The 140 Mile Journey Pt. 1

February 18th at 7am I got in the car with Michael, his parents, and two of their dogs to head to Nevada and follow the entire Mojave Trail through the Mojave Desert. In their jeep followed Michael's sister and her husband with their two pitbull mixes: Lily and Amber. I was so ready to be out of the house and so excited to go on vacation I had trouble sleeping the night before we left. Just like before Supai. We woke up at five to have breakfast and I was so sleep deprived I slept a lot of the way to Nevada.

I woke up just when we were entering Laughlin.  Laughlin is like if Vegas never got big. It's a little eerie and outdated, and when we were there we saw a lot of road construction. I didn't pay much attention to it. We stopped at a gas station just before stopping at "point zero" at the Colorado River. "Point Zero" is also known as our "Point A." I guess Michael's dad wanted to make sure we did the whole trail exactly as we should. To stay in touch with the Ramm jeep, we had these nifty radios to talk to each other. On top of that, Michael's mom had a travel guide with detailed instructions on taking the Mojave trail, right down to strange landmarks. I noticed if you want to take this journey, you better be prepared. Don't go alone, pack a little more than you need, and prepare for all situations. If any family is good at doing this, it's the Cook family, so there was no point during the trip in which I was worried about surviving. Thus we began Day One of our journey.

Teddy Bear Choya Cactus

After the Colorado River, our first stop was a little trail for some scenic photo opportunities. We saw our first petroglyphs here and it was probably the best weather we saw until the last day or so. For whatever reason, I can't make Blogger put two pictures next to each other. God forbid.

We had lunch after this, which was just a large snack of cheese, meat, crackers and the option of sandwiches. Michael's dad had bought another six pack of Smirnoff coolers and put it in the back next to the dogs, and when they opened the back it wasn't much of a surprise that because of the bumpiness of the road we were on two of them busted. We're pretty sure Chaos drank them, because she was sick for the first few hours of the trip. The goal of every day was to find a camping spot, but we made a lot of stops along the way. Our first couple stops were ruins of places that had been there a long time ago. Fort Piute, made in 1867 and lasting nearly into the 1930s was one of the first landmarks we saw. It was pretty much just a trail of rocks to low walls of more rocks. The kind of thing you see as a kid that adults try to explain in an interesting way, but you don't really listen because all you see is rocks. Yep.  Just like that.

Joshua Tree

 It was around then that we entered the Joshua Tree Forest. Joshua trees are very strange. They look like something Dr. Suess came up with. Like a cross between a cactus and a palm tree. The other plant life mingling with the Joshua trees were Mojave Yucca, which look about as you'd imagine if you've ever seen a yucca plant. Short, squat, with big pointy green leaves. Everything was pretty pointy in the Joshua tree forest. And it never seemed to end.
We made spontaneous stops at anything out of the ordinary. There was a lot of creepy junk, like really old rusty bed frames and shot up pieces of rusty metal. The most interesting thing we saw in the forest though was the bus. Next to the remains of another trashed rusted car was a trashed rusted bus. It appeared as if it crashed. Horribly. And after that it was a victim of who or whatever came along. It had been shot at, written on, and used as a home. There was trash everywhere, but also an armchair, which was so odd I took a picture.

I edited this one and put it up on my DeviantArt, which I haven't been to in forever. I just did an update and added both pictures from the trip and random pictures I like that I've taken through time. It is here.
So the Joshua Tree forest went on for a while, and sundown was getting closer and closer. We needed to find a clear enough site to camp at, and not a wash. In case you don't know what a wash is, it's pretty much a soft chunk of sand where water has traveled repeatedly. You don't want to camp in them in case it rains, because the water would easily uproot and soak all of your stuff and it would not be pretty. Sarah was getting tired of looking for a spot and suggested a wash because she figured it wouldn't rain and it would just be comfortable. But...

