BLM in Blythe is muy Bueno

Well, Parker only lasted for a whole day! We slept at the Wal-mart last night after watching the fights...Benson Henderson won against Nate Diaz. It was a great fight, so glad we found a place we could watch it at. We woke up semi-early, walked Savannah...boy was it cold out this morning!

[caption id="attachment_2929" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Chilled to the bone[/caption]

We started driving around 9 a.m., we're not in a rush to get anywhere...where are we going? We figured we would just drive over to Blythe, CA and see what our options were over there.

We drove past a ton of farm land, many many stacks of hay with no animals to feed and for the first time in my life...cotton plants!

[caption id="attachment_2918" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Do they sell this?[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_2919" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Miles and miles of Cotton![/caption]

We drove out of the "country" and hit a frontage road that had a Flying J on it...haven't seen one of these since June! We stopped, filled the tank up just a little bit and went inside to look around. If you've never been to a truck stop, especially a Flying J, they have so much stuff in there to look at and it's all stuff people in this lifestyle use so it's fun to see what they have. Since we hit the road this morning without putting anything in our bellies we did a 'horrible horrible' thing and bought coffee and Cinnabon! I don't think either of us had actually ever bought a Cinnabon in our lives...not something we would normally buy or eat but today felt different. Get ready for the biggest freakin' sugar high!

[caption id="attachment_2920" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Sugar Fest 2012[/caption]

It actually took me half the day to finish it...going back in a few times until the whole thing was gone. My stomach can't handle that much sugar all at once...my goodness! And of course, Savannah helped a little bit!

[caption id="attachment_2921" align="aligncenter" width="300"] She had a pretty firm grasp on it![/caption]

We drove over into California and found towers almost instantly...yep, follow those towers! We headed out to what looked like the desert but found ourselves in a neighborhood type area then into an RV park called The Hidden Beaches. We didn't see any water but maybe that's where they got their name from!? We stopped and asked the Ranger/Host (Steve) if he knew of any BLM and after a very nice conversation I had the name of a couple of places we could camp. We headed back out and with the directions he gave me, within about 10 minutes, we were on BLM land looking for our next spot!

[caption id="attachment_2922" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Wide Open Spaces[/caption]

There is a TON of open space out here and it doesn't seem like anyone is out here...kind of weird for this time of year. Where is everyone? We drove up the trail a few miles, we like being more off the main road than right on it and since we have a good vehicle we can go a little further back. We found a great spot and were level right away...perfect!

[caption id="attachment_2925" align="aligncenter" width="225"] Happy Huntress[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_2924" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Panorama[/caption]

 Now that we're parked for the day...this girl needs a shower so I'm off to get 'so fresh and so clean'. Hope you have a fruity fresh day!

PEACE

 

Scraping up some Cache

With all of this sitting in the van these days; haven't gotten my chair out yet and catching up...yes, still on posts, I decided today would be a great day for a much longer walk then Savannah and I usually take. I also turned very brave and instead of walking on the "main road" I took off into the desert.

Very shortly after, J' decided to stretch his legs too and come with us...so we headed on a walk into the almighty desert! Just a little 411 on this Florida girl, I wear flip-flops about 98.99% of the time. It does not matter if it's snowing outside, raining, sunny, whatever...my flops and I go hand in hand! J' actually gets stern with me sometimes because I always wear the 'wrong shoes' when we go for long walks or adventures, yep, always have my flops on. I have slipped, I have fallen, I have nearly broken my ankles but they are just so airy and free and easy! haha

[caption id="attachment_1340" align="aligncenter" width="300"] It's all good[/caption]

So there we are in the desert barely 50 yards from the van, walking talking and I took a step and felt something hard hit my right heel. I thought I had hit the edge of a really sharp rock so I took a look at the bottom of my foot/shoe and there was a stick stuck in my shoe. Okay, I thought I'll just pull it out and I'll be back on our stroll. As I went to pull it out though, it was not coming out...that's when I realized this little stick had gone through my shoe and into my heel. Yep, I panicked! I started calling out to J' to come help, it's in my foot, oh my gosh...tears and tears. My knight and shining armor came to my rescue and yanked it out of my foot. I thought I could go on but it hurt pretty bad and when I looked down and saw a small pool of blood accumulating on my flop I freaked out... yep, more tears. We walked back to the van and cleaned it, put some iodine in it (I swear J' was going to send Iodine into my brain with how hard he was pushing it into my heel, but by his story he just really wanted it to get in there).

