End of January...

Well, I said I was going to try to update the blog more often, so here it is,  short and sweet…

I’m still in the American Girl Mine Road camping area in Ogilby, CA, and I’m still not sure if I’m going to stay here or not.  I have hit my 14 day limit, which under normal circumstances would mean that I have to move, but with the government shutdown there won’t be anyone to patrol the area so I might stay for a while.  The weather here has been great, hitting the upper 70s some days with mid to lower 50s at night.  I’ve had a couple of really windy days, like 25 mph sustained winds with 35 mph + gusts, which keeps me inside most of the time but there’s always something to do.  Right now it’s a bit cooler, mid 60s and lower 40s at night, but it should only last for a few days or so and then back to warmer temps…

Not much to report, but if I do move the next blog entry should have new information and pictures.  I’m kind of anxious to try out some different camping spots in this area.   There are a couple of ones in particular.  One being an area next to an abandoned mining town, which has been restored and another one which has an old ghost town nearby.  If they’re anything at all, I would love to spend some time photographing the areas, so we’ll see…

Where I’m camping now I had this area outside my side doors which has fine gravel and reminded me of a untouched zen garden.  So, just for fun, I found some stones that I could use to stack, and I searched around for something I could use as a zen rake, or something I could make one out of.  I chose this well-formed (for my purposes) white acacia limb that with minimal modification worked very well.  So, I created my stone rock pillars and then began to play with my new rake and as you can see below, I now have a zen garden, and it’s a lot of fun to just grab the rake and form new designs in the soft rock…

 

I used my solar cooker this week to cook up some white rice and cornbread.  (I found a picture I took of the solar cooker so I thought I would throw that in…) Rice is so easy to make in the cooker, and it turns out great every time.  I have used the rice for several meals, one was rice with bell pepper slices and tuna fish, which I ate that night and used the leftovers the next day to make a fried tortilla stuffed with the mixture and some cheese to bind it all together.  I still had a good serving of rice left so I added it to a can of Thai Coconut soup and it was delicious…

I kinda messed up a bit on the cornbread though, I added too much butter to the pan before pouring in the batter, and too much moisture delays the browning process, but it still came out good just not browned.  I ate two wedges, with lots of butter, right as it came out of the cooker and I have used it for a breakfast omelet, added it to hot chili beans, and of course, breaking it up in a glass of milk, yum…

Sorry, I didn’t take pics of the meals, I ate them… lol

I removed the headlights from the van, they were terribly foggy with UV damage, sanded them down with several different grades of wet/dry sandpaper, cleaned them up and coated them with spray clear coat paint.  They look great, now I can see when I’m driving at night…

And of course here area a couple of sunset pics…  (you knew these were coming right?)

I’m trying to wean myself off of taking so many pics of the sunsets and sunrises, but it’s not easy.  I tell myself it’s okay not to take pics and then…  well…  I grab my camera and tripod and take more pics…

One last thing…

Because this camping area is just outside the perimeter of the American Girl Mine, the road into the mine is pretty well maintained.  During the week when there are semi-trucks using the road to haul out the mined rocks, they use an earth-mover type construction vehicle fitted with a large water tank to spray down the road in order to keep the dust down for the truck drivers and for the campers.  I just thought it was interesting so I’m including a couple of pictures I took of the vehicle and the water flow out the back when he’s racing down the road at about 50mph.  I try to time my trips out of the camping area after he has stopped spraying the road.  I don’t relish the thought of looking up and seeing this behemoth barreling down the road headed straight towards me…  lol

I do think I kinda freaked the driver out when I snapped the close up photo of the truck.  I had my telephoto lens on the camera and was standing kind of behind a large tree to block the sun from the lens when he saw me.  I guess it looked pretty suspicious.  When he saw me he suddenly slowed down and seemed very curious about the whole thing…