Soooooo, on Saturday I left on the BIG TRIP to Arizona. And, of course, some geocaching along the way!
First I stopped at the March Air Force Base Museum. It was completely dark, I had to use a flashlight to look at the exhibit. There are a LOT of interesting planes, but since the place wasn't actually open at 6:30 AM I had to look at them through a fence. Well, most of them. When these pictures were taken the sun was not yet up, it was MUCH darker than these pictures show!
That is a B-52 out there.
An F-4 Phantom. These are what we had at George when I was there. Not that they let ME get anywhere near them!
F-4 nose. Some of these you could get close to...
There was a stoplight a couple of miles away that I was pretty sure was the spot where I hitchiked to San Diego so many times, and once a B-52 taking off flew right over my head. There's a geocache there, but I didn't find it.
I drove up to the old George Air Force Base to look for a cache there. I found it, but a zillion soccer players and their families may have seen me fumbling around!
Not a very interesting picture, but it helps the narrative move along.
Next I drove over to Barstow to the museum at the historic train station. Found the cache there, too, after MUCH looking, and sitting on those nasty desert thorns!
EVENTUALLY I made it to Arizona, where my mother took a picture of me. I know she will hate this one, but I gotta share!
I took my mother geocaching with me on Sunday. We drove out into the desert to reconnoiter a piece of geocache art I was going to cache at. I never did get around to it, but we saw this boat, maybe five miles from the river. No houses or nothing anywhere around. There IS a city dump to the east a bit, though.
This picture really comes before the other, we are at the Von Schmidt iron column marking the border between California and Nevada. Except it doesn't. Interesting reading!
On Monday my brother drove us up to Oatman. It's very touristy, but still interesting. The people are nice, and VERY helpful. The wild burros are annoying, and smelly, but photogenic.
We then drove the 66 towards Topock, then back to home. This is a picture of my mother waiting for me to take a picture of myself with the Route 66 sign.
This is the picture of myself with the Route 66 sign.
My mother was telling me about some of her stuff. This is an incense burner that I remember from my childhood. I think she told me she got it from her mother. It says "Made In Japan" on the back.
This is a game she played when she was young. I don't know the date of this particular edition, but the game itself was released in 1935.
This is Rondo, a set of round playing cards.
A spur given to her father back in the 1940s.
On Tuesday I had to return to the Von Schmidt to correct a technical geocaching error on my part. After a hint from the Cache Owner I successfully completed the requirements of the cache.
I wanted, nay, NEEDED, a cache in Nevada, so I dragged my poor mother across the border to find one. This is the obligatory picture at the border. I do not know why the expression, except that my ankle was bitten by a giant fly back there at the Von Schmidt, and it itched a LOT!
My brother (and I don't know why I didn't take any pictures of him!) observed this spider in the kitchen window, and after fooling many minutes with the manual focus I managed to take a couple of decent shots.
Here the spider has captured a fly!
This is Charlie the dog, a fuzzy little lap dog who is a vicious fighter and not afraid of anything.
This is Miss Bailey, who was quite put out that I was sitting on HER rocking chair.
My picture of my brother's dog, Abra, was too blurry. Abra didn't like me too much, she barked at me a lot. A good looking German Shepard mix. There where two more cats, too. Bully looked like a Holstein cow, and the black one whose name I forget.
On Wednesday I left for home. I took the scenic route via 29 Palms. This is the only tourist bicyclist (EDIT: Found out his name is Marc Nutter) I saw the whole time. Although about a mile before I saw the cyclist I saw a guy carrying an American flag, I think it was this guy. He waved. Yup, now that I see the car on the web site I am sure it was him.
I stopped by the exclusive village of Snow Creek to find a geocache, and rudely drop in on a friend, but they turned out to be at work. Well!! That will teach ME to not call in advance!
I never did make contact with my other brother. There isn't any cell coverage at my mother's house. I was so isolated!
Is this finally the last picture? Yes, it is. I'm eating a Double-Double at the Morongo In-N-Out. Good stuff!
I made it home with no accidents, no one hurt, and gas to spare. But did I mention the red light I totally ran on Saturday? No, I did not. Right HERE. THAT scared me! I was totally focused on traffic and trying to see the upcoming freeway entrance and totally blew through the light. Sure surprised the guy in the oncoming turn lane!
Thanks for reading!
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