Big Sandy Valley, Arizona

What's it like to drive around Arizona without the Interstates?  Beautiful!  Especially in the Spring! The Spanish Conquistadors Espejo were here in 1582 and Farfan in 1584 - almost half a century ago! Of course, they were walking or on horses, wearing METAL ARMOUR.  Unfortunately it was on their chest and head. Their legs were completely unprotected from this thorny situation!  The things lusting for gold will do to a man ...

About 300 years later, Lt. Amiel W. Whipple came a wanderin' through here probably surveying for a military road -- maybe this very one!

Here we are, almost 200 hundreds years after that, discovering the names and characteristics of some of the plants.

It is amazing that the spiny, needle-covered, menacing plants have such beautifully delicate flowers! This is the Ocotillo.  It is such a strange plant - even it's flowers are strange!

The Foothills Paloverde can grow up to 25 feet tall (that's the yellow tree on the right).

There is one plant, the Ironwood, that has wisteria-like flowers, but no thorns.  The wood is extremely heavy and hard - ordinary tools have absolutely no effect on it.  I kept looking for one, but I never found it.  Maybe you can?  It has dark green leaves.

One of the scariest plants to me is this one.

Take a closer look:

Makes my skin flinch for ever needle I see!!!  Ow!  Ooo! Ouch!!

They come in red, too.

These grasses are much nicer - but I don't know what they are.  They line all the roadsides here, and I think that they're beautiful!

And then there are these bluebonnets (?)  Hey!  Wait a minute!  They belong to Texas !!!

What are these guys?  I mean, really!  This is one bloomin' desert!

I believe this is a bloomin' Yucca - a Century plant to be exact.  It comes in red, too.

  

This lowly pear cactus has what we call in Texas a cactus rose - but this one comes in TWO colors on the same cactus.

Here is a Mimosa tree common in the desert.

You know what?  There are so-o-o-o many Spring flowers I have already been here half a day weeding out (so to speak) all of the pictures that just don't make the grade. But, there is one more that I simply will not pass up.  Saguaro cactus are the best!!

And that's the end of this post!

Did I Say We Made Yet Another Trip to the Grand Canyon?

Yeah.  He just can't get enough of this place...  Not bad for an iPhone picture!

This time we went to iMAX just outside of the National Park and watched their video.  It was good. Not enough history or facts, but that's not what folks go to an iMAX for, huh?  But on the wall in the lobby we discovered some interesting facts:

Turn-of-the-century North Rim (most folks go to the south rim) Forest Service warden, "Uncle Jimmy" Owens, killed a whopping 543 mountain lions during his 12 years of "game management." By 1930 the North Rim death toll for predators stood at a staggering 781 lions, 554 bobcats and 4,889 coyotes!

I just think it would be soooo fantastic to raft this baby!  I keep trying to talk our 20-year-old grandkids into being river guides this summer, but I guess I would have to join them to make it happen.  What is with these kids nowadays??  No sense of adventure.

Party Time!

One of the nurses Granpa works with invited us to a party at their house in the desert.  It's an all-day come-n-go affair.  I'm always up for a party!



Her directions said to head north out of town on Route 66 for quite aways, turn right at a particular spot, cross the railroad tracks, and follow the dirt road and signs to their place.

Seems they have been having this annual picnic for a whole bunch of years and so they are very prepared.  She's a pretty good artist along with being a wonderful hostess!




The road is enticing all by itself.

We didn't expect a dirt road, and we didn't expect it to go on and on and on.  We are drawn high onto the mountain.  These roads are well maintained, and they're wide.  Each one must lead to at least one home - and these homes are "off the grid."  They have no power lines going to them, they have their own water wells or haul their water in.  The homes are heated with fireplaces and old style cast iron wood-burning stoves.  Up on the mountains of the high desert there's not much need for air conditioners even at the height of summer.  The neighbors all know each other - but leave each other alone.  They are far apart and essentially out of sight of each other.  All in all, I'm very jealous!

But the road keeps going...

All along the roadside are beautiful desert blooms.

I can just imagine what this will look like in a week or so when all of these burst open!  They seem so delicate for the harsh dry desert.  God has put flowers among the thorns of life!

