After a lackluster winter at Amazon’s Fernley facility, Jenn and I decided we’d be better off looking for a job we enjoyed than one that promised big bucks and may or may not deliver. As one of our interests is caving, we decided to try and get jobs at a cave for the summer, even if it meant working the gift shop and cleaning restrooms. It turns out that we lucked into one of the most amazing jobs we could hope for.

Our first choice of positions came through and we got workcamping positions at Caverns of Sonora. For those of you that have never heard of it, Caverns of Sonora is one of the most decorated caves on the planet. While there hasn’t been a study that I’m aware of, I believe it could very well be the most decorated cave in the world based on formations per square inch. We are lucky enough to be spending a fair portion of every day guiding tours in this cave.

The tour is a very up close and personal experience. We are literally inches away from formations throughout much of the tour. On top of that, we are working for some of the best people you could hope to be around. The cave is owned by a family that has owned the land surrounding it for five generations and the general manager has been a true caver for forty-six years. I can’t imagine a better work experience.

Words cannot begin to describe this beautiful cave. But to give you a general idea, we spent a week training with two to three tours a day that are close to two hours long and on our first day off, we took two tours through the cave just to enjoy it and take photos. I snapped five hundred and forty some odd pictures in three and a half hours. Almost eighty have been uploaded to the gallery. The pictures do not do the experience justice, but they are far better than words could ever be. I only wish I had half the photographic skill of the professionals who have done the off-trail photos.

The pictures for this post are chosen more or less at random as I would be very hard pressed to pick favorites from the photos we’ve taken so far. At twenty bucks a person, the tour pushes the limits of our budget, but it really makes me stop and think what beautiful things we may have missed over the past two years by being thrifty. I hope none of them were nearly as beautiful as this, but I will definitely think twice the next time we pass a ‘tourist trap’ by because we don’t want to throw our money away. Some of those traps are probably every bit as worthwhile as this one. Please take a look at the gallery. I’ve yet to see someone come out of a tour disappointed; in fact, the most frequent comment is ‘this is the prettiest cave I’ve ever seen.’

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Quartzsite is just not our scene. Two days would have been more than enough even if the weather had been great.  It was pretty crazy to pull into the BLM area the first night and see rigs lined up awning to awning just like a commercial campground. We had to go about a quarter mile deep into the area before we found a spot where we could get a mere hundred feet from a couple of neighbors. The next morning, we found out why the area was so ’sparsely’ populated as the kids in the converted school bus had breakfast and blasted the MTV version of the Grateful Dead over the world’s crappiest PA system. Ah, well… at least it wasn’t polka.

This morning, we got up ‘early’ to try and make it back to Slab City by dark. Apparently, I was still on California time and not really adhering to Jenn’s schedule. Still, we got out at a reasonable time and then sat in mid-morning traffic at Quartzsite while the rain started splattering. The wind had not stopped in at least 24 hours.

The crosswinds battered us all the way to Blythe, CA, where we stopped to do some shopping and laundry. We got an amazing deal on London broil at Albertson’s and had the butcher chop up a bit and grind a bit until we ended up with twenty-something pound of beef to squeeze into the freezer. By the time we made it the laundromat, the storm was starting to get feisty. Jenn volunteered to do laundry if I would make us some burgers.

You don’t have to ask me to cook a burger twice! Jenn says I made the burger Eddie Murphy’s mom used to make. They were somewhere between 1/2 and 3/4 of a pounds w/ sauteed mushrooms and onions stuffed inside along with barbecue sauce and mozzarella cheese on homemade bread. We finished eating just in time to get seasick!

No chunks were spewed, but I was sitting in the camper in my long johns waiting on clean pants when a nasty front hit Blythe.  We had 70 mph winds and a torrential rainfall that dumped 4 or 5 inches in something like 10 minutes. The camper was rolling back and forth like we were on the road and the rain drops were so big it sounded like hail on the roof. Jenn’s cat jumped up in the bed with me and whined the whole time.

As soon as it slacked off, Jenn brought a load of laundry with my pants in it and said ‘By the way, there’s a tornado 5 miles from here. Might want to put your pants on and come inside.’ Ten minutes later, the front had passed and we were ready to hit the road. Somehow we’d made it well into mid-afternoon and were still only twenty-ish miles from Quartzsite! The crosswinds were nasty for another twenty miles or so and we passed two over turned semis that were in the same area the tornado passed through.

The weather finally settled down a bit, but the wind is still fairly stiff and there are a few more fronts rolling in. We decided to call it a day at the dry camping area behind the General Patton museum in Chiriaco Summit. Jenn, who is an amateur meteorologist amongst her other talents, says the weather should be fairly tame here compared to what we’ve seen so far. Let’s hope she’s right!