Don't mind my dirty feet!

[caption id="attachment_1341" align="aligncenter" width="300"] So painful[/caption]

The stick was about 1/2 an inch in my foot. Since I've never had anything stuck in my foot before that was certainly long enough! After J' cleaned me up and I cleaned up my tears, we started back on our way. I could handle this! We walked around and looked at all of the cool and different types of Flora out here. There are cactus, Yucca plants, those really hard and painful bushes that went through my foot AND our tire (yep, same one) and some other little white bushes that look like big cotton balls...but beware they are not fluffy!

[caption id="attachment_1344" align="aligncenter" width="225"] The Painful Plant at large[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1345" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Yucca Yucca[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1343" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Cotton Ball Bush[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1346" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Pinky Cacti[/caption]

 That's when we stumbled upon something new and fascinating. It wasn't just the object that we stumbled upon, but the idea of why it was there in the first place. Now, I know we're pretty hip and up-to-date people (yes, you can laugh) but I think we are a little late on finding this new trend, er...game. About 12 years late! We have found Geo-caching!! The coolest part about it? It was magical finding this first cache together, it was a surprise just waiting for us in this wide open space. At first, we thought we hit the jackpot...maybe there was money in there!? I knew I took my walk into the desert tonight for a reason!

[caption id="attachment_1347" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Someone left us cookies!![/caption]

 We opened it up and started taking everything out to look at it. We brought it back to the van so we could spread everything out, after all this was the coolest thing we've discovered yet. This particular cache has been here since 2006, there didn't seem to be too much in it but it was fun to look at everything.

[caption id="attachment_1348" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Cache Cards[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1349" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Chillin' in a cookie tin[/caption]

 We sat and went through everything and made sure to log our find in one of the books. We didn't take anything, but started talking about what we could contribute to the caches along the way. And you know we had to sign up and become members on the website! haha There is a huge group of people that play this game all over the world. It's amazing. We started looking to see if there were any other caches in the area and it turns out there are hundreds of them. We put a few into our GPS and thought we would give one more a go before sundown...plus we had to put the other one back.

[caption id="attachment_1350" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Cutest Cacher around![/caption]

Oh, I almost forgot to tell you that after we cleaned my boo-boo I broke down and put on my boots....I didn't even have to be scolded into them! haha They are freakin' sweet and are perfect for this area.

[caption id="attachment_1351" align="aligncenter" width="300"] These boots WERE made for walkin'![/caption]

We made the second cache right before the sun fully set. We took the GPS with us this time and it was only .4 miles away but walking through bushes, washes and rocks it seemed a lot farther than that. This one was kind of hidden...like a treasure! Ooooo, I LOVE treasures!!

[caption id="attachment_1352" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Hidden Treasure[/caption]

 I was scared to take the wood off of the tin because I don't know what's been living under that thing, but again I was brave and just whipped those logs off and bam! There she was!

[caption id="attachment_1354" align="aligncenter" width="300"] ta-daa[/caption]

When we opened this cache there were colors jumping out at you everywhere, this one had a lot more in it. We just looked through it at the site due to the sun setting so quickly, signed the log, covered her back up and headed home.

[caption id="attachment_1353" align="aligncenter" width="300"] A 5 year old's dream![/caption]

 We were escorted home by another stunning sunset.

What a cool find, eh!? It just goes to show you never know what's out there for you to find or discover. I'm sure what we found is just the beginning to a new, fun, interesting part of our lives.

When will you pop your Geo-cache cherry?

PEACE