The Getaway...Crom's build and adventures

I saw your post in the post Mojave Road conversation before you went - sounded like a great trip but we had other summer plans already! In consolation my daughter and I got to spend a weekend out on Lake Powell on by brother's boat. Was a real blast and got my daughter a little more comfortable with deeper water too. You never, ever, ever want to own a boat - but knowing someone who has made that mistake themselves pays dividends.

I hope to be out in the CA/NV area for about four weeks of camping spread out each year - so we will probably cross paths one of these days! Give me a heads up when you are planning solo trips and one of mine might overlap (or could be made to overlap if life allows). Just missed you on the Mojave Road by a few days!

Yeah, I usually store my truck in Las Vegas precisely because I have no interest at all in camping in MD. We've been in MD since 2008 but were back in CA for just this year. Since we are used to So. Cal. insanity housing prices I've always just budgeted some of our significant savings in MD housing costs to NV truck storage fees and airfare for camping. I also figure those costs are much cheaper than my being involuntarily committed to an insane asylum...

 

Eastern Sierra Summer Trip #2; Day 4, Part 1, Bishop Petroglyphs

On this day my wife had some very important work related business to tend to, and needed to be left alone for a few hours. So I got the kiddos fed, and filled up my coffee mug, and into the truck we went.

Our destination this half day would be the Bishop Petroglyphs located in the BLM Volcanic Tablelands six miles north of Bishop.

The BLM states that:

The Volcanic Tablelands is a vast volcanic landscape that was formed over 700,000 years ago by materials spewing from the Long Valley caldera (giant volcano), located to the northwest.

Visitor Activities:Four-wheel driving (pdf 642kb), bouldering and rock climbing, wildlife viewing, birdwatching, horseback riding, mountain biking, and hiking.​

The Bishop Petrophyphs were created by the Paiute Shoshone native Americans.

There is a Shoshone Indian Cultural Center on West Line Street in Bishop, California. It's been recommended that before a person ventures off to find the native sites, that they first visit the museum. I've read that it has very good informative displays showing the history of the occupation of these tribes in the Owens Valley. According to this site seventeen yeas ago there were an estimated 2,000 Native Americans living on the Bishop Indian reservation.

I did not know about the cultural center at the time, otherwise I would have gladly paid a visit. Instead for this next adventure I tapped my friend @ETAV8R for some trail intelligence, and guidance for the general area. He had explored there recently and I was grateful for his assistance. Thanks so much!!! Coincidentally we were in touch for the first few days of our family trip as both our trips to the same region overlapped. It was fun, wish we could have met up and adventured together, but it wasn't in the cards this time.

So it should be told that it's very bad juju to publicly detail and share the exact location of any Petroglyph site.

The reason for this is that there are some fu**ed up people in this world who seek to damage and destroy irreplaceable anthropological historical sites. And as it happened in the Fall of 2012 serious damage was done at one of the locations here. You can read about that here. There was a lot of publicity and public outcry about the theft and damage. Subsequently in 2013 authorities recovered the stolen rock art due to anonymous tip that was written in a letter, you can read that story over here.

Now onto some pictures.



I stopped the truck at the first place that looked fun to explore.


I couldn't wait to show the large volcanic rocks to my kids.


I asked them what do they think made all the pits and spaces in the rocks?
The 3.75 year old remarked it was probably the sun. Not a bad guess really. The sun has a profound effect on our lives.
I explained it was the hot gasses escaping as the molten rock cooled. At least that's what I think caused them.

We climbed up the rocks and explored the area. My oldest clutching her "adventure stick"


We even caught site of a jack rabbit at this location.


I asked them if they knew why the rabbits ears were so large? And explained that it helps the animal keep cool in hot weather.

After some exploring we piled back in and moved on and found the petros.


There were many others. In fact it was the most rock drawings I have ever seen in my life.

There are a number of Native American rock art sites much closer to my home in Anza-Borrego, but none on the scale that I witnessed in the Volcanic Tablelands.

The place just begs to be explored.


After we visited the third major site we ate snacks in the shade of the truck on the tailgate. It was really hot at this time of day, so I decided to get the heck outta there and go back to hotel. I drove to pavement to air back up and back to Bishop to meet wife for lunch.

 

Sweet! Just bookmarked the Maturango Museum for our next trip that way. I'm very curious to see which direction my kids will go in for a career path. My wife and I are similar in as many ways as we are different, so anything is possible with the kids, I think.

You're one of the most knowledgeable persons I know for historical knowledge in the region. I've laughed and smiled when I'm searching for a book and I run across a review you've left for a book on Amazon. Look here is @ETAV8R !

Thanks man.

Thanks!

I want to say it's wild, because of the location, but it's possible it could belong to a rancher somewhere... And it just gets out, I just don't know for sure! Wish I knew.

Thanks. Will do. Yeah I'm quite certain I'll never own a boat, motor home, trailer. First is I have no space for any of that, and second, too much work to take care of, maintain, etc.

If I need any of those things, I'll take advantage of rentals and discard when finished.

 

Probably have mentioned before, but you really must do the Coso Range petroglyphs on NAWC China Lake at some point. Easiest way (almost the only way) is through the aforementioned Maturango Museum. Tours are only in certain fall/winter months. Schedules sometime fill up fast. This season's dates to be announced in a few days on 8/15.

http://maturango.org/petroglyph-tours/

Side benefit is you'll get to drive through a chunk of the Mojave that you can't access anyway other than via the tour or to work at China Lake.

