Things don't always go as expected, and sometimes that is a good thing. It sure was this morning as I woke up and climbed down out of the tent to a dry day - none of the predicted snow or rain having materialized during the night! Silly Mt. Irish weather…
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All the trips - because every trip is an adventure!
With winter wearing on here in the gloomy pacific northwest, I suggested to @mrs.turbodb that perhaps we should take after the school system and celebrate our own Mid-Winter Break. Somewhere with sun, preferably. Honestly, I was a little surprised at how open to that idea she was, and quickly realized…
8 CommentsI only woke up once in the middle of the night. I was mostly toasty under the comforters, but the top of my head was a bit chilly, so I put on my knit hat as I took a peek through the tent doors to see if it'd snowed yet.…
4 CommentsMorning didn't bring completely clear skies, but dang if it wasn't nice to wake up to more blue than gray, the sun streaming in beneath the clouds that still filled the eastern horizon. Temps were chilly - in the low 30s °F - but I was a happy camper since…
18 CommentsI'd been home less than a week after Tragedies in the Tablelands, and I still had the itch to get out and see everything I'd planned before things went all wonky. Even as we'd been driving home from that trip, I was ordering a new camera and lenses, and I…
8 CommentsHaving recently visited the Volcanic Tablelands for the first time in search of and petroglyphs, we'd been delighted with what we'd found. So delighted, in fact, that I started researching the area for a return trip as soon as we got home! As I searched, I realized we could spend…
6 CommentsWe'll get to the "megaphone" in a bit. Relax. First - as you'll recall - we fell asleep on our last night in the preserve, under the stars, and in the shadow of the Granite Mountains. We were, however, reasonably near a paved road, and traffic continued through the night…
9 CommentsI awoke not to my alarm, but to the distant sound of a diesel engine. Excited, I hurriedly pulled on my clothes and scampered down the ladder, grabbing my camera and tripod as I sprinted toward the train tracks. "How lucky was I," I thought to myself, not only was…
10 CommentsWaking up near Aiken Cinder Mine turned out to be glorious. The calm night meant plenty of sleep, and I was well-rested when I climbed down the ladder to greet the orange line creeping up behind the old crusher. The next hour went by quickly as I walked around the…
Leave a CommentUnlike the previous night, the wind at the mouth of Carruthers Canyon never abated, making for the worst sleep of the trip. Tossing and turning as the wind buffeted the tent, I was glad when my alarm went off - simply because it meant I could be done trying to…
4 CommentsEven sheltered in the pinyon pines, the wind rocked the tent for hours - though in our sleep-deprived state, we barely noticed. Things calmed down significantly after midnight - enough that I removed my earplugs and continued to snooze soundly until my alarm went off at 5:45am. If that seems…
1 CommentWith just over a week to explore the Mojave National Preserve, our spirits were high as we headed south out of the gloomy Pacific Northwest towards a forecast full of sun and warmer - during the day - temps. We'd made a similar pilgrimage last year and had a great…
2 CommentsOur spirits still high having hiked Funeral Slot Canyon and from our encounter with the F-16 as we climbed past Father Crowley Point, we turned off onto Saline Valley Road, just a little after 3:45pm. It was 45 minutes before sunset, and with quite a few miles to go before…
10 CommentsHigh up on a ridge in the Funeral Mountains, we'd gone to bed with a gentle breeze blowing through the tent. It'd been chilly, given the time of year and our 4800' elevation, but not too bad - until midnight anyway, when the wind picked up. With gusts up to…
1 CommentI don't know whether it's an "oh, duh!" moment, or "can you believe it?" situation, but less than two weeks after returning from our Death Valley trip along the Nadeau Trail, we were headed back for more! I was jazzed, and - a little surprisingly to me - so was…
2 CommentsAnticipation. Hope. The Unknown. As much as we may try to plan various aspects of a trip, the best adventures are full of these elements. They are - in my mind - what define adventure. And so, as we headed north from Darwin, essentially on our way out of Death…
6 CommentsIt was still a little before 2:00pm when we started back down the canyon towards the last segment of the Nadeau Trail - the segment that would lead us to the Modoc Mine. This mine was the reason that Remi Nadeau had built this trail - the ore from this…
8 CommentsHaving gone to bed early - partly because sunset was at quarter-to-five, but mostly because we're old-and-boring - I'd mentioned to @mrs.turbodb that we should also get up early because while the Nadeau Trail might only be 27 miles long, all of our side trips would mean a couple more packed…
4 CommentsYou might expect that we were out of the house early for the ~18 hour drive from the Seattle area to Death Valley, but you'd be wrong. It was 8:00am when we pulled out of the driveway, and pointed the truck south towards our destination. Before long, the city gave…
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