February 2025 – TooBusyForWork

Dark Sky Festival and West Side Road

The Dark Sky Festival was fabulous as usual. We attended the keynote addresses in the evening, and Kevin attended an astrophotography workshop that got his photography drive going. I also enjoyed the outside exhibits from the organizations participating. I am particularly interested in the autonomous rovers of all type – wheeled, winged, or snaked. The wheeled ones are obvious to most, and we have probably all see the helicopters too, but they actually had a fabulous 20’ long prototype of a snake-like “EELS” (Exobiology Extant Life Surveyor) designed to go into and come out of crevasses to be found on a moon of Saturn. I even got to drive it for a minute or two until two little girls came up who needed the experience more than I did.

(Click to see EELS in action)

IMG_0289

Monday we decided to drive the West Side Road, a dirt/gravel road west of the main salt basin. There are some fabulous views of snow-covered Telegraph Peak from the road. Telegraph Peak is 11,000’+ high, and is usually snow covered in the winter. It is such an amazing contrast to the warm desert below. Here are the views as we drove the road.

There are lots of historic sites along the road. Tule Spring, Shorty’s Well, and others come from the buried Amargosa River flowing underground. There are also human related sites like where the original Death Valley 49ers were stranded for over a month until their rescuers arrived. There is also an interesting gravesite for some early prospectors. Shorty Harris was famous for being involved in many of the gold mines in the area, but specified his grave should say “Here lies Shorty Harris, a single blanket jackass prospector.”

Gravesite of Shorty Harris and his friend Jim Dayton

Last year we couldn’t drive the West Side Road because it had large areas of washout from the historic rains that gave us back Lake Stanley for a while. I posted pictures of the fabulous sight last year. The salt is fresh here, and since the road sees orders of magnitude less traffic than the famous Badwater Basin area, you can see the way the salt pan looks before it has been walked on by tens of thousands of people. The salt begins as a polygon shape.

In Some areas the crystals build upon each other. These formations are 2-3” tall.

Eventually the crystals stop forming and get partially covered by the never-ending Death Valley Dust. This is an older crystalline area that developed before last year’s rains.

As you continue on the road you will eventually get to the back side of the famous Badwater Basin salt pan. It is truly amazing.

Those tiny dots are people. The water is from springs that are almost always present.

I have also been doing quite a bit of sewing, though I don’t have much to show for it yet. I am putting together block after block for both of the quilts I am working on, and I am making good progress. I also cut out a new bag for the folding chairs we use on the RZR. The existing bags are nylon, and the sun has really destroyed them. My finger went right through one bag when I pulled it out for measurements! Kevin has been playing with his 3D printer and the telescope.

We also did a bunch of housekeeping tasks. We dumped our tanks and got water yesterday, so we did some laundry. It has been getting into the mid 90s in the afternoon, and I like my AC with those temps! We have been running the generator from 2-5 to cool off the last two days, doing the laundry at the same time. I think we have decided to leave on Saturday and head somewhere back into Arizona, though we haven’t decided where. We will almost surely go to a private campground to have electricity for the AC.

Arriving in Death Valley and trip to the Racetrack

We arrived in Death Valley on Monday, 17 February. We got lucky again and got an end site looking east to the mountains. My favorite spot! We are here for the Black Sky Festival in the park this weekend plus this is one of our favorite places! We didn’t do much but settle in and look at the glorious views on Monday. Tuesday we also just relaxed. A friend, Ron, came on Tuesday, so we chatted a bit and sat around the propane fire pit (no charcoal producing fires in the campground). Another motorhome came in near us towing an F-150, same model we have. The man came and asked Kevin to help him get it out of tow mode; it was brand new and he was having problems. We invited them over to the same fire, and they had all kinds of questions about the park. They were only going to stay two days, but I notice they are going to the Racetrack today. Glad I convinced them to stay longer.

