Editor’s Note: This is my sixth and final installment on my spring break road trip saga. If you’ve been following along, thanks for sticking it out!
The sun began to creep over the Providence Mountains at 5:30am and I awoke to our last day in the desert. Hard to believe the week had already passed but so it is with vacation. The day to return always presents itself like unwanted guest.
I watched the sun for a while from my sleeping bag and then rotated to see the Kelso Dunes lit up behind me. It was time to climb a hill before we hit the road.
We had decided the night before that we both wanted to visit the Kelso Train Depot but it didn’t open until 10am so I had time to hike up the sand dunes before we headed that way. So, I tossed my things in the car and left the key for Denise who was going to wait and hike later in the day.
The moon was still up over Granite Peak as I made my way over to the trailhead. There were two other cars in the parking lot but I think one of them was there last night when we drove by. The trail to the dunes started out on a defined compact sand path and I soon passed a wilderness boundary marker. Wildflowers were open in the early morning sun; I even caught a desert lily greeting the day.
The sand soon became soft and I began to follow the main path of footprints that ran towards the beginning of the first set of dunes. There appeared to be two summits from this viewpoint and I could see a tiny figure sitting next to a tripod on the one to my right.
No reason to crash his party, so I took the ridge that headed to the left. My summit seemed taller anyway. I continued to watch the sun come up on the surrounding mountain ranges and fall in love with the tiny colorful flowers at my feet. Just like in the Coral Pink Sand Dunes, the contrast of the vegetation with the sand was picture taking dream.
About half way up I had shed my puffy jacket and base layer as both the day and I warmed up with the climb in the shifting sand. I glanced back mid-ridge to see the photographer on the other summit had begun to descend to the valley floor. I imagined his pictures of the sunrise had been amazing and he must have gotten up fairly early to reach the summit first today. Next time that’ll be me…
I reached the summit of just under 3,000ft a little after 7am and stood in awe of the 360 degrees views of the Mojave. The puffy jacket came back on after just a few minutes; it was still early enough that the breeze blowing was chilly now that I had stopped slogging up the slope. Looking back over the edge of the dune towards the trailhead, I glanced down in surprise to see the photographer beginning a climb straight up the dune towards me. I guess he wasn’t as worried about crashing my party.
He looked up and waved and I waved back as I snapped his picture. I guess I’d have company.
I had made my way over to a point of the summit to take some fun shots of the designs that the sand makes when he summitted and I greeted him, both of us remarking on the beautiful location. I left him as he set up his tripod anew and continued my own memory capturing. I tried to strain my eyes and see if Denise was up yet but it was just a bit too far to see. Not sure how the cholla was tall enough to obscure the car but I guess our subcompact really was that small.
Not but a few minutes later I turned around and with no warning at all was greeted with this:
Words escaped me.
I had to take a picture. No one would believe me!
Not entirely sure what to do with that (I guess I AM in California now), I found a spot over on the other side of the dune and sat down to admire the view and soak in as much of the warm, sunny feeling I knew I would be losing as soon as I got on the plane today at 6pm. While simultaneously trying to figure out why there was a guy in his whitie tighties taking pictures of himself doing yoga behind me. It was simply too comical to be worried about my safety.
WE WERE THE ONLY TWO PEOPLE HERE ON THE DUNES AND SOMEHOW I ENDED UP WITH THIS GUY 10 FEET AWAY FROM ME! Did the cosmos just know I had a blog and this would make most excellent fodder? That I could go out with a bang on my last day? All I kept thinking was, had he kept the underwear ON for my benefit? What had he done over on the OTHER summit? Should I be thankful??
I wasn’t about to be chased off my perch, so I spent some time identifying features like Kelso Peak and Cima Dome off in the distance. I could also see something white far off to the west that had to have been the San Gorgonio Mountains. I imagined the PCT hikers moving along (Halfmile says I was 74 miles away from mile mark 262) through the desert towards Canada and wondering how far they would make it before snow altered their plans.
Having decided that I was just going to ignore the fact that he had turned into a weirdo, somehow we ended up chatting. Maybe it was when he offered to take my picture.
