The weather has been intermittent clearing, wind now and then, spitting splatter drops now and then, cloudy now and then, and sunshine – wait five minutes and it changes. Yesterday afternoon opened the door to sun and a light breeze and it was time to take stir crazy grannie and Riot out into the open air. We made a trip out towards Death Valley – it’s not far from here – and pulled off road so we could do a mini hike.
We didn’t go far and did see a ton of barrel cactus in that area. It’s quite attractive with the startling pink showing out of the drear landscape. As we headed back to the truck, we had crossed a small wash and were heading back across it uphill from where we started, only to find a pile of empty beer bottles in one particular spot. We’ve had a lot of rain lately and it’s possible the bottles could have washed down and caught against something that kept them together but in retrospect I believe someone sat there, drinking and reminiscing or perhaps it went deeper. If I had a bag with me, I would have picked them up and taken them to the garbage, yah, I’m weird like that.
As we started up the side of the wash towards the truck, there was a cairn built up against the scrub brush. It almost looked like flash flooding could have forced the rocks up against the brush because I’ve seen this same type of rock clumping in other washes in my hikes. I walked on past it but something about it was too precise, there was a flatish rock on top of the cairn. I went back and pushed the top rock off to find a rusty looking round tin in the cairn. As I pulled a few other rocks away, the top popped off. I had my hiking stick (thanks Wayne and Happy Birthday) and used the tip of it to move a few objects to the side. I closed the tin back up and put the rocks back around it, leaving it as was, other than moving the objects.
The contents? More like something that one would pick up bits and pieces from someone’s life – a fluffy looking, bright pink feathery thing, something that looked like a red strap, a clear plastic bag that had papers and possibly pictures in it but everything was upside down so hard to tell, there were other things in the tin but I had no heart or desire to riffle through it to explore. I have a difficult time dealing with personal things from people, I don’t want the objects around me and I don’t care to sort through their memories. I don’t want someone else’s jewelry or personal keepsakes…guess you’d have to be me to get into the distress I feel with these items.
If the tin had been filled with old gold coins, or money, or jewelry, and no identifying remains, I would have taken the damned thing…of course…Mom didn’t raise any idiots.
As we drove off, I couldn’t help but wonder who/what/why the contents of the tin were about and why someone would put it right there, where the first ripper of a flash flood will destroy everything in it with water saturation. That brought another question, how long had it been there? Everything in it was dry, yet we’ve had some rains that should have filled the wash and soaked the contents since the tin lid is not water tight. Oh well…questions left unanswered.
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Riot and I’ve had a few hard times. He’s got a lot of emotional distress and rebellion that I’ve never witnessed in any child before. He understands ‘Time Out’ very well and behaves accordingly when told he’s got to do time out – it’s my three steps up to the bedroom. He goes there and sits, sometimes quietly calm, sometimes glaring at me as he goes. And he’s dead set on his food choices. He has to smell his food first, he won’t eat most things that most kids love, like p-nut butter and jelly sandwiches, or chicken noodle soup with frozen tater tots simmered in it (try it sometime, it’s fantastic), or breakfast cereal and the list goes on. If you cover most things in salsa, he will eat it. I think you could give the boy a bowl of salsa and a spoon for almost every meal and he’d be happy – yet he won’t eat tomatoes. But all in all we are surviving our time together and we’re going out hiking again soon, only this time he wants to, “climb to the top,” so we’ll be looking for something fairly easy to navigate.
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On other news, can you believe the JJProdigy thing? Does this kid ever figure it out? Of course he can play forever without anyone even knowing it’s him, on any online site. We all know that you can get a friend or relative to register and let you play under their account but I don’t believe he is capable of doing that because he won’t be able to stand it if the world doesn’t know how great he is. Perhaps his next apology will come up with something super dramatic and spell binding instead of “I’m an idiot, forgive me and let me crap on you again.”
And the Hansen vs. Jorgensen boxing match, I wonder if Gus’ server can handle all the hits it’s going to take when the fight is live. I guess girls view things differently, I don’t want to beat up someone I like. I don’t even want to beat up someone I don’t like, I just want them to go the hell away.
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On the poker front, I’m drowning in a sea of card ugly and can’t win in NLH tournaments but limit Badugi ring games have saved my BR. I’ve been following and chatting it up with Billy Monroe on a fairly regular basis as he tries to bludgeon the Card Fairy into grease while he plays his way through the wonderland of bad beat-i-tis.
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It’s another great looking day here in the desert, the sky is clear, it’s warming up nicely, and I’m off to explore life with a 4 year old.
Geo-Casching. Google it (check the spelling for casching first) Then consider you and Bennie doing some of it. Uaually the hiking is easy and there are prizes in the finds.
The rules are on the National site, as are location coordinates, maps of the various areas and other information.
You’ll need a GPS, your own local area maps and some gegaws to replace prizes as you take when you find a cash.
Good fun.
There are other games with the GPS that may be played in cities – locating the prime points from which the blocks and lots are measured and maps are made.
Umnhhhh…I’m familiar with geocaching. Even thought about getting heavily involved in it back a few years ago when I hiked all the time and had a gps. There was a cache out at Anniversary Narrows I would have liked to track down some years ago but that’s not an area to go into alone.
I just can’t figure this could be a geocache because of the contents, they are usually something that is fairly fresh and new that you trade off and put something in after you take something. But you could be right.
thanks for the added twist to the brain wrinkle.
Bennie and I were out hiking again today, we saw blue fish in a small cold pool in the Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge at Point of Rocks. It was way cool.
GeoCaching is my guess as well. Years ago when I started all the caches had nice things to trade. Now adays, most caches I could across just contain junk (literally), so I bet you found a cache. Easy way to find out is to check out the http://www.geocaching.com and see if there is an cache on the map.
Thanks to both of you for the input, now I may have to go back and take a look at the contents just to clear curiosity and i will look at the map.