We are moving a lot, and my blog can hardly keep up! Let me try to bring it up to date. As I mentioned previously, we were parked at Lake Mead in a place known as Telephone Cove near Laughlin, Nevada. This is a beautiful beach with clean water and lots of ducks. It is another of BLM camping places, which is astonishing. Its hard to believe that there exists a place like this where you can park for free for 14 days.

The dirt road in is mildly challenging, but we felt it had been graded and expanded since the last time we were there. We arrived in the afternoon and pulled in at a spot. Unfortunately a low branch from a tree hit the top of our bus damaging a solar panel. So now we are low on electricity. The first evening there was lovely. We cooked dinner on fire and enjoyed the sunset and sunrise. The next day we used our paddle boat to go in the lake all morning. That afternoon it was going to get windy. It reached 25 mph gusts and became unpleasant. We parked close to a mountain that shielded us off from some of the wind. However, the beach fun was over.

The next morning was a bit cooler and the wind was still there. We went on a long hike through the canyons nearby. We had been there before and retraced our way. There is a spot in the canyon where there are semi hardened sand walls. Johan had written the word “TALEZ” there four years ago (which stands for TAnya LEena Z). Since it was sand, we expected it to be long gone. But it was still there!! It sat undamaged for four years until our hike last week when our own Kylo damaged a part of it! We were enjoying the hike and so we kept going. At the end of the hike we realized that we had done 6 miles! Not bad for a morning.

We packed up and left that afternoon. There wasn’t much more beach time possible with the weather still bad. We drove until we reached Goffs, CA. Last time we had hung out at a museum here. The most interesting thing that I found there was a map of old India when Pakistan and Afghanistan were a part of it. What was such a map doing at Goffs, CA, a town in the middle of nowhere with a population of 23?! We didn’t revisit the museum this time. We left early and drove by Mojave national preserve to Ludlow, CA via Interstate 40. This is an amazingly beautiful drive with spectacular views of the mountains in Mojave desert.

We stopped for breakfast at a cafe in Ludlow and then went to the Pisgah lava tubes. These lava tubes are in Ludlow, and are quite remote. Not too many people visit. The last time we discovered these by accident as we were driving by. We saw them and stopped to explore. These lava tubes have caves that you can go down in and explore. On one side is a mine.

We found a nice spot and overnighted there. We went in the lava tubes multiple times and explored quite a few of the caves. My shoes are worn! But yes, it was a great time. We left the lava tubes this afternoon and are moving in the direction of death valley. Unfortunately we are plagued with winter weather because of some freak snow storm hitting California this weekend. We’ll keep plowing on and hope for the best. Dogs and chickens are lazy today. I had to goad them a bit before they decided to blog.

Kylo Ren the dog: I went on this long hike with my humans in the canyon by Lake Mead. They struggle so much to climb, I usually can run up and down their climbing spot a couple of times while they are climbing. But something happened that drove the usual composed me totally crazy. We reached the end of a canyon with no way to go. There was a rope there and little Leena decided to climb to the top with the help of the rope! Now I can do a lot of things, but rope climbing is not one of them. I was already losing it when dad decided to follow Leena! They both stood on top of a steep ledge, and there was no way for me to get there! Thankfully the others stayed behind and they started coming down. But I was so scared when they came down that I really didn’t know what to do with myself. To ease my anxiety I dug around like crazy, pulled on plants and ran with a rock in my mouth. My humans sweet talked me until I felt normal again. That was scary!

Other than that, my humans went to these lava rocks. But they didn’t take me! Hmph, I bet I could have gone in and out of those caves just fine, but I think the humans worried that I would cut my paws on the sharp lava rocks. As if! They are sweet, my humans, but they really underestimate me. Sigh! Anyway, I sat twiddling my paws while they went out on multiple hikes. At least, my dear wife Rosie and I got some alone time. Alas, she spent all that time sleeping or snarling at me. I’ll keep trying with her. Oh! Here’s the chicken!

Baby the chicken: So let me tell you about Chocolate Sprinkles. She was named by Leena, and we all agreed that it was a sweet name. Chocolate Sprinkles had an issue when she started laying. I believe it is called a prolapsed uterus (ugh, what a tongue twister!). Basically, when she tried to lay, her uterus came out of her with the egg stuck behind. The humans freaked out! They grabbed her and took her to their farmer friend. Farmer friend said that he thought that was it for Chocolate Sprinkles, and that she should be put down (hmph, some friend!). Chocolate Sprinkles looked like she was expecting to die that day. And she would have too, if she was with us. Because our solution to every problem is to peck at it, and I don’t think that would have worked well for her!

The Papa came to the rescue that day. I heard the little girl Leena say that they watched some videos and learnt how to gently get the egg out, which Papa did and then Chocolate Sprinkles got to be in an Epsom salt spa for an hour. After that she was a fan of Papa for a few days until she forgot all about it. But I remember!

Anyway, Chocolate Sprinkles never really laid eggs after that. She just hung out with us and darted around if any humans got near. She was always the best at evading humans and rarely got caught by them. Last year she suddenly just fell on her side and died within 5 minutes. The human girls stared at their devices and declared that she must have had a liver problem since she was very light at time of death. I don’t know about all this, but what I do know is that my dear friend Chocolate Sprinkles is buried under the raspberry bush. I visit her grave time and again. Oh, its late. Good night folks!