It turns out Ben (I called him Underwear Ben, but only in my head) was from San Francisco and on his way to visit his parents in Los Angeles. In case you are wondering how that works, it turns out that the Pacific Highway is closed due to washout and he was driving around and decided he wanted to take some pictures in the sand (what he had wanted to do on the coast) and ended up in the Mojave. he had lived in the Midwest until he moved with his family to the bay area and had just recently sold his home. I know all about the housing market in the bay area and the remodeling he had done to their home.
I guessed that he was a bit older than me; he had the look of a weathered gypsy who had been tied down to a suburban life longer than he planned. He claimed to be mostly retired but had children still in school that kept him where he was. It all sounded like a recent divorce but I didn’t pry. It was enough that I was sitting on the sand next to a near naked guy. Had to keep some boundaries, I suppose. (Don’t worry, although still in his underwear he had put his shirt back on before our conversation.)
Keeping an eye on the clock, I soon told him I had to head out and rejoin my friend down below. Stepping over the side of the dune, I quickly plunge stepped down and made my way back to the car. Hard to believe, but I discovered a few more wildflowers I hadn’t seen before. It is amazing how things manage to find a way to survive out here. I wonder if the desert feels the same when so many things are not in bloom.
I also said a few unkind things under my breath to the idiots who were now flying their drone over on the other summit.
I was back to the car about 8:45am (yes, it is still only the morning) and found Denise had packed up and was making coffee. I wasn’t even sure if I should tell her about Underwear Ben; it was really the icing on the cake for our trip. Mooooo…
Standing there munching on some Paleo Crack-lin’ No Bran, I noticed that the front bumper of our car didn’t look quite right. In fact, it looked just a little separated from the front panel. Hmmm. Did we mark that at the rental agency? How had we not noticed this from our adventure our first night in Utah?
Yikes.
Lucky for us, these cars are like those $10 plastic model kits you get at the hobby store and I just applied a little pressure and snapped that baby back together. Mostly. I wondered again how closely they check when people return cars as we repacked for the airport, loaded the car and continued our trek north through the Mojave towards the town of Kelso.
I say town, but I think it really is just the Kelso Depot Visitor Center and a few abandoned buildings from the past. I later found out there was a ghost town; that would have been cool to explore. We pulled into the parking lot around 9:40, 20 minutes until opening time. After using the public bathrooms next to the parking lot, we wandered the grounds until the doors opened.
There were a few historical markers, like a remnant of the town prison. I say remnant but that is actually the prison in its entirety restored from someone’s backyard after the depot closed in 1985. Mostly reserved for the town drunks, I think. No cable T.V but an upgrade from the previous refer car they used. It was fun to create a scene in my mind of folks getting off and on the train on their way to further destinations.
Although quite a few cars pulled up while we were waiting, we were the only ones at the door when the NPS staff opened for the day. Most had only stopped to use the outside bathrooms. Too bad, this turned out to be a wonderful visitor center. And I will also note that the bathrooms INSIDE or much better than the ones outside.
We took time to visit the different rooms, with information about the Mojave downstairs and railroad history upstairs. The space used to be a boarding house, now you can see original California license plates and sit in a library reading room. There was a 20 minute movie about the Mojave that we took time to watch and it only confirmed my desire to return. I can see myself doing more hiking here, hopefully with time to visit the backcountry.
We left the visitor center (after I scored several more passport stamps) around 11am with plans for one more hike before making a beeline for Vegas.
I figured we had time for about 3-5 miles and the Teutonia Peak Trail was on our way out of the preserve. Following directions on the map, we turned on Cima Road and soon pulled up to the trailhead around 11:20am. The day was already quite warm and we pulled out umbrellas, water and snacks for our hike in.
The trailhead let us know we would be walking through the densest Joshua tree forest in the world. Cool. I had never visited the Joshua Tree National Forest and this seemed like the next best thing. We started out on what appeared to be little more than an abandoned road, wide and lined with wildflowers and those unmistakable spiny fingered trees reaching towards the sky at contorted angles. It was hard to tell if they are alive or not but evidence of recent blooms on the end gave tell that life still flowed.
