The long ride.....

7:18 am - Wednesday - November 9th - Glamis North Hot Springs, CA - 62° F, 47% humidity, wind 16 mph out of the north.....mostly cloudy today with a forecast high of 69° F.  Rained on and off from 6 pm Tuesday until the early morning hours Wednesday.  The view today.....↴

.....and on this date in 2015 TLE and I were soaking in the hot pool at Keoughs Hot Springs just south of Bishop, CA.......↴

Should the need arise, and one of our customers breaks down out in the desert, it is my job to go and 'rescue' them.  It could be a flat tire, or they've rolled the RAZR, or they killed the battery, or.....use your imagination....people have been known to do some stupid stuff with ATV's.  At any rate I need to be able to find them in about 60+ square miles of desert, so it is needful for me, and TLE to learn the different trail routes, and landmarks so we can get to them in their time of need in a somewhat timely manner.  On Sunday we had arranged with Kyle to give us a RAZR tour beginning at 8 am on Tuesday (his day off).  To be sure we did not find ourselves in need of rescue we took two of the units....Kyle drove one of the Polaris 4 seaters, and TLE and I chose one of the red Kawasaki 2 seaters.  We loaded the 'go bag', a 3 ton floor jack, and tow straps into the backseat of the 4 seater, and were off, literally, in a cloud of dust for our '4 hour tour'....lol.

There is a long, long sandy wash called Bradshaw Wash on which you can hit speeds as high as 57+ mph....ask me how I know...and there are twisty, windy, sandy, dry water courses that you can run as fast as you dare....there are a lot of hair pin turns when you least expect them....ask me how I know that....and there are places where you must put your unit into LOW, 4 wheel drive mode to crawl slowly up extremely steep terrain, and over large rocks, and boulders....aka: Rock Crawling.  There is literally something for everyone out there.  Both TLE and I were very impressed with how smooth the ride is, and how stable these ATV's are while traveling at high rates of speed over rough terrain.

Kyle would stop along the various trails we rode to explain where we were, and to point out landmarks, such as an old 70' high railroad trestle, or a large rock promontory (the beginning of what 'they' all the Pinnacles'), or the long, narrow wash full of giant loader tires used as bombing targets during WWII.  We rode way up past the the train trestle, and the Pinnacles before turning around, and then heading up the Pinnacle trail to 'Annie's cabin'....

.....I didn't take a picture of the exterior (why I don't know), but I did take a couple of the interior (above).  It is actually stocked with canned goods, has a bunkbed, and a wood stove for people who might become stranded overnight in the area....pretty cool.

From there we headed over to a 1/2 mile long 'rock crawling' trail and proceed to climb stuff I probably would not attempt on foot.  If I hadn't seen Kyle go up and over some of those large boulders I would have bet everything I own it couldn't be done, and when he made it I followed, and managed to get up and over without any form of human, or animal life being harmed.  When we got to the first summit Kyle did a u-turn to face back down the steep incline, and then parked.  I followed suit, but as I began the turn it felt like the Kawasaki was going to roll over sideways, so I, incorrectly, stopped, and if Kyle had not been there to put two hands on the driver side of the Kawasaki we might have tumbled down the hill.  At any rate, lesson learned....when performing a u-turn on a steep incline don't stop in the middle of the turn....nervous lol......

....as is often the case, pictures to not really relate how steep this incline was...we are standing at the top of the hill looking down at our RAZRs which are facing downhill....the grade was close to 20%....maybe more.....

......the view was spectacular in both directions, and, of course, there was, of necessity, an 'usie' taken.....

.....Kyle is 31 years old, and younger than our youngest child by 5 years.  Out there on the trail age was immaterial....we were just peers having a great time.

Next up we crawled back down the boulder strewn trail to the beginning of the Pinnacle trail where Kyle set us loose to find our way back to 'Syphon #24' (one of the places you can cross over the Colorado River canal that carries water to thirsty SoCal).  We had a GPS enabled tablet with the various trails shown on the GPS map, and had to find our way, on our own back to 'Syphon #24, where he would meet us using the tablet,  and landmarks.  With help from the the tablet, and the various landmarks Kyle had pointed out we found our way there, but not without getting off the trail a couple of times.  Even though we got lost temporarily, we were able to find our way to Syphon #24, arriving there about 10 minutes after Kyle.

Our next, and final stop before heading for home was the 'Desert Oasis', which looked exactly like you would expect a desert oasis to look like......dozens of palm trees, shade, and a cold, clear, running spring.....

Where the spring water comes out of the rock

....there are probably a couple of acres of palm trees of all varieties growing along the route of the small creek ending where it disappears into the sand once again. 

We were back at the office around 12 pm with big smiles upon our faces.  We both had a blast, and are so grateful Kyle took the time to take us on this amazing ride in which we covered 35-40 miles of trails....what a cool job we have!

We both were covered with a heavy layer of trail dust, and both took off our outer garments just outside the Newell door, shook them out, and then put them directly into the Splendide for a thorough washing.  Next up were showers, and then a nap for moi.

Late in the day it began to sprinkle, which turned to a slow, steady rain which came and went into the early Wednesday morning hours.

Thanks for stopping by!