An alternative to 'running with scissors',...

January 9th - 13th, 2014

Clear, sunny, about 70 degrees

lat/lon 35.1N 114.5W

This is a long post - when you have 3 people taking photos of lots of different stuff 

well, it's gets kinda crazy!  

Includes 3 videos which I highly recommend watching!!!

Nancy and Andrea DROVE all the way from Idaho to Arizona to visit.  

They left about 4pm on the 8th, arrived around 7 or 8 pm on the 9th. 

Emmy did her best to make them both feel welcome. 

The next morning the 3 of us drove out into the desert to explore and have some 'girl' time. 

Nannia and I near Oatman, AZ

 This is a Teddy Bear Cholla with the nest of a cactus wren in it.

This is what happens when you kick a cholla. (Also called a 'jumping cactus'.)

A chunk of the cactus breaks off in/on the 'victim' and it continues to become more and more attached with any movement that takes place.  This chunk on Andrea's toe started out just barely attached, but by the time we got to the truck, (and you can see how close it is), it took pliers to remove the big chunk of cactus and tweezers to remove all the spines that attached.    

NASTY, DREADFUL PLANT if ever there was one!

My BFF, Nancy being pretty in pink.  

 

We found a burro skull out in the desert.  (There are wild burros all over this area.)

 We were morbidly fascinated with it, especially his little buck-teeth!

Andrea was very entertaining, first dancing on rocks.

And then singing karaoke in the small town of Oatman.

Here's the video if you want to hear her singing'! 

While in Oatman, we saw these three funny guys get into a gunfight. 

And a few 'semi' wild burros showed up to say Hi and see if we had anything edible.

They were so fuzzy and cute!

Then, later in the day, we saw some real wild burros.  

~ ~ ~ ... ~ ~ ~

Day 2

Charley and I decided we wanted to take Andrea and Nancy HERE.

The rocky knob in the circle is the Sleeping Princess Mine as seen from the White Whale, which is parked on a hill behind casinos on the Nevada side of the Colorado River. 

Sleeping Princess is over on the Arizona side, in the Black mountains of the Mojave desert.

So the next morning, we went and picked up a razor.   

Yep, we're some of those reckless people that will run with scissors, so why not climb with a razor! 

Enter the Polaris RZR 800

(the Razor)

Its a dusty job, but somebody's gotta go up there! 

Sleeping Princess, from the Arizona side of the Mojave Desert. 

Here's a tough little barrel cactus, desperately clinging to a rock wall. 

We got into some tight squeezes, and poor Charley got his face raked by a palo verde which has stickers!

His nose, lip, cheek and ear all got cut!  Poor boo boo!

Here's one of those tight squeezes.  Look at the terrain.  It's not exactly a road, but Charley made it through.  Watch the front drivers tire.  It spends it's sweet time waving around in the air!  

Then we continued on in search of the Sleeping Princess.

Stopping along the way to dig up a small barrel cactus for Jodi.  ^_^

~ : ~ 

Can you believe it?  We found a perfectly good BOAT, out in the desert!  

WOOT!!!

Oh, it's a bit of a fixer-upper, but hey, we can do this!!!

HANG ON!  She's heeling to starboard!!!!

Check it out!  There's even a jet ski for Andrea and Charley! 

With Banana in hand, the faithful skipper manages to keep the captain on board! 

~ : ~

This was the first mine we found.  

Actually, the family you see down there told us how to get there.

It was cool, you actually walk through the mountain, to get to that big open hole. 

The hole was VERY deep and had standing water way down there.  

We threw several rocks in to hear how far it fell before we heard the splash.  

~ : ~

 This is Finger Rock.  Like Lazy Peter, I don't know how this one got it's name either. You know me, so gullible and innocent,... I just go along with whatever the locals tell me.  

This must look like a finger pointing to heaven.  I bet that's it.  

Insert that weird whistle music from "The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly" here….

Nancy was a good driver, but she wouldn't spin cookies like Charley would!

Getting close to Sleeping Princess!

Posing Andrea with the Sleeping Princess and the Moon. 

The Results….  climbing the hill to hold the moon.

a few more,... holding the moon.

Some of the cool trails we went on….

And places where there was no trail, just rocks and gullies….

This was the end of the line for getting near the Sleeping Princess.  At least for today….

Long fun day, but tuckered out and heading in before the sun sets.

Come on Chawley, Andrea wants you to spin more cookies!!!!

OK, Go Charley, Go!!!

Back at the Whale, deciding what to do for dinner.


How 'bout buffet dinner down at that big blue casino?


Looking up at the Whale from down at the big blue casino.

Comparing pics of the day!


~ ~ ~ … ~ ~ ~

Day 3 - More Climbing with a Razor.
Attempting to approach the Sleeping Princess from another angle.

Way out there, somewhere on that blue hillside, is the White Whale behind the casino.

Charley surveying the area for our most likely approach,...

Nancy looking down where 'town' would be.

Out here in the middle of nowhere, Charley found a box spring and decides to take a nap.

"Really Charley?  Do you have to nap right now???"

Once we got Charley back in the Razor, we continued to climb toward the Sleeping Princess. 

The trails continued to head in the right direction.  We were getting closer!

And closer! 

We made it!

 I wanted to climb as high as I could.

Nancy 'posed' me, like I did to Andrea, to make it look like I was touching the very top of the Sleeping Princess. (But really, those rocks that it looks like I'm touching were still WAY up there.)

And there it is, the Sleeping Princess Mine.  

(blocked off just inside so we couldn't get in.)

:o(

Wild mistletoe growing on palo verde shrubs.  

Mistletoe is a parasite and eventually kills it's host plant.

Here is another mine we found back down in lower hills.
You can kinda see Nancy and I inside.

Nancy and I coming out of the mine.

Sun's getting low, time to head back to the Whale, a little red licorice for the ride back.

We moved the Whale down to the river so that we could have a campfire. 

Charley was lucky to have some gooood help moving the Whale!

Then we had some girl time by the fire. 

BTW - is was windy as hell along the river. Charley admitted later that he was sure he was going to have to pull out some gas and brickettes and start the fire for us.  He was amazed when Nancy and I worked together like a well-oiled machine and got a perfect fire going within seconds.  

But that's just kinda' how we roll together, huh Nak???  

This is a pic I took for Bubba Kev, who thinks I'm an hippie horoscope lover.

Sayin' goodbuy is always hard to do.  I watched as Nancy and Andrea drove away.

There they go, down the road below the Whale.  Thanks for a wonderful visit Andrea and Nancy!!!