After a mile or so of the dusty road, the trail hit the base of the peak and began switchbacks up through rock to a craggy ridge. It extended in both directions but the higher summit was to the left so I continued on in that direction. I was not alone; there were several other hikers out in the noon time sun. However, when I reached what I assumed was close to the summit, the trail ended at saddle between two large granite boulders. Although I knew there was at least one person ahead of me, it was clear he had found a way to climb up the 10-15 feet of sheer rock to the true summit.
I spent about 10 minutes searching around for a route that seemed safe for me (I later read it was considered a class 5), I opted to find a perch on a lower slab to wait for Denise who was just a bit behind me, slowed down by the gorgeous blooming barrel cactus we had passed coming in. Just like at the dunes this morning I admired the surrounding mountains like Striped and Kessler.
After soaking up the last of our vacation sunshine, we were soon back to the car where we made lunch and mentally prepared ourselves for the end of our vacation.
I threw together a bag of shredded cabbage I had bought the first day, along with some Trader Joe’s olives, a packet of olive oil and some of my Homemade Bouillon Powder. A delish cold salad meal on the road and we just ate right of the bag.
We were driving away by 1:30pm. This was it, home we go. There was just one more thing to check off our list before returning the car to the airport.
Ditch our cooler.
If you remember from Day 1, we had picked up a cooler for our trip at Walmart. It had been quite the debate over which kind to get and how we were going to get rid of it when it was time to get back on the plane. Return it to Walmart? Check it? Oh, what to do. Well, I had two ideas. One was to post it on Craig’s List and the other was to post it on the local Vegas Buy Nothing Facebook page. So, when we reached the junction with I-15 (Barstow) and into cell reception, I pulled over and headed over to Facebook (seemed the saner choice) and searched for the group. I asked to be added and waited to make my post. Surely someone would want our cooler. It was less dinged up than the car, that’s for sure.
Turns out that whoever runs that page wasn’t sitting anxiously awaiting my request (I was admitted about 4 days later) so I soon resorted to Craig’s List. Since I already had an account it was super easy to make a post (I had taken a picture of it back at the trailhead) and it wasn’t but a few minutes later that my phone pinged with a text. Michael sent me a sunglassed selfie sitting in his convertible saying he was interested in the cooler. Hmmm. He did read it was a cooler I was offering, right? I know what you are thinking.
After reading this spring break adventure you are amazed I am still alive and not a story in some tabloid magazine or viral Facebook post on how not to trust strangers. Yeah, sometimes I am too. I really, really, really wished I had saved that selfie for you but alas, I deleted that text thread once we got to the airport. Ooops.
There was about 45 minutes left until Vegas, so I replied to confirm he knew it was a cooler and that we hoped to be in Vegas around 3pm. I told him we would meet at the same Walmart we had purchased the cooler at. In the time he took to reply back, I received two more interested texts. Neither included a selfie and I briefly contemplated going with one of them instead. But I seem to feel some sort of code when it comes to this kind of thing and stuck with Michael (first come, first serve) to see if he panned out. I figure there’s got to be bargain hunter karma, right?
After a negotiation where Michael offered to meet us at the rental agency and take us to the airport in his convertible (DENIED), we eventually (and safely) passed the cooler off to him in the parking lot of Walmart after asking if he wanted ice or no ice. It was yes to the ice (he had plans to be outside mowing the lawn today) and then we were off to the airport.
I can’t believe I am finally so close to the end of our story…
We rolled up to the parking garage for the rental car agency and this was where I was crossing my fingers that they wouldn’t notice how much love we had given our red toy car. Another car being returned made the turn in front of us and it was like a blessing from heaven. Its back end was completely smashed in! Thank you, sweet little baby Jesus*. There was NO way they were going to notice us. And I was right. As we sat there side by side with other car, the two attendants spent more time over at the other car with a family of 5 as we quickly unloaded all our things and gladly accepted our receipt.
From here it was uneventful airport activity of herding, waiting, more herding and sitting until we were once again back home in the great Pacific Northwest. We had a little glow, lots of memories and a greater appreciation for sleeping in our own beds. It almost seems anticlimactic but that really was…
…The End
*If you haven’t seen Talladega Nights then you might not get this reference. If you HAVE seen it, you know that it was something you can’t unsee and this little quote will pop into your head at random times no matter how wrong it might be. This was one of those moments.
P.S. You’ll find more information and my picture galleries on my Mojave National Preserve page.
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