Wednesday we went to the Racetrack ourselves. Ron has a 1 ton 4X4 pickup to tow his fifth wheel and we had our F-150 4X4 so we were all ready to do it! We stopped at Uebehebe Crater first. Pretty impressive as usual. We didn’t hike down it or anything, but I enjoyed the view. It had been a few years since we have been there. First the road was washed out, and the next time we just didn’t get around to it.

(As usual, click on the link to get the video)

GX010562

Then we started down the high clearance 4X4 road to the Racetrack and the moving stones. Ron said this was almost the #1 item on his DV bucket list, and we hadn’t been for years. The road was definitely rough. Due to how good the image stabilization is on the GoPro, it is hard to tell. Look toward the end of this video to get an idea though.

GX010572

Here are Ron and Kevin walking to the Grandstand, a black chunk of rock in the middle of the Racetrack. Without some humans for scale, the size of the rocks and mountains is impossible to show. And sorry for the truck antenna in the way.

I took more pictures come back than I did going down because the light was better. Here is one showing the layers of rock in the area.

To get to the Racetrack, you have to go by Tea Kettle junction. Why is it there? Lots of stories, and no one knows the truth. Occasionally the NPS has to pull off some when they get too heavy.

Why would it be named “Tea Kettle Junction?”

Another interesting spot is an entire forest of Mohave yuccas. They look a lot like Joshua Trees from a distance, but they are obviously different close up. Like Joshua Trees, they are found at a very specific elevation.

The campground we are in got its name from the fabulous sunsets. They look different each direction you look.

On Thursday we had to go to Pahrump to pick up Kevin’s meds, and we again ate at the fabulous Chai Thai restaurant. We also had dinner at the Furnace Creek Inn, quite upscale. You have to make reservations for dinner, and we never got around to it before. The meal was scrumptious as were the cocktails before hand. Expensive though. $40 for cocktails and another $100 for dinner before tip. Occasionally a splurge is worth it. The only problem was my right side was so beat up from the drive to Racetrack that I was in real pain. I ended up taking 10mg of Flexeril, and I slept like a log. Still a bit sore this morning, but not in agony like yesterday.

The Dark Sky Festival begins today, and we have tickets for the main speakers tonight and tomorrow. More on that later.

Taking a break from Quartzsite

We are now staying at the Elks Lodge in Needles, CA. Definitely a sad town, but the lodge is nice. We are on our way to Death Valley, arriving there tomorrow. We have been busy here doing laundry (lots and lots of laundry!) and cleaning up the incredibly dusty motorhome (lots and lots of dust!). In between I took a Zoom class about machine binding offered through the Arizona Quilt Guild. Well worth the time and money. I love Zoom classes!

To catch up on what we have been doing since the last post, it has mostly been quilting, driving back and forth to Parker for Amazon packages and good food, and a bit of relaxing in the warm weather. The temps have been in the 70s for a couple of weeks now, and the nightly lows are mostly in the upper 40s, even into the 50s. We haven’t used much propane recently! Kevin got his new drone out again since the wind was down, and I love the pictures.

The first one is from above our campsite looking toward La Posa South LTVA. You might have to zoom in a bit to see the much more crowded area. I don’t go boondocking to be 30’ from my neighbor! We much prefer the less crowded areas. The second picture is our campsite. Motorhome, outdoor kitchen, truck, RZR, and the Clam shelter make a comfortable resting spot for a few weeks. The blue covered tripod has Kevin’s telescope on it, trying to keep it out of as much dust as possible. The third photo shows a picture using the telescope on a clear night with a full moon. He’s been figuring out how to use the tracker with the telescope.

As usual, the cats are a big distraction. They both like lying on my legs with the “magic blanket,” but they are not always cooperative about it. A look at Minnie’s face here says that Luna is taking up far too much space!

I did finally get the practice pieces from the feathers quilting class bound as a cat bed. Minnie says it is marginally acceptable, but she still prefers the blanket.

