The Pads

Someone once had big plans for an RV park on highway 190, just outside Death Valley National Park. They put in a paved loop with concrete parking pads and started on electrical and sewer hookups. Then, like many business ventures, pfft, it didn't work out.

You can park on the pad or, like I did, use it for a patio

Now, nicknamed The Pads, the place is used by boondockers. Until whoever owns the property chases us off, anyway.

There were only two other rigs there when I arrived. One of them is a guy who acts as sort of a caretaker/host. I found a nice pad at the far end, away from the others. It was very quiet and private. And clean. That's one of the things that makes The Pads so different from The Slabs.

Someone at lest tried to hide their trash. At the Slabs, they might have just tossed it wherever.

The Pads are at 3,000 feet, so the temperature is lower than Death Valley. That's good in summer but maybe not in winter. It depends on your preferences.

Even though the highway is nearby, there's rarely any traffic noise, except when Harleys go by. (Yeah yeah, loud pipes save lives blah blah blah. Bite me.)

Someone got into a little artistic expression

My overnight stay was very pleasant. I would have stayed longer, but I'm on my way elsewhere. And there was zero cell signal. Gotta have priorities.

Diverge

Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road
Time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go
—Green Day

Different needs and desires. Different agendas. These things are part of friendships and relationships. Our little band of three—Jo, Lou and I—went different directions today.

Jo wants to visit a friend in Scottsdale and take a bit of a rest from life on the road.

Lou is anxious to get to Oregon and start modifying his trailer.

I'll join Lou later to help out, but I don't want to be bumping up against lingering winter as I travel north. I'm going to hang around in lower latitudes a couple more weeks.

Sure, I've split off from Lou and Jo several times the past few months to chase after what I wanted. But I saw them as the gravitational center of our trio (whether they wanted to be or not). "I be back in a few days." And there they were, always welcoming.

So, I'm a lone wolf for a while. Today I'll be driving a half hour down the road to The Pads. From what I understand, it's a clean version of Slab City. It's at 3,000 feet, so it won't be as hot as down here below sea level. No cell service there, though. My plan is to head to Lake Mead. I'll see how that goes.

Go find out

I have a lot of time to think while I'm out hiking alone, like I did this morning. Mostly, I talk to myself. (Not out loud. Then others would know I was nuts.)

I had read the trail descriptions in the visitor guide. They sounded good. But I spent 35 years in advertising, so I know things don't always live up to the hype. "Only one way to know," said the little voice. "Go find out." If nothing else, it was exercise.

The canyons twisted back and forth, so I couldn't see all that far ahead. Was there anything interesting around the next bend? Go find out.

What's up this side canyon? Go find out.

Is this uphill slog going to be worth it? Go find out.

Between the questions, I realized go find out had wider life applications. And I regretted having spent too much of my life waiting for answers and guarantees instead of just heading up the trail to find out. What if it's not worth it? What if I fail? What if I get hurt (physically or mentally)? Yeah, well, what if you don't even try?

This couple was in their late seventies. They were on a quest to find out.

On my way back down the trail, I met a woman coming the other way. She asked, "Is there anything up there worth seeing? A fabulous view or something?" It was like hearing my old whiny self.

I answered, "Well, there's a side canyon just up there with some colorful cliffs." I could tell she wouldn't have reacted well to, "Go find out."

A new low for me

Back in my scuba diving days, I was once down 140 feet. Now I've been to 282 feet below sea level. On land. It was easier.

Head 'em up, move 'em out

We're packing it up here in the Alabama Hills and heading to Death Valley. I've never been there. Thumbs up for something new.

I have no idea whether I'll have cell service there, so I might be offline for a few days. Try to soldier on.

Alone. Together.

Jo, Lou and I have been camping together on and off for a few months. I left our camp in the Alabama Hills this morning and drove to a spot with better cell reception. I had to make sure the Internet still existed. Lou and Jo joined me a while later.

When Lou wanted to leave the multi-bar 4G LTE spot outside Lone Pine, his truck wouldn't start. He has been having trouble with that. Fortunately, he was able to get it started after some mechanical fiddling and swearing. But what if he hadn't? And what if there had been no one there to give him a ride for help?

That's the risk of being a loner. Being alone out in the boonies means being alone out in the boonies without help. And sometimes we need it.

Lou was tired of the starting problem and knew it could leave him seriously stranded sometime, so he drove to the Ford dealer an hour away in Bishop. If he has to leave the truck, he'll call and I'll go get him. Because we help each other. Because we're not alone.

Today's one-minute meditation: Lone Pine Creek

Showers at the Whitney Portal Hostel, Lone Pine

If you're boondocking near Lone Pine, California, and you want a real shower, try the Whitney Portal Hostel at the corner of US395 and E. Post Street, a block south of the traffic light, on the east side of the highway.

