainly felt much better, my blood pressure stayed even and I am sure she preferred it too.

Anyway – we left Fresno early-ish and headed up towards Yosemite after calling my ‘worry child’, Lisa. If we are out of contact, she worries, so sometimes I try to warn her ahead of time. Think the role reversal is happening early for her?

Ok, ok – yes, we did get to Yosemite – what a lovely drive! The roads were narrow and steep and the colors are just starting to turn here. The smell of pine was glorious and there was quite a bit of smoke around, apparently controlled fires, which gave some of the photos a glorious hazy look. Other pictures bombed because of it but the views were always awesome. There are the most amazing enormous pine and redwood trees - I just love the color of that redwood bark. Many of the trees have burned places at their bases, but still grow undeterred upwards. Its an amazing place. Totally beautiful. Driving into the National Park there were notices all over saying that 28 foot was the maximum limit for vehicle length because of road works. Well, the rv is 29 foot and then we are towing the bakkie which is a chevy S10, so add that on. We decided to go for it, the entry guys did not tell us to unhook and drive separately or even mention it – so we headed on, half expecting that I would have to drive the bakkie separately somewhere along the way. But we got through, even though some of the roadwork detours were rather tight. Frank can wrangle this rig within an inch of a barrier without even a frown.

We found a place that had those lovely loooooong, enormous pinecones and picked up a good 8 or so. Its so totally quiet and peaceful when we walked a little way from the road. The trees seem to go higher than one can see and occasionally you can hear another pincecone falling. Last time we were through this way we picked up some big cones, but I gave all mine away! This time I am going to keep at least two! The drive through Yosemite National Park is simply awesome – we could see El Capitan and lakes and vistas that were simply out of this world. The roads were torturously steep and the rv huffed and puffed uphill, sounding as if she wanted to just stop at any time, but on she went, not even overheating at all. Last time the other rv went into the red everytime she saw a hill! What a pleasure it was this time to tootle on up without that worry. Every so often we would glimpse some water shimmering through the trees and look for the next turnout so that we could stop and take a look.

The roads were very narrow, as I have said, and had no barriers at all, so much of the time I spent looking right over the edge into nothing – a beautifully awesome nothing, but a steep nothing nevertheless. But I was not really worried at all. It was a really enjoyable drive through there……. And wonderful to get to the other side where we could hear ourselves over the engine noise again.

We saw absolutely no animals at all.. as a matter of fact, we have seen only two deer on this whole trip so far, and that was today. We won't count the dead deer alongside the road - there were a good many of those, too many. We have been quite surprised at the lack of wildlife everywhere. We do see many happy cows on roadsigns along the way –they always make me smile.. I will try and put a photo of that on the site tonight too.

After driving under low leaning rocks, through tunnels, up and down winding roads, stopping at numerous lakes and ponds, going for short walks whenever we found a good stopping place, we were spat out of the other end of Yosemite and found ourselves in a very different type of countryside. From lush green and turning colors wherever we looked, it was now barren, sandy desert type landscape. Almost a shock to the system.

Coming out of Yosemite one finds very limited choice of roads, the main one leading back down to Death Valley and if we took that road and went just a bit further we would have been too close to Joleen and I would simply not have been able to pass by and not stop there again……..so we took the smaller northern roads across into Nevada, where we finally found a campground at sunset. It was a free campground where no semi trucks were allowed and was gloriously peaceful. As we pulled into it there was a coyote running around looking for scraps so we could not tie Allie up outside, although it was kinda tempting after listening to her bell tinkle all day long! Just kidding!! We also heard what we both thought was a distinctive rattle of a rattlesnake but could not see it anywhere, so we pretty much stayed inside – it was getting cooler anyway.

And so we spend a peaceful evening there until we both woke up freezing early this morning. Frank quickly got up, put the heater on and started coffee. Not much later we headed out of there again.

Now we are in Panguitch, Utah, right near Bryce Canyon where we plan on taking a mule ride down into the canyon on Sunday – weather permitting. We are at the same campground we were 4 years ago and they have the most wonderful showers and free internet and level grounds. Bliss.

We drove through some of the Inyo National Forest and the Toyabe National Forest, although its not forest – just small scrub all over the place and at certain elevations, Joshua trees. Mostly the roads are lined with beautifully rounded posies of some or other wild yellow plant which at times are mixed up with something red looking with spikes all over it. The colors, even in the driest of areas, are quite beautiful. We found ourselves back on The Extraterrestrial Highway which seemed to go on forever with nothing remarkable happening there at all. I can well see why one would see things there after a while! We stopped at The Little Ale-inn that offers everything from humor, hard liquor (much needed out there, I guess) to souvenirs. Interesting little place with lovely, talkative ladies working there…

ET Highway was pretty much like Death Valley in that it was littered with stones ranging from white to sun-burned black, then patches of sandy areas. There are tufty shrubs all around and they are probably green but everything is covered with a thick layer of dust, and surprisingly, there is quite a bit of water around, either in man made dams or little river-lets winding their way through pretty much nothing. The roads are dead straight as far as you can see, and when a corner does happen or you get to the top of a hill and think in anticipation that something might change ……….. nope......... its the same again. The missile testing range is out there and the non-existant Area 51, which some say has now moved, is behind the mountain range that traveled along with us all the way.

And then we got hungry and pulled over along the side of the road to make lunch somewhere in Nevada. We were on the top of a hill, which was kinda nice, until we realized that it really did not make a difference in the view at all, just felt beautifully open and free. Its really quiet out in the middle of nowhere and the air is definately cleaner. I went for a walk, looking for some dried or dead cholla cactus – it has the most beautiful wood, full of little holes. I found a beautiful specimen that was about 80% dried and decided that this was the one I wanted. But it’s full of spikes. Full of spikes!

NEVER KICK A CHOLLA CACTUS PLANT! I came off a definite second best. Now I had only one foot working – the other zapped thoroughly, through my sneaker, with serious spikes, and I was not about to yell for Frank to help me! I could not hop anywhere as everything out there has spikes and the idea of falling was not an option. At all. So I balanced carefully, placing a Joshua Tree between me, the rv and Frank and pulled the spikes out of my shoe with tightly gritted teeth. I could feel them coming out of my foot and cursed that plant! Why could it not lose its spikes when dying?? Only when I got back to the rv did I tell Frank, making light of my stupidity, of course. In 2003 when we found some cholla cactus in Texas, the spikes went right through some serious gloves Frank was wearing, so I should have known better! And that cholla plant still stands where it was - totally unmoved in all ways.

Driving into this area today was simply lovely – the highest summit we did today was just over 9200 feet on the eastern side of Cedar City, and the Skilpad’s drug themselves up, through the pink landscape, changing colors and some beautiful views of the sun setting on the orange colors of Bryce Canyon.

Tomorrow, Saturday, we will drive around Bryce, book the mule ride and hopefully just relax a bit. We don’t seem to be any better this trip at relaxing than the others, but we really enjoy the driving and being on the go. This is the area of the country that we both really enjoy – the colors are simply awesome. No doubt I will take a few photos over the next few days……

Time to get some sleep, both Doglet and Frank are there already

Love and light to you all – and thanks for the emails – its lovely to check in and hear your news and updates
Annie