Tuesday, July 25, 2017

Grand Canyon to Mojave National Reserve (251 miles)

Day 4 of our journey was probably my least favorite jaunt, whereas if you talk to Fran...it was one of his top favorite moments.

I really think he should be the one to document the place but, I also know just how busy he is and the likelihood of that happening is pretty slim. So, I will do my best to be as fair as possible.

Where should I begin?

First, let's talk about the lack of cell phone service anywhere near the area. I'm talking, a stretch of about two hours. In this span of time, we passed maybe 4 cars and had only the sparse signs to guide us within the park. I am not exagerrating when I say it was straight out of the scene from Seven where Brad Pitt confronts Kevin Spacey out in the middle of nowhere.

Visions of popped tires, rattlesnakes, death just kept rattling through my mind.

Meanwhile, Fran was thrilled to be able to off road with the truck time and again! 

By some miracle we finally passed a sign leading us to the campgrounds. Unfortunately, the sign took us somewhere, but it wasn't the actual camp site. Turned out that a) it was a legit ghost town and b) the visitors center had literally just closed 40 minutes before! Of course.


We wandered around a beautifully reconverted train depot station. Across the street was an abandoned post office along with a trailer, that may (or may not) have had people living inside it. Again, key word: creepy. The whole place gave me the heebie jeebies. Luckily, there was a map of the park on one of the walls and Fran was able to reroute us so that we could head back to the campgrounds.



On the way to the campsite, we drove by Kelso Dunes and quickly u-turned to park and explore.

Disclaimer before I continue about the dunes: if we had not already hit White Sands, these dunes would probably have been pretty cool to explore. Also, if there had been some semblance of humans anywhere around us, I would definitely have been up for further exploration. But, again, I reiterate there was NOT A SOUL in sight!

We started walking towards the dunes and the further we walked, the more scared I grew. What if one of us fell and was hurt? How would we find help? What if we got lost? Who would know where to find us? Debbie Downer was just not feeling it. And the dunes didn't hold enough appeal at that point for me to want to continue.



Poor, sweet Fran. He was so kind and understanding. He didn't argue once. We simply hightailed it back to the truck, got in and he headed off to the freeway. I know he regrets not getting a chance to sleep in the Mojave but, I cannot say I agree with his sentiment.

VERDICT

Fear got the best of me and I don't regret it. Sometimes you just gotta trust your instincts.

1 comment:

  1. I am proud of Fran following your instincts. Even a snake or a scorpio would've been something to really worry about being far from civilization. What I agree is that Fran's recollections will be different haha. ❤️

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