The Snake Ranch

No, it's not really a snake ranch, but it looks like it could be snake territory. I think only one rattlesnake has been spotted in all of the years Mom has owned and hiked the property, but we all still call it the Snake Ranch. These ten acres are in the Yucca Valley portion of the Mojave Desert, near Twentynine Palms and the Joshua Tree National Forest.

The high desert landscape is appropriately dry, but rugged and beautiful in its own way. Hardy trees and plants thrive in the challenging climate, and nature has decorated the landscape with amazing rock formations, even inselbergs. Inselbergs? what? Okay, I'm showing off with that word, it's a geologist's word for rock pile, from the German word meaning "island mountain".

The erosional and weathering processes operating in the current arid conditions of the desert are only partially responsible for the spectacular sculpturing of the rocks. The present landscape is essentially a collection of relic features inherited from earlier times of higher rainfall and lower temperatures.*

Hotter than Hell

While the title might be a slight exaggeration, anything in three digits feels like it must be hotter than hell. Trust me on this one. I left cool, gray, damp Seattle and landed in the blue sky and sunshine of Southern California... so far, so good. Walking out of the Burbank terminal was a shock, like walking into a preheated oven. All that lovely sunshine came with 99 F, and the day was still warming.

I've spent months lamenting the cool weather in the Pacific NW, whining that summer never arrived. Spring was damp and overcast and moved right on into Autumn. I wished hard for a warm Indian Summer transition into a sunny Fall. I might have been a bit smug about enjoying our 2011 Alaskan cruise despite the cool, wet days, and wondered why folks in the east and midwest were carrying on about the heat.  

Fast forward to mid-October in the L.A. basin, 99 - 105 F yesterday and 101 - 110 F predicted for today.

Note to self: Be careful what you wish for!

I-5 in Northern California

We love the winding drive along the coast, Hwy 101 and Hwy 1, but we had a schedule to meet - a special birthday party in the Los Angeles area. So we left the Pacific at Reedsport, turned inland toward Roseburg, and drove through Northern California along I-5. Wow! Mt. Shasta looked as impressive as always, though the snow cover appeared a bit thin for winter. 

Lake Shasta itself was a pleasant surprise. The water level was a mere 42' below its banks, while recently it has been down as much as 70'. We stopped for a cup of coffee at a marina/resort restaurant and marveled at the hundreds of houseboats moored on the lake. We could enjoy a weeklong houseboat rental for a warm-weather cruise on this lake, sometime when we're not cruising in Alaska on Rhapsody. Random thought: it's been a very long time since I first learned to waterski, right here on Lake Shasta.

Road Trip sunshine turned into thick I-5 fog north of Bakersfield, predictable but it made for cautious yet boring driving. Eventually we turned off the freeway to explore the area around Buttonwillow. Why Buttonwillow? No special reason, I just liked the name, and the map indicated a State Tule Elk Reserve nearby. I did find a brief explanatory note online:

Buttonwillow started from a Buttonwillow tree as a landmark on an old trans-valley trail, and was used by ancient Yokut Indian as a meeting place, later becoming the site of settlers' store.

Buttonwillow  was very quiet and seemingly empty.  If winter is the quiet season, I wonder if there is a lively time of year. We never did find the Elk Reserve, but marveled instead at the huge expanses of empty cotton fields and leafless almond orchards, occasional oil fields, and countless flocks of unshorn, wooly sheep and their frisky lambs. The sheep were not feeling sociable: some chose to move off but most just ignored us.

Photo:There are some sandhill cranes, upper left in the background,, but they are hard to spot in this photo. Double-click and you can see  them more clearly. Are we on the great migration flyway or are they residents?

The many oil rigs, resembling flocks of mechanical preying mantis, ignored us too. 

We headed back onto 1-5.