Five bucks will get you a shower and a towel. There are three showers (#1 has the most room), a shared toilet (in a water closet) and sink. They're well-maintained and appear to be clean. The nozzles are handheld and the water eventually gets hot. There are liquid soap dispensers, but you can bring your own soap, of course. The shower "rooms" don't have anywhere to sit, so you'll need to be adept at putting on socks and shoes while standing.

A clean body calls for clean clothes. There's a laundromat across the highway on W. Post Street. I've been told the restaurant next to it serves excellent pancakes.

Odd clouds

A front blew in off the Sierras creating interesting cloud formations

Never trust Spring

Spring and Autumn are seasons of change. Transitional seasons. Of the two, Autumn seems more honest, more trustworthy.

“Look,” Autumn says, “my job is to ease you into Winter. I’ll give you as much pleasant weather as I can, but it won’t last. Sorry.”

On the other hand, Spring has a tendency to over-promise. “Woo-hoo! Winter’s over! Balmy weather is here! Flowers are blooming and the trees are leafing out! Pack away the long underwear and parkas, baby, it’s time for Absolutely Perfect Weather®!” 

Then an Arctic blast swoops in and Spring acts like it had nothing to do with it. Jerk.

That doesn't mean I'm whining about the current weather. Much. It's a little nippier than it was a couple of days ago, but it's not as if I'd been snowed on or anything. It's just that I need to keep checking the forecasts and planning accordingly. I can't assume anything, except that Spring will be erratic.

Elsewhere in the news

> Author, photographer and digital media entrepreneur Justin W. Coffey shares Lessons Learned From a Year Living In a Van. (Warning: contains some salty language, in case such things bother you.)

> I posted in January about people living in RVs on the streets of Los Angeles. Here's more information and an update from KCRW's Press Play With Madelein Brand. (Streaming audio)

"Last year a federal appeals court struck down an LA ordinance prohibiting people from living in their vehicles. Now the city attorney has rewritten the ordinance so that it will pass legal scrutiny." 

The city attorney is proposing two options. One takes a hard-ass approach, the other tries to deal with the issue humanely. Guess which one I prefer.

Cotton candy moon creature

Eclipses aren't the only cool lunar phenomena

Moon struck

I have only a pretty good camera. My lens zooms to only 135 millimeters, which is just about nothing when we're talking about the distance to the moon. And my knowledge of shooting the night sky is limited. Nonetheless, I wanted to try photographing the lunar eclipse. I got my gear ready and set the alarm.

Above is a full frame reduced to fit on this blog. The moon is far from filling the picture. Those big sexy moon photos are taken through telescopes, not lenses like mine.

Here's the same photo at actual size, cropped to fit the blog. It's a lot better than it looked on the camera screen, a lot better than I expected.

A little later. By itself, this just looks like any partial moon during the lunar cycle, not particularly "eclipsey." That's the problem with still shots.

So here we are, almost at the "blood moon" moment of total eclipse. I waited longer for there to be no sliver of white, but I don't think it ever went away. It just seemed to move counterclockwise around to the other side. Or maybe I was just cold and tired and wanted to call it a night/early morning. You can see how the image degrades as my camera tries to get enough light.

Watching it happen in real life was better than anyone's photos, though. I became aware of the movement of the planet I was standing on, the moon, the sun, the stars... everything. Wow. As they used to say, "Cosmic, man."

Up

Never mind that temperatures have dropped. We had to get closer to Mt. Whitney. Drought conditions meant the road and trails were open already. It was a sign we should go. Now.

So Jo, Lou and I dragged out our fleece and down, packed our lunches and headed up to the end of the road. We were going to do some hiking. Not all the way to the summit. We're old. And we're not properly equipped (mentally or physically). But we weren't going to just snap pictures from the parking lot.

To my friends back East, these are mountains

Some young pup hikers just slightly ahead of us on the trail (never mind that they passed us)

Surprisingly, the weather was quite nice rather than bone-chillingly icy, like I'd feared. Even more surprisingly, I didn't start sucking wind until the end of our post-lunch hike. It was because of the, um, altitude. Yeah, that's it. Thin air and all that.

Another trip to the poetry vault

I wrote this twelve years ago while on vacation in Negril, Jamaica

PRE-NAP CONTEMPLATION

wobble-de-wobble

wobble-de-wobble

fan above twirls with compound eccentricity

a copter about to fling itself to the ground

wobble-de-wobble

tropical funk seeps around the edges 

of a mechanical zephyr

entropy ever ready to rush into the void 

should duct tape and tourist dollars fail

wobble-de-wobble

tenuous retreat hanging on holding out making do

making waiting a virtue

no hurry

wobble-de-wobble

don’t worry

wobble-de-wobble

‘bout a ting

wobble-de-wobble

‘cause every little ting

wobble-de-wobble

gonna be alright

wobble-de-wobble

wobble-de-wobble

wobble-de-wobble