As we set up camp, it was pretty clear that rain was on its way. Sarah made us some delicious yellow chicken curry, because we had stoves and shit, and at that point all we wanted to do was get in our tents and go to sleep. The wind was getting angry and cold.
And then it started raining. And raining. I woke up to rain hitting my face, and realized that because of the wind, the rain was getting underneath the rain fly of the tent and soaking our stuff. Mikey and I curled into a single ball trying to escape the wet.
It was a damn unpleasant first night. We all got up, teeth chattering, wind still blowing, and had the quickest breakfast possible of snacks and bagels before getting the fuck out of there. It was so cold. Don't even get me started on how much it sucked having to take a piss in the middle of a stormy night in the desert.

This was when Mikey came to the sad realization that he was very underprepared. I mean, I had sort of been expecting nicer weather too, but I still brought a couple long sleeve shirts, a few light jackets and my hardcore cholo coat. And boots, definitely boots and socks. But Mikey had one pair of pants, one light hoodie and sandals. This is why, in a lot of pictures, you'll see him wearing my low cut girly sweater with the rest of his layers. He needed it more than I did. But I'm pretty sure that my cholo jacket saved my life. As in literally, which I will get to when I go into the second night of the trip.
We were all pretty cold and miserable, so we drove around for a bit thawing out. And for a while, it was snowing, which is a weird thing to see in a desert. It's not that I thought it wasn't possible, I just never thought I'd see it.We finally stopped at an official camp spot (not to camp, because that's cheating) and found one of those visitor places with some souvenirs and maps and all

that jazz. Rah and Mah bought some Joshua tree seeds for a dollar. I left my wallet at home, which was probably good because I probably would've bought something unnecessary, like a jackrabbit stuffed animal (one of the only wildlife I saw the entire time, aside from a tortoise and a half dead lizzard). After that we decided to go on a (very cold) walk around Hole In The Wall Canyon. For a while it was just a lot of landscape, but then we got to the canyon itself. According to the informative sign at the end of the trail, the rocks were formed from volcanic ash and smoke so many years ago.

It got interesting but a little confusing when the trail seemed to taper off in two directions. We weren't sure if we were going the right way. It was nice down there though; there was a little stream and so there was actually green grass. There's a funny picture of me somewhere Michael's mom took chillin' in a little cavern I found. Anyway, it turned out we had to follow a narrow path and climb some rocks, which made me really nervous. At two points there were metal rings that had been installed to help you climb up the rocks, which I didn't like at all. It combined several of my fears at once. It took some mental preparation but I made it. Obviously. I didn't have a choice so I made myself do it. I definitely had a smirnoff after that. In fact, I think I drank most of them during the trip. Not that I drank all the alcohol. We're talking about the Cooks here. They came prepared with several flasks of different kinds of alcohol: vodka, whisky, and two kinds of tequila. We were set.

So after the hike we had our snack time, and by this time my camera died so there's a chunk of the day missing on my part. This picture here is the overlook we found. Turns out the one hole through the canyon wall we saw lead to it. It must've been where water pooled during storms, because it was really grassy at the bottom. If we had somehow gotten in there, though, it looked difficult to impossible to get out, which I think is why the fences were there.
Michael and I tried to take this opportunity to dry our very wet sleeping bags, but right as we got them set up it started getting windy and wet again, so we had to pack up and leave.
This presented a problem. Did we want to sleep in wet sleeping bags? No. Did we want to get rained on again? No. So we thought we would solve this by sleeping in the truck. It seemed like a good idea.
It really wasn't though.
Halfway through the night we were too cold to sleep. All I had blanket wise was my jacket, and Michael hardly had anything. My feet were frozen. We decided we'd slept enough, and Michael joined me in the back, where we were much warmer scrunched together. My jacket covered both of us, and I really think I would've gotten sick or something without it. It was so cold. And originally Michael had said I shouldn't bring it, because it would just take up space in the truck. It ended up saving both of us.

So it's taken me forever just to get this much out, and I want to start my new blog challenge, too. Therefore I'm saving days three and four for later! Here's one more picture:

Jack Jack. Isn't he cute? :D