5 - NEEDLES, CA-TOPOCK MAZE AND OATMAN, AZ

We parked for two nights in Needles, CA. We can't get into our RV park in Phoenix until January 5, so we are splitting the time between Needles and Quartsite, AZ.

We got a phone call from the Needles RV park (on historic Route 66) about 20 minutes before we arrived. They were double checking on our reservation. 

Then the lady said, "Ignore the Park Full sign. We have your reservation."  "Park full? In Needles? Why would a park be full there?" We couldn't imagine. It's not like there is a lot of attractions in Needles to bring people in.

Sure enough, as we arrived, the park was full. "It's a Snow Bird Park," the lady said. That confused me even more. It's a nice park and it was basically packed out. What do these people do here all winter? I still don't know.

Well, since it's not our style to just sit around, I had searched the web and didn't find much to explore except Topock Maze.

The lady at the park said there was nothing to do here except Ladies Hold'em that had happened last night. Not my idea of fun (much less, Don's) so we took off to find Topock Maze, aka, Mystic Maze, only a few miles from Needles.

Topock Maze is a 600+ year old geoglyph consisting of intricate patterns and paths designed by the Fort Mojave Indian Tribe. Of all the petroglyphs and pictographs we have seen in our travels, we had never heard of geoglyphs.

Early settlers believed the AhaMakav warriors returning from battle would run through the Maze leaving any bad spirits behind. (Don and I think this was probably the first incident of streaking!) Others think that this was part of their spiritual journey to the next life. No one really knows for sure.

This is not a true maze but a series of windrows carefully placed in an extensive geometric pattern. Currently this site covers about 15 acres, originally it was about 50 acres.

Unfortunately much desecration of the site has occurred over the years by the building of a major rail line, Highway 40 and a gas pipeline. All run right through the maze. What is left of it is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It also has a fence around it now and so it is protected.

The next day we drove up the mountains toward Oatman, Arizona. 

It's only about a half an hour from Needles. Oatman was once an old gold mining town. Now it's primarily a tourist trap...but a fun one.

Some of you who have followed my blogs in the past may remember that we stopped here a few years ago.

Probably the main attraction in Oatman are the wild burros. They are everywhere. I heard one store owner say, "Burros have the right-of-way in Oatman." No kidding! They think they own the town and are not afraid of much of anything, especially cars.

They slowly walk across the street, sometimes stopping in the middle with no care at all about traffic. So the cars stop and wait.

 Some of the shops sell burro cubes, aka, food for the burros that you can buy for a dollar. This is sure to get the burro's attention. Why should they graze in the desert when there are tourists  handing out snacks?

This baby burro hangs out next to this sign, just in case someone missed the message. Mom always stays close by while baby naps.

 When the babies get tired, they just flop down and snooze for a while. Mom always stands guard.

Baby burros are really fuzzy and have a sticker super-glued on their foreheads. These stickers warn people not to feed the babies carrots because they will choke on them.

We saw a young boy, about 10, accidentally drop a bag of candy right in front of a burro. The kid didn't have a chance at getting them back, although he certainly tried. He even smacked the burro on the head. Made no difference. Burro sucked it up like he was a vacuum.

We had lunch at the Oatman Hotel. Clark Gable and Carol Lombard honeymooned here way back when.

 Lunch in the hotel was an experience. The restaurant and bar were very busy since it was lunch time. To be expected.

Not to be expected was all the one dollar bills, mostly with people's names written on them, that were stapled to every square inch available, walls, stair railings, ceiling, the backs of booths...it went on and on. It is a fairly large area and there aren't many open spaces left. (Oatman is on the old Route 66 in case you were unaware.)

I asked the waitress what the estimated amount of the money stapled to the walls amounted to. She told me "One hundred thousand dollars!" Amazing!

There was a 'Johnny Cash-wanna-be' singing while we ate. We later saw him as a gunslinger in the street shoot-out.

Oatman, being an old west town, of course has the usual shoot-out in the middle of the burro poo strewn street. The "bank robbers" are comedians of sorts so it is fun entertainment for the crowds.

Next stop is Quartsite. We will be there for several days. There is a freeze warning but we are hoping it warms up soon. We did come south to warm up, remember? Why is it not happening?

4 - FOSSIL FALLS, RANDSBURG AND JEEPING JAWBONE CANYON

We have driven Hwy 395 many times over the years and sailed right past a small sign south of Lone Pine pointing to Fossil Falls. 


This trip we turned down the gravel road to the parking lot. We were surprised to see lots of cars already there ahead of us. 


Having found info on this place on the web, it warned that you should be wearing good solid shoes because of the rockiness of the path. In other words, forget the flip flops. 


This is good advice because you are picking your way for a quarter mile through a lava field. There was a "path" of sorts, filled with rocks and at times hard to find.


Don warned me to keep my eyes on my feet and not sight see because he knows what a klutz I am and landing on those sharp rocks would not have been a good thing.

 As we got near the edge of the falls, there were holes in the rock surface filled with rain water.


Due to my research, we knew that there was no longer water going over the falls. At one time the Owens River cascaded over these rocks but that ended many years ago

The sun shone over the Sierra mountains in the distance and on to huge black boulders.

 It is hard to get a good perspective on how deep this crevasse really is and I wasn't going to get too close to the edge. There were a lot of people there and none of them looked like they would have been willing to crawl down there after me should I fall.

 These boulders were larger than the size of a car.

As we headed back toward the parking lot, there was a huge mound of black "gravel" with the mountains in the distance. Here we are walking the hard-to-see path through chunks of lava rock. This was one of the easier parts of the path.

