This article got us all excited and ready to dig geodes! Yeah! 88° - no problem - we've got water, snacks, a shovel, and a bucket for all the geodes we find!
Things this article left out that you may want to know:
- 88° in full desert sun is kinda hot, no matter what we've told you
- digging in full desert sun is not for the faint of heart
- we're faint of heart
As we were told later, "digging geodes" is not just appreciating their rockin' coolness. You're supposed to DIG HOLES UP TO YOUR WAIST. I'm sorry, I'm not signing for that. Besides that, do you know what else digs holes up to your waist? Me neither, which is why I'm not doing it.
In case
you want to, let me show you
where we were first, and
then where we were. The original article gives good directions, but it doesn't tell you that you must have a high-clearance vehicle to get where we were. The Prius wasn't high-clearance until we hit the first three washes. Now we can Flintstone almost anywhere.
The truth is that Annie finessed those washed-out roads like a pro. Now she's shopping for a Jeep.
But, none of this tells you how exquisite the California desert is. I could have lain there in a scorpion/rattlesnake/tarantula-proof hammock all day.
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| Annie, c'mon! I'm kidding! I'm getting up! Wait for me! |
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| Ocotillo blooms |
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| Ocotillo feeling rather pleased with itself. |
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| New cactus. Well, new-to-me; I can't afford a new new cactus. |
When you come to a fork in the road, take it.
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| We tried both. We never made it to either. |
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| Unprecedented BLM humor? |
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| John. |
John owns 80 acres right there in the desert.
[*swoon*] We met him on the way out when we waved. He hollered DID YOU FIND ANY GEODES? Then he waved us into his "yard" to pick out some from big piles. He had them in all stages. Raw geodes, geodes sawn in half, sawn and polished geodes, tumbled stones.
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| Scott. |
Scott found us a bucket to gather into.
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| Pedro and Sadie put up a good show, then plopped down in the shade. First desert law: conserve barks. |
We chatted for half an hour or so. John has just lost his wife, and Sadie her mom. They come in for the winter. If I owned this place I would stay here from the moment I could until the moment I couldn't. John says he doesn't like to see people leave 'his' desert with long faces and without geodes, so he took care of both. Annie had Sadie almost to the car in the bucket when I caught her.
I don't know how much internet connection they get out there, five miles from the nearest maintained road, but if you ever read this, John and Scott, you made our day!
