This hotel was also remodeling their lobby...where the free continental breakfast was suppose to be and one of the reasons why we booked this hotel (along with the pool and hot tub). We had to walk next door to the other hotel to eat their continental breakfast, thank goodness it was free because it was pathetic. The worst breakfast we've had so far on our trip. I don't even think I finished it.
We gathered our stuff and packed ourselves in the van. We drove back out to Adobe Road (the main drag through town that took you to the Marine base) and got gas at the Faststrip. Ray ran a red light on the way there. We already had an epic fail at 7:15 in the morning. We made a few jokes at his expense and he was a good sport about it. Haha.
Now begins the epic quest of our 520 caches. I had to think of it in sets of 100 because otherwise it sounded painful and tiring. We drove out to where we left off on California 62 and started at HMD 501, this was roughly around 8:00.
Brenda jumped first. We all decided we were going to each grab 100 and then roughly 66 more each when it came for our second turn. The landscape was really cool where we began our long day of caching.
A little while later we came up on one that wasn't part of the series and it was an ammo can! We were so relived to find one that wasn't a film canister. It was called My Lost Cache (GC417P6) and it took us a while to locate it because there were so many rocks and the GPS signal loved to bounce off of them. After a few minutes and Ray wondering why it was taking us so long, we finally located the obvious pile of rocks it was buried under.
We hit our first 100 just before 10 that morning and the highway got busier as we got closer to 29 Palms.
We grabbed a few extra caches on the side among the HMD series. For some reason this section of road we had to be really careful with the soft shoulder of sand. The berm along side of it was very very loose and every time you went to step over it you got a pound of sand in your shoes and socks. We were very careful not to pull over too far just because we didn't want to encounter that problem.
We grabbed Carlyle Mine Road (GC176FF) and kinda wished we had more time to explore that road because there were some really cool caches up ahead and a possibility of finding an actual mine. We pulled onto the dirt road and decided not to go too far because of the loose sand. I got our and waked the short distance to a old cookie tin resting against some desert brush. I stamped it and headed on back to the van.
We continued on with the HMD series.
Since we were near a Marine base there were lots of military artwork sprinkled around town. We found the cache pRAISE the Flag (GC19FFW) and it provided some comfort for Brenda who has a son in the Navy. We found that one quickly.
We found a few more of the series and then made our way to the Scorpion Hotel (GC1ANY5). I wasn't sure what to expect with this one. We drove the van as far as we could comfortably go (without getting stuck in the sand) and I got out to go get it real quick. As I approached GZ I got kinda creeped out. What if there were real scorpions? I immediately saw a refrigerator but it was in the ground. Ok, Brenda and Ray had to see this one. I called them on the phone and they showed up. We opened the refrigerator together and the cache was the onion container and there were lizards in the bottom.
We backed out of the sandy driveway and back on the main road towards 29 Palms. We grabbed over 200 caches by lunch time and decided to find another dirt driveway to pull over and eat our sandwiches in. Ray made us our food while I tried to record a video of how much sand was in my shoes but I failed to put it on the right setting.
It was getting hotter by the minute but today we had more clouds in the sky than previous days.
We still had about 300 more of the HMD series to go besides the extras along the way and we were hoping to get them done by dinner time.
At HMD-739 we made a turn on Godwin Road and headed north. We drove past a cute little thrift store and I so wanted to go in but we had some caches to get. When we reached the end of Godwin Road and made a right onto Amboy Road. At this point Ray was jumping, Brenda was navigating, Jim was stamping and I was driving.
As we drove through a community called Wonder Valley and through an itty bitty town of Grimm. There was one fire station, a restaurant and a park. We pulled over and used the porta potty at the park. Most of the houses out here were tiny...most of them were shacks and shanties and we wanted to know why.
From an LA Times article dating back to November of 2000:
"These shacks (jackrabbit homesteads) are among hundreds of such structures in the unincorporated region surrounding 29 Palms and is one of roughly 2,000 dilapidated remnants of a 62-year-old desert homesteading law used primarily in Southern California. The shacks are legacies of a bygone era, a period when the federal government dispersed land to accommodate the demands of those searching for a private slice of the American desert."
http://articles.latimes.com/2000/nov/05/local/me-47325
http://www.jackrabbithomestead.com/
We came across a few of the HMD caches that were really far off the road. Ray had to walk to one that was over 100 feet off the road. He was not a happy camper when he came back to the van. Ray reached his 100 around 2:00 that afternoon. Now it was Brenda's turn to grab caches. We took a short detour on Ironage Road to grab two caches. Just then I got a phone call from my friend Lindsay who wanted to hang out. I told her I was in California for a few more days and when I got back we could hang out.
We reached a few more extras off of the HMD. This one was called Deep Freeze (GC18QDN). Like before, we had to be cautious of the loose sand. I jumped out and grabbed it, stamped it and walked back to the van. Ray backed out and we got stuck. It was inevitable being out in the desert but I thought we would be one of the lucky ones. I grabbed some road gators (old exploded tires) and put them under the wheels and Brenda and I pushed as Ray gunned the gas pedal. We got out with one good shove and we almost fell down.
Brenda finished her round and we all switched again. I jumped, she navigated and Ray continued driving and Jim stayed in the stamping seat. By the time I was done with my last round of caches I was exhausted. I actually didn't feel good on my last twenty caches.
And now Ray brought us into the homestretch. It would have been nice to grab the Heart of the Mojave cache art series but we didn't have enough time, we were tired and it required walking to each cache. Once we turned that corner to HMD-1000, we were so stoked but sad at the same time. Our California power trail adventure had come to a bittersweet end.
We got to the last one and it was near a mile marker sign on the salt flats of Amboy. We gathered Team Roadrunners and snapped a pic. It was 5:20 and we thought about going back towards Amboy to use the bathroom but we all decided to head back towards 29 Palms.
On the way there Brenda mentioned she wanted Mexican food and she WAS going to have a margarita. We plugged it into the Nuvi and we went to the closest one. We were very disappointed and they did not serve margaritas. We found a way better one called Edchadas Mexican and we were very pleased with our decision to change restaurants. Brenda got her margarita and I got my beans, rice and burrito. It was my most expensive meal of the entire trip. I felt I deserved it after a long day of caching out in the sun.
We found one more cache before going back to the hotel room just because we could not end on an odd number. We ended up with 520 caches for the day. I did a demonstration of how much sand was in my shoes from the trail.
Cache total: 9,750
Next Adventure: The California Desert, Joshua Tree, Pioneer Town and Caching in Yucca Valley and 29 Palms: Day 7
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