For the third time in the last week to ten days was looking for cone fossil time. I'll just have to call them that until I find the real name. Was going about the same as the last two times and then I remembered coming across a bunch of them years ago and I've been thinking about where it was for three days now. It hit me as we were going through another search with not much in the way of results. This time we found them.
Saturday, May 28, 2022
Even If
Even if I find the petrified wood on the Anti-Cline it probably weighs a couple hundred pounds about the limit on collecting petrified wood per person per year. It's about an hour hike out there and I can't carry two hundred pounds for an hour. Maybe there is a way to attach it and lower it down. Teresa, Jax, and I head out there to see if that's the case. It doesn't look good.
Skinny People
Finding your way back from Skinny People on the high route is not easy. Teresa says she is unsure about one place so her, Jax, and I are off to do Land of the Skinny People.
Ewok
Years ago, ten or so maybe I was driving over to Last Hurrah on a very warm summer day and saw a guy in front of me on a street bike with street tires, wearing black leather with a full shield helmet. Might as well wear a microwave.
I caught up to him in the Jeep and rolled my window down to ask him where he thought he was going. He motioned he couldn't hear me. I motioned to turn the key off so he could hear. I had. Then I ask him again. He motioned he couldn't hear me cause he had his helmet on and was playing music. I motioned to him to take his helmet off. I could see the sweat on his face. Then I ask him again.
He said he wasn't doing very well in the sand. I said you have the wrong bike, the wrong tires, the wrong clothes, the wrong trail and the wrong day. He said he was going back to town but he wasn't. I told him to follow me back to the lodge. When we got there he said he wanted someone to escort him to town. Nicole who Linny and I ride trials was staying here and her son and his friend. They said they'd do it. So they each took an ATV and escorted him to the pavement. He generously paid them a lot though I can't remember how much.
A day or so later he emails me and says he wants to do the White Rim Trail which is about 100 miles of not fun if you don't have the right bike, tires, clothes, and skill level. I declined. Says his name is Ewok.
Teresa drops Jax and I off on Hurrah Pass and then turn around to start hiking down. There's a guy on a motorcycle watching me. He looks familiar. He says "I know you. We met a few years ago." I said "Ewok? You're a doctor in Michigan or Indiana or some place similar." He says "That's right." We talk for awhile. He found a bulletin board about the While Rim Trail and found four guys that wanted to go, changed bikes, and said he still wouldn't have made it if not for the four guys who helped him numerous times. I told him I had to get going before it got too hot for Jax on the hike back. He said maybe he'd stay here next time in town. I said I'd like that and I think I would.
Hurrah Pass
Jax and I catch a ride to the top of Hurrah with Teresa who is on her way to town and we hike back down to Base Camp. There is a tour vehicle there, Big Iron. I always take a picture of the sign but they have beaten us to it.
Another Thing
Years ago I found a real cool piece of petrified wood high up on the Anti-Cline. It's divided into a few pieces but just so neat. The last two or three times I've gone up there I haven't been able to find it. I know of only three people that knows where it is/was. I've lost contact with one and the other one said he hadn't been up there in years. So Jax, Teresa, and I are headed up to find it.
With a pretty good search I couldn't find it again. I found some other petrified wood but not the stuff I wanted.
Some Things
I haven't found any place to move, nor do I really want to. I was hoping to buy Doug's hogan up on the hill but the price went from six to eight hundred thousand and then when the folks across the river bought the former Caveman Ranch of six or eight million, I forget. Then Doug decided he wants $1.8 million and if the place across the river is a comp it might be worth that and I'm out. Still I might find something or things change so better wrap up all the little things I still have to do.
Out of all the fossils out here and there are about a billion years worth the one fossil I think is the coolest, though I don't remember it's name anymore is this one that it like an ice cream cone on top. A few years ago it was best somebody leave early and I noticed her carrying a couple boxed to her vehicle but didn't know all the cone fossils were gone off the outside fossil wall until after she was gone. I've been thinking about going to get some more but never made it.
Last week Jax and I went out there with some guests to find some more but didn't do all that great but found a few to bring back.They've always been in the ravines between the cliff's edge and the road and only at a certain altitude. You'll walk up and down the ravine, see nothing and then find some close together and then nothing the rest of the ravine.
Thursday, May 19, 2022
You Know, Just Stuff
Collin came back from a hike of Skinny People and thought he might have seen fresh cow tracks in the creek so Teresa, Jax, and I headed out. No luck.
I've driven up the sand hill hundreds of times in the white truck in two wheel drive but yesterday something changed and Collin had to tow strap me out with the beater truck. I guess the sand hill is four wheel drive from now on.
Guests checked out from next door this morning and said they found this drone about 1,000 or so feet in from the river while they were out hiking. Long ways from where I've been hunting. I contacted the owner who said he just bought another one and I'll be UPSing this one to him next time in town.
Tuesday, May 17, 2022
Hiking with Jax
Temps are in the 90s and heat starts to break around 4pm but it's 6pm before you want to venture out. Jax doesn't like the heat.
The Sign Says
River is rising an inch or two a day and you can get straight in the river from the boat ramp without carrying or dragging the kayaks through the mud.
Collin found a bunch of signs in the garage and while I was in town he spent the day sticking signs around the property. Guy from Kentucky pulls up on a dirt bike and says "I'm in the right place." Two guys from Colorado pull up in a side by side and say "This is where we're suppose to be." Night before last, I see lights out at the sign around midnight. Shortly there are two lights walking up the driveway. They have run out of gas on Lockhart Basin. Collin offers to take them back with gas. One guy says, "I saw your sign I knew my prayer had been answered." They said they'd pay a premium for gas. Collin took them $50 worth of gas and they gave him $100. However despite both of us telling people not to go down Lockhart Collin drove the new side by side up it and had a broken shock and flat sidewall tire. So $200 for the shock, $200 for the tire, and $50 for the gas, for $100 and Collin drove their truck out for them. We're down to one side by side until parts come in. I'd have gone half a mile in maybe and then let them carry gas to the truck.
The two yellow trucks that spend 20 years in the mud during the flood of the big garage.
The Desert Willow in front of the lodge begins blooming between the 10th and 14th every year of May but as of this morning it hasn't bloomed yet this year but it's close and the smaller Desert Willow next to it has begun.