and a bit more.  The king of monster role playing and video games (Riot to those of you that don’t know) was managing to shred my last Grannie Calming Stronghold and it was time to get out of the coach.  Picture that no matter what you are trying to do, you hear your name being called every minute and a half, 14 hours a day, because unless you look at the caller, they don’t think your ears work, and the caller must act out everything as you watch – like falling down, leaping into the air, etc.  That’s my boy Riot!

It’s not unique to him, it’s part of being a kid.  One camping trip I took up north with Kayanna when she was about 5, we were the only ones in the truck – over 2,000 miles up and back not to mention trips into town and the time we spent together at the campground – she must’ve said, “Grandma…” at least 3Million times and would never continue the conversation until I responded.  At one point, when we were hurtling down the road, I patiently asked, “Honey, is there anyone else in the truck other than you and me?”

“No Grandma.”

I tried explaining, “Then don’t you think that if you just start talking, I will know that you are talking to me?”

That didn’t work.  It just goes with the age.

So back to the day of shredding, it was a beauty – that was Thursday – we put on our hiking boots, grabbed the camera, and headed back out towards Death Valley.  We made it to the Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge and took a drive up to Point of

Rocks – we picked up a brochure and area map at the entrance.  It’s very desolate country and hard to imagine that much would survive out there but a helluva lot does.  The Point of Rocks sets to the right of this shot, at the base of the foothills.  The road we entered the area on is to the left, there is a lot to Ash Meadows Preserve and our next trek out will be further down the road to explore other areas…if we make it before it gets too hot, if not, it will be a trek for the fall.

This shot is directly above the Point of Rocks and shows the beauty of the barrel cactus clusters in certain spots.  We did see one that still looked fairly healthy that had washed down in one of the rain storms, although it won’t be healthy for long as it will dry and wither.

Seemingly out of nowhere, a channel of rock stands above the surface of the terrain by only a few feet, appearing almost as if someone laid it there, just a few 100 yards below the foothills where the barrel cactus stand, and the channel runs intermittently meandering in no certain direction.  Out of this channel, the natural spring erupts and runs year round.  The water comes from over 100 miles to the northeast and is known as ‘fossil water’ as it takes thousands of years to move through the ground.  There are over 30 seeps and springs in Ash Meadows and the water comes in at over 10K gallons per minute.  There’s a geological fault that does the same thing a dam does, it blocks the flow of the underground water and forces it to the surface.  The Mojave Desert is pretty amazing.

The water coming out of the rock runs down into this pool – King’s Pool.  There’s a marker in the pool that shows the depth but I didn’t look at it long enough to have it register.  And then the water seemingly disappears again, flowing off somewhere, seeping into the ground or perhaps flowing into earth again in another channel.  This pool (maybe others in the preserve too) have pup fish in them.  They are extremely small but quite easy to spot because the males are blue.  The females were a brownish color but the brochure says they are green…maybe they have mood swings.  Obviously the picture is cropped.  Next time I go I will be taking a filter for my camera which allows a much clearer image when shooting an object in the water.

We saw a few lizards, which scurried like hell from Riot’s running footsteps as he was convinced he could catch them before they disappeared into the underbrush.  We also saw animal poop and he was convinced it was bear.  We needed our guns according to him…if we were in bear country, I would agree.

These little gems may be fisheyes but I’m not sure.  They were zoomed to get this shot but they are extremely small and growing in a shelf of rock about 100 yards from the spring.  It pays to watch where you put your foot down in the desert, although these wouldn’t penetrate a hiking boot, they could do some damage to a foot through a sandal or tennis shoes.  The Rangers are trying to bring back the ecosystem to what it was previously and they have the drip watering system spread across the land in a few spots.

Driving into/out of the preserve on Spring Meadows Road, there’s a spot to the east that shows the entire surface as green – although most of the rest of the terrain that we saw was whitish/alkali in spots – and it really stands out against the brown foothills.

Well…all of this was a week ago.  My little buddy is sick today, he woke up throwing up.  UGH!  I hate that kind of thing…sort of makes me feel like I’m going to join him.  He’s going back to mom and dad tomorrow for the weekend.  Then I believe I am picking him and Miss Katie up for next week.  Not sure yet…obviously if he’s sick, I won’t put her to the test with it.  But I have one more week of kid sitting and then back to my normal, carefree, work your ass off at home, easy going lifestyle.  Yummy!