Campsites mentioned in this post:
Chiriaco Summit
Quartzsite
Slab City

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Internet connectivity has been spotty, but not as spotty as the sides of the truck. About a week ago, we stopped overnight at a horse trail in the national forest just off the Natchez Trace. On pulling in, we saw a rather deep looking mud puddle and in our infinite wisdom, decided to try and keep the truck clean. A few words of advice: in Mississippi, if the road looks bad, the ground around it is awful. Fifteen feet off the road, the ground sunk in bad enough that we needed to put the truck in 4WD and lock the hubs to get out.

Now this is the point where everybody tells you that 4WD allows you to get stuck deeper in. The smart course of action, would have been to back out. However, I looked at the ruts we’d already made and looked ahead. No big deal, just a little 10″ deep ditch. Nothing the truck can’t handle, right? At this point, the ditch, with water running through it, somehow, looked better than the foot deep mud behind us. I guess everybody that’s spent much time in the mud is giggling about now. I hadn’t taken into account that a ditch, WITH WATER IN IT, is likely to be at least as gooey as the ground around it.

So, long story short, another fifteen feet of driving put us in quite a bit of nasty crud and the poor, overloaded truck refused to budge any direction but down. I got out and started digging in some hope of flattening the area out. Jenn decided it was a great time to snap a picture. Women! I can’t fault her too much though, by the time the night was over, she did her share of digging.

Did I mention this was within sight of the highway? One of the good ole boys driving past decided this was good, cheap entertainment and pulled in to help us out. About this time, we discovered that the rear cargo carrier was pinned and was perhaps the cause of the problem. We jacked the camper up and were able to wiggle out the cargo carrier. However, by the time we ran the jacks back up, we’d sunk a bit lower. By the time the truck stopped sinking, we were a hair’s breadth from the fuel tank resting on the ground.

Well, Billy ran home to get his 4WD Bronco and we kept digging. We dug trenches under the tires and filled them with gravel we stole off the road. By this point, the rear jacks were in the mud. We dug trenches for the jacks. Eventually, Billy got back with a Bronco he uses for hunting that looked like it had actually sunk in quicksand and smelled like he’d spent the afternoon picking up three day old roadkill. After half an hour or so, we decided that no combination of the Bronco and our truck was going to budge us from that damned ditch.

Luckily, Billy had an ace up his sleeve. He called a buddy, who happened to run a tow company, who sent a different tow driver over since he was closer. While we waited, I made up a liter of whiskey for Billy to thank him for his time while Jenn kept him entertained talking about hunting. I’ve got to say, it was one of my best bottles yet and Billy and I enjoyed a few shots before and after the tow truck arrived.

Said tow truck, made the whole operation look trivial, of course. Hook up a winch, turn on the motor and two minutes later, you’re on dry ground. Jenn and I were actually considering a winch for just such occasions, but we never ran across one that was a reasonable price. Perhaps, it’s because we were looking for too big a winch. Anybody have an idea what size winch you’d need to move a 7 ton vehicle with a bit of help from the engine?

Oh, the total cost for the nights ‘entertainment’ as Jenn puts it? $45 and a helluva a good bottle of homemade whiskey. Jenn still claims it was the most fun she’s had since we hit the road. Women!

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Until we get some of our latest pictures ready for perusal, I’ll leave you with some goofiness from the Myrtle Beach area. There was quite an array of giant animals attacking everything from buildings to vehicles in the Myrtle Beach-Surfside area.

I think all of this strange animal activity can be traced back to this house:

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And then, we ran into this sign:

Of course, we had to pull in.

It didn’t take long until we ran into this cute fella. Jenn wanted to bring him home with us and tried to give him half of her sandwich. I was just about to ask her if she was going to clean up after him when he ran off.

We followed the little brontosaurus until we ran into either Mom or Dad. Neither of us was brave enough to get closer and find out which it was. We sat on the hill for a bit watching the bronto family eat while Jr. ran around harassing the adults. I can’t be sure, but I could swear he was whining ‘I wanna go see the humans!’

It’s hard to say whose eyes were bugging out more: us watching these brontos or them watching the metallic beasts roaring past on the interstate.

Either way, this idyllic scene is a memory I’m sure we’ll treasure forever. We will describe it for our children in glorious detail as we drive past and ignore their whining.

After a bit, the brontos all left in a hurry. The birds took off as well. The silence was a bit disconcerting, so we packed up and moved on. And we damn near walked into this guy! Thankfully, he wasn’t looking our direction.

Needless, to say, we got the hell out of there as quickly and quietly as possible. In fact, we were still running when we encountered the scariest thing in the park.

Anytime, you run into a Welcome Center capable of eating a T-Rex, it’s probably a bad sign. Even so, got a bit closer until we could make out the tiny print on the sign: Adults – $12.75. That was enough to scare us off for good. After all, it had to be scarier inside, right?

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