What might these be?  I've never seen anything like them.
But the yellow ones I'm more familiar with.

The party is at the top of the mountain, and we finally get there.  I am so-o-o jealous of them living out here!

They have bounce houses and - believe it or not - a stage for kids to dance on, farm animals right and left...

There's not enough level ground on at the top of the mountain for baseball or other sports.  The young children begin trying to do a line dance, and pretty quickly the teenagers step in and show them how. No adults directing, just kids playing - like we used to!  What a cool place to live.

A Different Yucca Plant

A few days later, we decided to take a short trip through the desert and up the mountain toward Oatman to see what other desert plants might be blooming.  Actually, most bloom at night, but I believe Granpa will NEVER be persuaded to traipse around rattlesnake country in the dark...

We discovered a different kind of Yucca plant that can grow pretty tall:

Granpa gets some great pictures of it's blooming process:

These blossoms are as pretty as any I've had in my garden!

Not too bad for a scrubby ol' desert, eh?

We truly do love the desert and the mountain views.  I'm a rocky person myself.  Mountains covered in trees just don't seem to have as much character as stubborn ol' rocks!

Joshua Blossoms from Lake Isabella to Kingman

I suppose one of the reasons we have been so comfortable in Arizona is because it and the people are very much like Texas - more West Texas than East, but Texas nonetheless.  The livestock are all healthy and handsome.  Granpa loves catching a picture of several horses surrounded by the wonders of the Lord's hand.  The larger you can make this photo the better you understand the vast expanse that they live in.

We're moving down into Joshua Tree country.  The plants of the desert are beginning to believe it is the beginning of Spring and are "greening" up.

Even the Joshua trees are blooming!

We find blossoms in all stages of opening.  They are wonderful at any stage, but ...

...  as for fragrance? Not so much.

These guys may look like cactus, but they are trees.  They are used as such in front yards!  

But if you took a chainsaw to them you would see wood and tree rings.

Also, see one of our earlier posts from October, 2013 on Yucca plants - which is what Joshua trees really are:      http://www.thetravelerstwo.net/2013/10/were-off-to-california.html

The Roads Home

Hum-dee-dum.  How to get home from the Sequoia National Forest?  Snow is blocking roads in higher elevations, so we know we will be going down the mountain.  The Interstate will be the quickest road home -- but we don't have to be quick on this trip.

This is why I love the old-fashioned road atlas.  GPS gets you from point A to point B.  The road atlas gives us options!

Let's see.  Down from Sequoia National Park to Three Rivers. (That was an amazing drive!!)  From there to Exeter.  Now is the choice of the Interstate versus the way less traveled.

Okay, we'll go to Porterville. Golly, I wish we could go east from here into the Great Sequoia National Monument's Southern Unit...! Nope. Snowed in.

That, however, reminds me that we are close to where we went last year and discovered Isabella Lake.  It would be fun to go there again.  Wish we had the tent so we could camp, though it might be just a wee bit chilly!

After a bit of palavering with Granpa, we drop down from Porterville to Highway 155 and mosey on over to Kernville and Isabella Lake.  That means we bypass the Tule River Indian Tribe reservation, California Hot Springs, and White River - but that means we have some place new to go the next time we're in the area!

So, Isabella Lake it is...  Isn't it beautiful?!

Well, that is until Granpa puts me in the picture:

The whole drive is precisely why we get off of Interstates.

For more on Kernville and Isabella Lake, go to some of our posts from last year:

http://www.thetravelerstwo.net/2013/10/whiskey-flat-california.html

http://www.thetravelerstwo.net/2013/10/from-whiskey-flat-to-kernville.html

http://www.thetravelerstwo.net/2013/10/makin-movies.html

http://www.thetravelerstwo.net/2013/10/old-kernville-and-lake-isabella.html

http://www.thetravelerstwo.net/2013/10/new-kernville.html

http://www.thetravelerstwo.net/2013/10/the-sierra-nevada-mountains-of.html

And for information on the Giant Sequoias:

http://www.thetravelerstwo.net/2013/10/the-trail-of-100-giants.html