We reached Baker CA the day after Pisgah lava tubes. That day was supposed to be raining all day so we waited the rain out at a truck station. It had a pizza hut and so we decided to get pizza. To our surprise, we realized that we hadn’t eaten a store bought pizza in months. So we tore at our pizza like hungry vultures! That day was more or less lost in terms of fun. We stayed in our corners reading books and doing some school work.

It stopped raining in the afternoon. We drove in the direction of Death Valley. It was a beautiful drive in. We camped overnight at sand dunes nearby. The next day we drove to Death Valley. One of our bikes came off the bike rack! Luckily we were at super low speeds and we could stop immediately. We shuddered at the thought of the kind of damage that would have happened if we were on a highway.

Death Valley turned out to be a disappointment because the rains flooded out the main areas of attraction. We were hoping to go Northwards to Ubehebe Crater, racetrack and teakettle Junction. From there Johan wanted to take the Lippincott mine road down to Saline Valley and hot springs. To be honest, I am not a fan of the Lippincott mine road. We went up that road when we were still dating, and our marriage was almost called off! Ok, well, maybe not that bad, but that road is downright scary. It goes right by the ridge and is not exactly a well paved road.

Still, it would have been fun to visit the Ubehebe Crater and racetrack, but alas, it wasn’t meant to be. The main road to Ubehebe crater was closed off. We did our junior ranger activities. From there we visited the Mesquite sand dunes. These are lovely. We spent the night there. In the morning I went for a walk over the dunes by myself. Leena joined me later and we had a fun time finding animal tracks on the dunes.

The main road through Death Valley is no ordinary drive. It is pretty narrow and you reach high elevations of almost 5000 ft. We found snow and some sections were still a bit scary. It was a spectacular drive with many things to ooh and aah over. We reached the junction to Saline Valley Road where last time we had discovered that we had lost the jeep that we were towing! The last time round, we had to drive back a bit and found our jeep that had rolled off to a side and was miraculously unharmed. I had driven the jeep behind Dory to Lone Pine that time and still have fond memories of that beautiful drive. Once we reached Lone Pine, Johan had found a welder and they had together designed and built a new, super sturdy tow rig to ensure that our jeep would never think about such adventures again!

Anyway, we drove through without incidents this time. The South Pass, which is another way to Saline Valley was also impassable. Johan was itching to go in, but we found horror stories of people stuck in due to floods and didn’t feel that we needed to expose ourselves to any of that.

We reached the Inyo National forest ranger station right outside Lone Pine. On the other side of Lone Pine begin the great Sierra Nevada mountains. It is a sight to behold. I felt caught up in the beauty and mystery of these great mountains. There’s a peak called Mt. Whitney peak right by Lone Pine. We had camped in that area last time. But it was all snowed in so we didn’t have any such possibilities. We drove past Lone Pine and visited the Manzanar museum.

Manzanar is a location right by Lone Pine. It is the site of a shameful part of the US history. After the Japanese attacked Pearl harbor, there was a huge anti-Japanese sentiment in the country. Fueled and fanned by news media, Roosevelt signed an executive orders to send Japanese Americans and other people of Japanese descent to concentration camps. They had to leave their properties and move to this unforgiving desert landscape for no reason other than looking like Japanese. It’s a sad reminder of all the things that have been done wrong in history. Of course, not many remember or know about Manzanar, which reminds of the famous quote: those who forget history are condemned to repeat it.

The history of this place is older than the concentration camps. Manzanar was inhabited by Indigenous Americans 10,000 years ago. The Owens Valley Paiute have been living here since 1500 years. As everywhere, European settlers took over this land and established ranches. Since 1905, Los Angeles started acquiring water rights in the Owens Valley. After a lot of fights, ranchers had to leave. Manzanar turned into concentration camps in 1942. So it’s history, while interesting, is ultimately one of human greed and of “might is right” ideas that we can’t get past.

After Manzanar, we had had enough of being in the cold. We drove to Ridgecrest, CA. However, it was also super windy and unpleasant there. So we continued on to Trona Pinnacles. Trona Pinnacles has rock formations that look straight out of Star Wars or other science fiction movies! Trona pinnacles, also known as tufa pinnacles, formed underwater 10,000 to 100,000 years ago. This is the Searles lakebed. The pinnacles are formed of Calcium carbonate and some algae. The Searles lake was a part of a series of “Inland seas” made from the runoffs from the Sierra Nevada. The Trona pinnacles are very remote, especially if you visit during the week.

We spent three nights here and were quite alone in our camping spot. After the first day, we had excellent weather and went on a couple of hikes. Our chickens also got to free range here. It was a highlight of our trip. We just left the Trona Pinnacles and are heading direction Boron, CA. Animals are here, which means my blog needs to stop!

Kylo Ren the dog: The name Death Valley really scared me. But after visiting it, I realized the death refers to “being bored to death”. I didn’t get any outings here. Hmph. One thing though. I got to be in the snow for exactly 5 minutes. Now, that’s not a lot, but its something. I’ll take it! Trona Pinnacles turned out to be a lot more fun. I went on multiple hikes here. A couple with my humans on bikes, and a couple with them walking. The pointy pinnacles were a challenge. But as a reward, I found a bone in the boonies! I took it back to the bus to show Rosie. My, was she jealous!!

One thing bothers me a lot. My humans don’t let me scratch my ear. They run towards me screaming like mad banshees whenever I try. Or they put a cone around my neck. The other day Rosie told me why! She told me the biggest horror story of her life. So a few years ago, she scratched her ear a lot and it got super thick. The vet called it a hematoma, or a blood blister. The vet wanted to remove the blood, and to staple the area shut to prevent blood to come in. The humans balked (Rosie balked too). And then, it happened. The humans came up with a dreaded alternative solution. Mom found a website called leeches.com and bought 5 leeches. Soon 8 tiny leeches arrived. And dad put them on her hematoma so they could suck the blood out. I believe these clever leeches put some chemicals in so it actually cured the hematoma!! But my poor wife was so scared of these wiggly monsters sucking blood out of her ear. So, I get it now! But scratching ears feels so good, I can’t help myself sometimes. Ooh, its Crazy Cookie. Hiya Crazy Cookie.

Crazy Cookie, the chicken: Hiya Kylo Ren. You stay away from me. Yes, my friends, Trona Pinnacles were fun. We got to free range. Lazy Laurie entered the big bus Dory. She was so assertive that Rosie the dog looked scared. Lazy Laurie is totally awesome (sigh!). Kylo Ren is a bit crazy. He tries to get to us and I don’t think it is to give us a lick of love. More like, the bite of death. Luckily the humans have been successful in keeping us separated so far. He did escape today but was caught on time.

I loved the Trona pinnacles. I felt poetic after seeing them. Here’s the poem I penned with my own feather:

The chicken goes to Trona,

The chicken goes to Ajo,

The chicken goes to Joshua,

The chicken goes everywhere!!

Nice one, right? Its modern poetry. The weather has been not so great sadly. We have spent a bit of time indoors in Elfie. But things are looking brighter and hopefully we will soon have a new admiring crowd checking us out! I got medical tales to tell you as well, but maybe for the next blog. I am going to write some more poems. Bye, my fawning fans.