My Adventures and Places Life Takes Me: The California Desert and Route 66 Caching: Day 3

I got out of bed around 6:15, got ready to go and made sure I had everything packed in my suitcases and back pack. We ate breakfast again at the hotel lobby downstairs, this time I had raisin bread only becasue I didn't want our hotel lady to hover over us again. Once again we watched the news and weather. It was going to be warmer today. After breakfast, Ray and Jim checked us out of our hotel, Brenda and I packed up the car and we were on our way to do the second half of Route-66. We got gas at the Circle K again and grabbed some ice for our drink bags.

We left Barstow around 7:15 and made it to Route 66 cache #401 around 8:15. We had Brenda jump first while it was still cool outside. I stamped, Ray drove and Jim did the navigating.

About a little less than an hour into it we arrived at a cinder cone in the middle of nowhere. I remember looking at the map before our trip and wondered if we would have enough time to stop at it. We veered off "The Mother Road" and onto a short driveway towards Amboy Crater.

Amboy Crater, formed of ash and cinders, is 250 feet high and 1,500 feet in diameter. It is situated in one of the youngest volcanic fields in the United States. It is located in the Barstow-Bristol trough, a conspicuous west-northwest trending physiographic feature which approximately straddles the boundary between the Mojave and Sonoran tectonic blocks. This field was created by at least four distinct periods of eruptions, resulting in a coaxially nested group of volcanic cinder cones. The most recent eruption of Amboy Crater was approximately 10,000 years ago. The lava flows consist of basalt rich in minerals of magnesium, iron and calcium. Upon close examinations, you may be able to see minute green-colored olivine crystals. The red color indicates the presence of ferric iron and is a result of steam on heated rocks. Amboy Crater is located on public land managed by the Bureau of Land Management. Its recent origin and its near perfect shape led to its designation as a National Natural Landmark in 1973. It is located about 2 miles west from the town of Amboy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amboy_Crater

When we got there absolutely no one was around. We had the place to ourselves. We parked as close to the walkway as we could. We all got out and wandered up to the viewing area. It wasn't quite the volcano we were all use to looking at especially back at home where we have peaks like Mount Rainier, Mount St. Helens and Mount Baker which loom over the horizon. We fulfilled the requirements for the earthcache (GC17CKK) and got the other nearby traditional. We all used the lovely restrooms before we started up on the trail again. I got hot and pulled off my extra shirt.

We grabbed over a dozen more before we arrived in the tiny town of Amboy, Calif., which is now a ghost town. The hotel has been closed for years as the town died when I-40 diverted traffic ten miles further north. This town has been used several times as a filming location for various movies. We stopped found the cache, Route 66 Message in a Bottle (GC30XKN). The Route Beer is actually brewed in Missouri, one of the states Route 66 meanders through.

http://www.route66sodas.com/

We stopped inside Roy's for some history. It was basically the only thing left out this far before you got to Needles. We thought there might be some cool Route 66 memorabilia to look through but there really wasn't any. I might have to find what I was looking for online at some point. We looked at the maps, the old posters, pictures and they had a few post cards but not very many good ones. Brenda and Ray bought a map before we got back in the van for some more crazy caching. We grabbed one at the small cemetery before leaving town. About a mile or so down the road we saw our first shoe tree.

There was more traffic between Amboy and Needles than there was from Barstow to Amboy. We had to be really careful puling back onto the road.

We hit 100 caches at 10:55.

Around 11:30 we saw our first car that was pulled over. We had a suspicion it was a cacher. The small SUV had Oregon license plates on it and the two people were on the other side of the road, roughly where the next cache was, Some Low Life Stole My Cheese (GC18QD3). Brenda and I got out and ran over to see if they were cachers. They were and they were both from Denmark. Ray and Jim pulled the van up closer so they could meet them too. Their names were Team-Dahl and Poden and they were visiting the US. They started in San Fransisco and made their way down to LA onto Route 66 for some caches on the way to Las Vegas. It was a caching trip mixed with some sight seeing. We introduced ourselves, told them we were all from Washington State and we were here to do the power trails in the desert. They had a trackable "guest book" that they bring with them to have cachers that they meet sign it. We put our names in their book and grabbed the trackable code. They took pictures of us and we took pictures of them. It was fun to meet cachers from another country, especially those who spoke very good English.