When we returned to the car we followed signs to the Little Lake Overlook. It was about a five mile 4-wheel drive road. When we finally arrived at the overlook, we were surprised at how high we had climbed.  We were several hundred feet above the lake level. You can actually see Hwy 395 from here. It is the straight gray line in the distance.


When we are in this area we always make a trip over to Randsburg, considered a living ghost town as there are still some people who live here. I have no idea why. It is an old gold mining town full of rusty...well, about everything you can think of is rusty.

There are several store fronts on Main Street, but very few actually have business in them. Like this one, it is rusty corrugated metal and the concrete steps are no longer really usable. Of course there is a working bar across the street. Somehow those always survive.

The main business in town is the General Store with the 100 year old soda fountain. We always come here for what we have always described as "the world's best chocolate malts."  This place is always busy with motorcyclists and off-roaders, for one reason, it is the only place around to get food. 


Well this is our last visit here. How can you ruin a chocolate malt? I have no idea, but they did, BIG TIME!! We had both ordered one and they tasted burnt. That's right, BURNT! 


I thought maybe they were using hot fudge to make them and it had gotten too hot and scorched the chocolate. We finally asked, telling them it tasted burnt. No, it was just plain Hershey's chocolate syrup. Whatever, we were not able to eat them so wrote them off as, "Well, maybe you can't go back after all."

Next we explored Jawbone Canyon. It was another sign we had driven past for years, not even slowing down. 


This time we talked to the ranger there who gave us a "map" (loosely speaking) and told us a drive through the canyon would take about three hours. I was amazed at the beauty we saw there. Not at all what I expected.

 This is called Blue Point due to the particles of copper found in the rock there.

 I thought driving the desert would just be sage brush and sand but this Jeep road took us to see vistas both high and low. 

 Some areas had lots of Joshua trees, others none. Note the deep sand roadway. 

At times we could look across the hills and see snowy mountain tops in the distance.

I'm always amazed at how big boulders cling to the sides of mountains, not falling any further than the very edge of the rock this big round one is perched on.

 I loved to see the varieties in the color of the mountains in the distance.

 It is a little hard to tell, but we are high up on a very narrow road circling the edge of a mountain. This view is pretty much straight down to a deep valley. 


I commented to Don that I was glad it was a one-way road (as indicated on the "map." He replied that he was just hoping everyone else knew it was one-way. There was no place to turn around and backing up on such a narrow road and on the edge of a mountain would have been more than scary.


We were following the numbered signs as indicated on the "map" until the signs for the one we were supposed to be on...just stopped and we eventually found we were on a different one. 


At this point we were faced with motorcyclists and ATV's flying in our direction. Thankfully the road was wider at this point so we could let them pass. The danger is not seeing them in time or vice-a-versa.

Eventually we safely found our way back while having a great trip that we would have never expected.


Next blog is Needles, California. More than you would expect.

3 - RED ROCK CANYON STATE PARK

After leaving Sacramento, we are heading to Red Rock Canyon State Park in the Mojave Dessert for a three day stay. Driving through Central California can be really boring. 

However, there has been substantial rain in California recently. Actually they had too much rain at one time. The result has been that it is really green here making the scenery far more interesting than usual. As we drove Hwy 58 toward Tehachapi, the hills were really beautiful...untill they covered them with windmills.

We arrived at Red Rock State Park in the Mojave Desert.

This was the view from the front window of the RV.

The red rocks are not actually inside the RV park, but on the way in. These Hoodoos, or whatever they are called here, make up very high cliffs that surround the edge of the park. They are formed from wind and water over time. The RV's all park at the base of the cliffs. 


What we didn't remember from being here previously is that there is no cell or Internet service, so we have gone dark for the last few days.  Sorry about that. 



While parked here for three days we did some sight seeing away from the park. We decided to drive north up the 395 toward Lone Pine, California.

First stop was in Olancha, just a wide spot in the road but with really great jerky.

 The high Sierra mountains were spectacular against the gold color of the dry valley floor.

In Lone Pine we got a perfect view of Mt. McKinley that towers over this little town. Our destination at this point is the Alabama Hills west of Lone Pine.

 Alabama Hills is a large area of winding roads among huge monoliths that set the stage for many, many wild and woolly old Western movies.

 The snow capped Sierra Mountains are in the background,

 and many strangely shaped rocks reach into the sky.

The road was 4-wheel drive and very narrow. We were given a map which was pretty much useless as there was only one road that actually had a sign on it. From that point on it was total guess work.

Remember all the Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, and Hop Along Cassidy Westerns? Well, many were filmed here, including some John Wayne movies and many, many others. We had a good time driving around here for an hour or so. We could easily have spent half a day.


Our next stop was about 20 miles or so further north to Independence, CA. 

We drove past the Independence Courthouse, where Charles Manson was first charged and incarcerated.

Then to the Eastern California Museum. A small museum with an amazing collection of basketry made by native Indians of the area. Since I am also a basket maker, this is of particular interest to me. These pictures are of only a small number of the baskets on display here.

There were beautiful examples of native bead work.

There are displays of Manzanar, the Japanese Interment Camp that is nearby as well as of Norman Clyde. 

Norman Clyde, (1885-1972) was an eccentric outdoors man in the area for quite a number of years. He was known as a mountaineer, mountain guide, freelance writer, nature photographer and self trained naturalist. 


He was also known for achieving over 130 first assent mountain climbs, many in California's Sierra Nevada and Montana's Glacier National Park. 


The last time we were here a couple years ago, Don picked up a book on Norman Clyde. If you have an interest in mountaineering, the story of his life is definitely fascinating.


Next blog, Fossil Falls, Randsburg and Jeeping through Jawbone Canyon.