 

That horse is thinking: "Damn, that Tacoma seems like the one I saw 5 years ago. Just a few more mods though..."

 

Thanks for this. I'll put it to good use this fall.

 

I need to tell a funny short story about airing down at Volcanic Tablelands.

I put the tire delators on to air down. However, when it was time to stop letting the air out, the rear passenger side valve stem would not seat correctly and continued to leak air. I tried to fix it by depressing the valve stem a few times, but no luck, so I put the valve cap back on and was holding air. I decided to change the valve stem out. My tire care kit I've assembed was in the storage under the rear seat. F***. I had to move my kids car seat outta the way, to get the kit out. I removed the bad valve core, and replaced with new which worked. I had to drag out the air hose and aired back up from 10 psi to 18, put the air hose away, etc. And for some crazy reason I lost my valve cap. F***. I had to go back into my tire care kit, which was now stored in the bed of the truck and find a replacement valve cap. I felt like I was living in a cartoon! Anyways, just a funny story.

 

Eastern Sierra Summer Trip #2; Day 4, Part 2, Pool Time

My oldest kid wanted to go to the pool and was relentless in asking. So we went and it was enjoyable!


After sufficient water play, we went back to the room where I had a 45 minute nap in our air conditioned room.

 

Good to see that I'm not alone in the world of AH SH!T!

 

You were prepared!!

 

Eastern Sierra Summer Trip #2; Day 4, Part 3, Back to Convict Lake

After my nap, wife wanted to go to back to Convict Lake. I said sure, as long as I can go soak in that hot spring again!

So we zoomed up the 395 to Convict Lake again.







Here is my truck in the parking lot doing it's very best impression of @JD'STaco 's Pyrite colored Tacoma!

Almost the same color!

 

Lol! I agree but your trucks out having fun, and mine is sitting at Work. Haha! It's on my bucket list to check out the pacific coast and the mountains out there. The scenery up in those highlands is great ! Thanks.

 

Eastern Sierra Summer Trip #2; Day 4, Part 4, Hot Creek Geological Site

Hot Creek Geological Site in Mammoth, CA is under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Forest Service.

Here is what they say about this place:

Hot Creek is a place to marvel at geology in action. Imagine standing inside an ancient volcano!

What remains of the ancient Long Valley Caldera blast is a region of fascinating geologic wonders: hot springs, fumaroles and craters. Explore the ever-changing wonders of the earth at Hot Creek.

Boiling water bubbling up from the creek bed, fumaroles and periodic geyser eruptions at Hot Creek attest to the chamber of hot magma which lies about three miles below the surface of the earth in this area.

The steam you see along the Hot Creek drainage is created when water percolates deep into the ground and enters a complex underground plumbing system. The water is heated and pressurized before it rises to the earth's surface. It is believed this journey takes around 1000 years.

Earthquakes can cause sudden geyser eruptions and overnight appearances of new hot springs at Hot Creek. Water temperatures can change rapidly, and so entering the water is prohibited.
​

This place used to be a major site for people to soak in the natural hot pools, but in 2006 something changed underground, and the place unpredictable and henceforth is unsafe for humans to go in.

If you go here, you take your life into your own hands. Extreme caution is mandatory.












That's boiling water!


A video!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vM9abA7W0I

 

Eastern Sierra Summer Trip #2; Day 4, Part 5, Hot Creek Geological Site, Back to hotel

Our little family of four marveled at the place. It was an unexpected highlight of our trip.

We climbed out to the foot path that led back to the parking lot, and began out hike out. I had the younger kid, and wife had the older one.

It turned into a contest to see who could get back to the truck the quickest. It was almost sundown, and the signage said they close the gates to this place and we didn't want to get locked in. It started to rain a little bit on the walk back and we quickened our pace. My little one said to me... Dad, do you like rain on your head? I said yes. She said: Well, if you take your hat off you can have some rain. lol so simple. And so I did. It felt good.



A view from the parking lot looking West.


The mighty Eastern Sierras


My youngest remarked that this tree looked like an xmas tree and she asked, can we take it home Dad? Ummm, sorry but no. haha


And here they are, happy as clams.


This is the best sunset I've ever captured with a camera before!


On the way back to 395 from Geological Hot Springs parking lot, we saw a Mother deer and a fawn. My kids were very impressed, so were we!

I enhanced the color in this image for fun. Shows some of the mountain tops on the horizon.


The truck rolled over 69,000 miles on way from Creek site to hotel.



When we arrived back at the hotel, we finished off our adventure, by eating our meal on the tailgate before retiring into our room.

It was a long fun day.

 

if you need to replenish your supply, @DVexile has 99 spare valve caps...

 

That's funny! I did think of Ken when it was happening to me. lol 100pk can't go wrong. Put them everywhere.

 

That is super cool!

Reminds me of "National Lampoons Christmas Vacation". Clark would've taken that tree.

650 less than me.

 

Nick - I'm looking into these RAM mounts. Which double socket arms do you like better. The composite or the aluminum?

 

Just got back from the East Side myself, and I'm pretty wiped, but I've got to say how enjoyable your reports are. The best part is, I think, that your girls will have a treasure trove of illustrated memories to peruse and enjoy for the rest of their lives. That's a legacy you can be proud of, sir. Well done.

 

They both work really well. No notable difference that I could tell as far as performance. If the device you mount is gonna be very heavy then I would lean towards the aluminum but the composite Works absolutely perfect for almost anything.