You have to love holiday weekends, not only did I get to go out and play 2 days in a row, my youngest asked me to take her and her special friend, Andrew out to Joshua Tree for the day. Whenever any of my children ask to go with OLD Dad, I do whatever it takes to accommodate them. It's a rare treat for me and it's fun to embarrass them in public. Since Andrew had never been to Joshua Tree before, we started out with the hike to the Wall Street Mill, it has a lot of interesting things in a relatively short distance.
As we start out on the trail, Roy gives us some words of wisdom, I think he said something like don't pet the cactus. He might have also given us such pearls as "don't die" and "drink everyone else's water first". I don't remember them all.
Our first stop was an old ranch house, I suspect it may have belonged to Worth Bagley, but the rockclimbers call it Uncle Willy's Healthfood Store.
Here is a close up view of some of the home built bricks, a mix of adobe with a very minimal amount cement added. They just don't build them like they used to.
Next, we moseyed over to this old truck. Charlene really liked it, she said she could reach the pedals. I really don't think she liked it for it's ergonomics as much as for it's classic styling.
On down the trail, an old road we come upon this old windmill. It was used by the ranchers to provide water to the cattle. This little valley is somewhat round and has a solid basin of bedrock that has been filled in with sand. It has a nice little aquifer that the old ranchers took advantage of.
The turning of the windmill caused the pump handle to go up and down, pumping the water to the surface where it would fill a storage tank that feed a water trough for the cattle. Andrew and Roy are checking to see how much work it would take for them to fix it with the bailing wire and chewing gum they brought along.
We don't always understand what Roy is up to. We can see it's about three inches though. He claimed to be trying to remove trash from the park, something about a balloon in the tree or something.
As anyone familiar with the area knows, Worth Bagley moved to this location, thanks to an altercation with William Keyes. Just a word of advice, if you have a choice between a rifle and a revolver, choose the rifle unless you're very close.
Andrew and Charlene, looking at the grave site. I don't think they're taking this seriously enough.
The kids thought they might be in the market for an aluminum Caddy, there were only 6 built.
We finally made it over to the stamp mill. In the foreground you can see some stamps on the table. Behind them you can see the box where the ore was crushed. The ore was pulverized into a fine powder, then it was spread on the table in a thin layer and mixed with mercury. The mercury mixture was then heated in ceramic cups which caused the heavy metals to separate from the rest of the mixture. The gold, silver or whatever they were mining was then easy to collect. They would try to reclaim the mercury, although not nearly as well as the EPA would have liked and start all over again.
From the Wall Street Mill, we headed east to check out some of the mining areas. Even if we don't find gold in them thar hills, we get some great views.
Towards the end of the day, we decided it was time for "something completely different". We headed over to Intersection Rock and were just in time to see a couple climbing Overhang Bypass. Of course we're not just looky loos, we were on our way up to introduce Andrew to rockclimbing. We went around the corner to the left for something a little less spectacular.
Charlene, always one to make the most of the situation found a great little escape from the wind.
I led the climb, Right Ski Track 5.3 and then brought up Andrew and Charlene. Here is Charlene on the finish to the climb. Since I was doing the belaying, credit for this shot goes to Andrew.
Andrew is just starting the rappel back down to the start of the climb. By this time the sun is going down and the wind has picked up. I was getting cold, but not as cold as Andrew, he had suffered frostbite on his face and this smile was frozen in place. Soon we were all back down on the ground and headed for home in the nice warmth of the car. I don't know how soon the kids are going to want to go out with OLD Dad, because they had a full day this day. Hey kids, thanks for coming!
Here is Roy at the trail head, he has decided to be the official tour guide.
As we start out on the trail, Roy gives us some words of wisdom, I think he said something like don't pet the cactus. He might have also given us such pearls as "don't die" and "drink everyone else's water first". I don't remember them all.
Our first stop was an old ranch house, I suspect it may have belonged to Worth Bagley, but the rockclimbers call it Uncle Willy's Healthfood Store.
Here is a close up view of some of the home built bricks, a mix of adobe with a very minimal amount cement added. They just don't build them like they used to.
Next, we moseyed over to this old truck. Charlene really liked it, she said she could reach the pedals. I really don't think she liked it for it's ergonomics as much as for it's classic styling.
On down the trail, an old road we come upon this old windmill. It was used by the ranchers to provide water to the cattle. This little valley is somewhat round and has a solid basin of bedrock that has been filled in with sand. It has a nice little aquifer that the old ranchers took advantage of.
The turning of the windmill caused the pump handle to go up and down, pumping the water to the surface where it would fill a storage tank that feed a water trough for the cattle. Andrew and Roy are checking to see how much work it would take for them to fix it with the bailing wire and chewing gum they brought along.
We don't always understand what Roy is up to. We can see it's about three inches though. He claimed to be trying to remove trash from the park, something about a balloon in the tree or something.
As anyone familiar with the area knows, Worth Bagley moved to this location, thanks to an altercation with William Keyes. Just a word of advice, if you have a choice between a rifle and a revolver, choose the rifle unless you're very close.
Andrew and Charlene, looking at the grave site. I don't think they're taking this seriously enough.
The kids thought they might be in the market for an aluminum Caddy, there were only 6 built.
We finally made it over to the stamp mill. In the foreground you can see some stamps on the table. Behind them you can see the box where the ore was crushed. The ore was pulverized into a fine powder, then it was spread on the table in a thin layer and mixed with mercury. The mercury mixture was then heated in ceramic cups which caused the heavy metals to separate from the rest of the mixture. The gold, silver or whatever they were mining was then easy to collect. They would try to reclaim the mercury, although not nearly as well as the EPA would have liked and start all over again.
From the Wall Street Mill, we headed east to check out some of the mining areas. Even if we don't find gold in them thar hills, we get some great views.
Did I mention that I liked the views?
Towards the end of the day, we decided it was time for "something completely different". We headed over to Intersection Rock and were just in time to see a couple climbing Overhang Bypass. Of course we're not just looky loos, we were on our way up to introduce Andrew to rockclimbing. We went around the corner to the left for something a little less spectacular.
Charlene, always one to make the most of the situation found a great little escape from the wind.
I led the climb, Right Ski Track 5.3 and then brought up Andrew and Charlene. Here is Charlene on the finish to the climb. Since I was doing the belaying, credit for this shot goes to Andrew.Note how close the road and parking lot are, needless to say it's easy to get spoiled by the approaches to the climbs in Joshua Tree.
Andrew is just starting the rappel back down to the start of the climb. By this time the sun is going down and the wind has picked up. I was getting cold, but not as cold as Andrew, he had suffered frostbite on his face and this smile was frozen in place. Soon we were all back down on the ground and headed for home in the nice warmth of the car. I don't know how soon the kids are going to want to go out with OLD Dad, because they had a full day this day. Hey kids, thanks for coming!
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