I forgot to mention something we actually did buy at the Big Tent – a microwave toastie/panini maker. Pretty handy little gadget. The ham and cheese sandwich shown was made in 2 minutes in our low powered microwave. We now use 3 minutes. The cute thing has a silicon outside and metal grates inside. The metal grates absorb microwaves and heat up, but the silicon keeps the contraption from sparking. I am quite pleased! We have had “grilled” sandwiches a number of times now, and this gadget it a keeper.

We left Quartzsite on Wednesday ahead of some rain and wind that was coming in. We spent Thursday night at the Elks Lodge in Parker, just to see how it was. Kevin would like to transfer to a Lodge he can be more active in, but the Parker lodge is quite small. We arrived in Needles on Friday night, and besides cleaning, laundry, and shopping, we also visited the Goff Historical Center. It was called “Goff Schoolhouse” the first time we visited a few years back, but it was definitely misnamed then. Yes, the schoolhouse is an historic building that is part of the museum grounds, but there is so much more! Lots and lots of mining history and general history about the Mohave Desert and the Mohave Road. Fascinating stuff.

The schoolhouse was the center of the Goff community when it was busy and active with mining, ranching, railroads, and WWII training. Little is left of that except the schoolhouse these days.

A few of the more unusual exhibits are working stamp mills that have been restored. Very impressive! The vast majority of stamp mills in museums are incomplete and definitely not in working order. It was a true labor of love to restore the mining equipment at Goff. The first picture of the two stamp mill shows how they worked taking in 2” pieces of stone and breaking them up into dust. The dust was then washed and moved to chemical vats for separating the gold or other precious metals. Goffs no longer uses aresenic and cyanide, but they do have water tables for separating. I would love to come here some day when they are operating the mills. The ten stamp mill is the big buy with huge wheels for moving the stamps.

I have also been quilting a lot. I got all the squares for my Christmas quilt made up into twosies before, but I made them all into 4 blocks and then combined a number of those into 16 blocks. I still have quite a few more to do, but I am making some good progress.

I will end with a glorious Arizona sunset. They just can’t be beat.

Quilting and riding in Quartzsite

People I meet sometimes think I am an extrovert because I engage in conversation well. However I am actually just an outgoing introvert. I am mentally exhausted by the last 3 weeks of people. I really like the group who showed up for the rally, and keeping things a bit organized is just what I do, but my oh my, I needed some “me” time. I have done it, finally.

But first another trip on the RZR. We went on Colorado River Indian Tribe (CRIT) land on Saturday with 27 other rigs. It was supposed to be a short ride, but with that many rigs it took a lot longer than anticipated. It didn’t help that 10 rigs got lost on a turn. Of course they were found again, but it took about 45 minutes to get them all rounded up and back with the group. Interesting ride though!

The first video gives a good feel for the ups and downs. The GoPro smooths things out so much that the ride is deceptive; it was rough!

GX010551

The second video is just a nice view of the area.

GX010560

I also took some photos of the cabins we visited. I didn’t spend much time on good pictures because I have a bunch from previous visits. The area is just full of mines – big ones, medium ones, and small little glory holes. Lots of gold and silver taken out of this area.

This is where we had lunch. I hadn’t ever been here before. Fascinating rock formations.

I also did a lot of sewing. I am participating in a Block of the Month Club with a quilt store, Inspired to Sew in Cedar Rapids, IA. Luckily the classes are all virtual so I can follow along easily. I finished my first block quite late on 2 February, but I kind of made up for it by finishing February’s block today. Here they are. Note they are big blocks – 18” finished.

The BOM is from Moda, and it is hundreds of 5” charm squares, all in solids. Each month is in a different color palette. The kit didn’t include the 6 yards of background fabric, so everyone chose their own. I chose to go with an Amish-inspired look, and I think the colors just glow. I have also finished a few dozen blocks of Turkey Giblets that will be eventually a donation quilt (I think). Still a long way to go on that one. Tomorrow I start on my Christmas quilt again. Lots to do there!