We continued up the road towards Needles, getting a cache every tenth of a mile. We passed the northern half of the Cadiz power trail and decided to start it from the southern route in the next few days. During this section we actually had a DNF but chose not to log it because the description of where it was in a huge pile of rocks was absolutely terrible! We looked too long and decided to continue on the road. It was rather frustrating. When it was my turn to jump, I grabbed a piece of Route 66 to bring home with me.

We made the turn and we soon found ourselves on the most desolate part of Route 66 and I was jumping. I got pretty worn out in the heat and was getting very hungry. We stopped at the nearby "kiosk" which was like a rest stop...or used to be a rest stop. It had plaques to read and a small sliver of shade to eat our PB sandwiches in. One of the plaques said:

"This section of road was one of the toughest - searing summer temperatures averaging 100 degrees and little water. A trek across the daunting Mojave Desert could take two days in the 1920s. During WWII this area was part of the Desert Training Center/California-Arizona Maneuver Area, established in 1942 by General George S. Patton, Jr. Right here you would have seen the massive armada of Patton's tanks rumbling their way through the desert - and probably been delayed by passing troop movements. Early alignments of Route 66 paralleled the railroad tracks to avoid steep grades. Many towns along this stretch of the road began as railroad water stops and blossomed with small businesses offering hospitality and vital services to travelers. Communities such as Essex, Cadiz Summitt, Chambless and Amboy have been home to one-room school houses, train depots, cafes, motorcourts, gas stations and campgrounds. Most are closed now but here and there are remnants of the highway's past glory."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Route_66_in_California

We got back on the road around 1:00 and I finished all the way to #200 for the day and then Ray jumped while I drove! OMG! My first attempt at power trail driving. BAM! I aced it.

We drove through several ghost town communities that suffered from the I-40 freeway. You could see how Essex and Goffs flourished during the 1950's when we drove past an abandoned school house and several dilapidated buildings.

At 2:45, we hit our 300 caches for the day which gave us a grand total of 700 for the trip so far. A little while later we switched our jobs. Jim had an epic navigation fail at 4:00 and shortly after Brenda used the first F word.

We finished all 800 caches on Route 66 around 4:30 and decided to grab the extra 40 or so that other cachers have left since 2011.

We completed the extra caches around 5:30 and got onto I-40 towards Needles. We were all hungry and decided we wanted BBQ and while driving around we found a place called Porky's. We were so excited. Upon getting out of the van and getting ready to go in, a customer came out and told us that only the bar was open and not the restaurant because there weren't enough cooks. We were devastated and annoyed we had to find another place. We Nuvi'd the area and came up with The Wagon Wheel. We walked inside and found a place to sit. We were handed a menu and this was written on the cover:

"The Wagon Wheel building was originally built in 1955 as Lynn's Broiler & became The Wagon Wheel restaurant in 1978. Our homemade food, our historic Route 66 location & of course or longterm employees have made Wagon Wheel a favorite with locals, travelers & truckers. The Wagon Wheel staff welcomes you to Needles, California. Thanks for visiting us at The Wagon Wheel."

I had chicken strips and fries and washed it down with a Dr. Pepper.

We checked into our hotel, showered, internetted and I talked to my mom and Ben from the warm balcony outside. It was still 80 degrees at 10 p.m. and it was amazing. It made me miss summer nights around the campfire with friends.

We put our stuff together since we were only going to be here for a night and didn't really feel like doing it when we got up in the morning. Brenda fell asleep reading her Kindle.