This article is way past due, though still not as tardy as a full accounting of my Joe's Valley Trip. Still, I'm kind of surprised that I haven't mentioned it yet. This past memorial day weekend I headed off on a great trip into the Eastern Sierras with a bunch of friends. The trip started off with some pretty ambitious goals and I was excited to see how it actually worked out.
The plan:
3 vehicles (2 bio-diesel, 1 standard gas), 7 people (Forrest, Ryan, Jimbo, Stacey, Brian, Selene, me), 7 dogs (Khola, Casper, Otto, Bosco, Tope, Zora, Bo), and 2 goats (shoot! I don't know the goats' names.) Bumping around 4- wheel drive roads in Saline Valley.
Saline Valley, northeast of Death Valley, with a hot spring and a weird little settlement of desert rats, is about a 10 hour drive from Palo Alto. Like Death Valley it can be amazingly beautiful, and amazingly empty, and amazingly hot. I'm sure the hot springs would be great in the winter if you can get there. It is a remote place only accessible by several hours of dirt roads some of which require high clearance vehicles. Some of the roads to the valley go over some relatively tall mountains that get snow in the winter. I've only heard stories about this remote place. Supposedly, Charles Manson was captured there in a cabin. When the sheriffs first arrived it appeared deserted. Only when they began to search the cabin for evidence did they find him. Apparently he managed to cram himself into a small cupboard inside the cabin and almost escaped detection.
So yes, into this hot, weird, remote valley we're planning to take three trucks, two of which are a little long in the tooth. Forrest's 80's Ford F350 with 375,000 miles in it and Brian's 80's Suburban with I don't know how many miles on it. Big loud slow trucks with great ground clearance and storage space, all beat to shit and running on bio-diesel. Forrest brought an extra 50 gallon drum of the stuff with him to top off his tank when he needed to. Ryan and I are riding in his Tundra which is nice and new and fast and just runs on gas. Ryan loves to drive that truck off road.
But, let's investigate this plan a little more closely. Are we really going to get all the way to the Saline Valley? Do we really want to go there when it'll be so hot, especially with all the dogs? And 2 goats? This can't actually happen can it? No, not quite.
The actuality:
3 vehicles (2 bio-diesel, 1 standard gas), 7 people (Forrest, Ryan, Jimbo, Stacey, Brian, Selene, me), 6 dogs (Khola, Casper, Otto, Bosco, Tope, Zora), and 0 goats, bumping around 4- wheel drive roads of the Eastern Sierras.
Ryan and I are carrying four dogs with us: Casper, Khola, Otto, and Bosco because Ryan is dog sitting Otto belongs to Tom Smith, and Bosco is his parents' dog. Forrest, Stacey and Jimbo are riding together and bringing Jim's dog Tope (pr: Toe-pay) which is the nick-name that mexican's Baja give to speed-bumps (Jim found Tope on the side of the road down in Baja). The plan is to somehow meet up with Brian and Selene and Zora and their two goats over towards Lone Pine (where Selene is from). The plan is to leave right at 5PM from work. The plan is to go to Saline Valley.
We leave Forrest's house Friday night a bit after 8PM and drive for a long while and end up in the sierras late at night. Find some little dirt road, pull off and bump around till we find some flat rocky ground at the edge of the trees above a steep rocky slope. Good place to camp, but not very close to Saline Valley yet. But it's great the next morning. Cool and clear without being at all cold. Dry air, we're at about 7,000 feet. The 5 dogs run around and explore and play. Where are Brian and Selene? Will we meet up with them?
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