The Long Goodbye

We're very conscious that the goodbyes have started. We have FIVE weekends left in Ridgecrest (after this one). What do we want to do, where do we want to go, while there's still time? At least one, possibly two of those weekends we'll go to Los Angeles to say goodbye to family and friends there. The last weekend we probably won't go much of anywhere, we'll just be packing.  One weekend includes Easter. One is the Ridgecrest Wildflower Festival. There's just no time left. It's hard to comprehend.

Rocket Boy and I keep asking each other: what do you want to do? What do you want to see one last time? Yesterday we decided to go to the Desert Tortoise Natural Area near California City. We've gone there a couple times each year we've been here. Yesterday may have been our last visit -- ever? What are the chances we would go there again if we came back here on a visit? Questions like that one make me shiver.

It was a lovely day for a visit -- warm, but not hot, and not windy. Unfortunately, the DTNA looks as though it didn't get any rain at all this year. We went on the Plant Loop Trail first, and Rocket Boy had the idea of photographing the plants that have numbers next to them and saving our copy of the trail brochure, so that we could study and finally memorize the names of important desert shrubs. (Why we need to do this now, when we are leaving the desert, is not clear.) It didn't occur to us that this early in the season, especially with no rain, the plants would look very much alike. Here's Baby A with a creosote bush (the only bush we ALWAYS recognize):

Here's a cheesebush, the only plants that were showing much green:

This is an Anderson's thornbush:

 

This is a burrobush:

 
And here are the twins with a paperbag bush:

You get the idea. Dry spiky bush after dry spiky bush. I don't think we're going to learn much from studying these photos.

From the choice of photos you may be assuming that we did not see any tortoises on this trip... and you would be right, although the naturalist said someone saw one the day before on the Animal Loop Trail. Rocket Boy sneaked off the trails and with his GPS located the spots where he found tortoises last year, but no dice. No tortoises, that is. Well, it is early. Our own backyard tortoise is just barely up.

We had a bit of excitement on the trip, because the twins ran ahead of us on the plant trail and then back down the main trail to the kiosk area. "I'll go get them," Rocket Boy said. "You go on ahead." So I started down the animal trail. After a bit, Rocket Boy caught up to me -- with Baby B. Baby A had wanted to stay by the car. "You mean he's all by himself?" I asked. "WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?"

You have to understand, though -- this is a big flat open space with hardly any people in it. The nice friendly naturalist was near the parking lot. It was very UNLIKELY that anything would happen to Baby A, despite being separated from his family and only five years old. But it was very LIKELY that he would suddenly start freaking out. And by this time we were halfway along the animal trail, a long way from the car. I hurried Baby B as much as I could, but it was still probably 15-20 minutes before we met up with Baby A again. He was walking toward us on the main trail, holding the hand of an older woman who we'd seen on the trail earlier. "He got scared and was running in the opposite direction from the trails," she explained, as they neared us. "I was afraid he might meet up with a Mojave Green (rattlesnake) or just get lost, so I went and got him."

"Thank you very much," I said to the woman, about eleven times, as Baby A's hand was transferred to mine. There were many other things I wanted to say, such as, "I'm not usually this bad of a mother," and "It was all my husband's fault," but I supposed she wouldn't believe me.

"You know, we can't ever do that (i.e., leave one of them all alone in a wild place) in Colorado, because of the mountain lions," I said to Rocket Boy, as we drove away. And he agreed.

Today we had the "what do you want to see one last time?" conversation again, and after much debate ended up going to the Kern River Preserve, where we have only been a few times and always meant to go more often.

It's not a long drive, a little less than an hour, and on the way there we stopped at the Onyx Store, which I had always wanted to stop at. Nothing special, but they had an interesting collection of used cookbooks for sale, plus lots of unusual candies and snacks. We bought some snacks and headed on to the preserve. At the preserve we had a small snack-picnic and then visited the Visitor Center (above), which was unstaffed but open.

The preserve was pretty deserted, but we did meet some people who were visiting from Portland, Oregon, and gave them advice on where to camp in the area. Afterwards, Rocket Boy said to me, "I don't suppose we could fit a camping trip into one of our last weekends," and I said, "No, I don't think so."

Then we went for a hike... well, more of a stroll, really. But it was a trail, so maybe that counts as a hike.

When we came here a couple of years ago, the boos were too small to walk very far, and we ended up turning back after maybe a quarter of a mile -- if that. This time we did the whole main trail, and were tempted to take one or the other of the two trails branching off from it too. Nobody ran far away from anybody, perhaps chastened by the experience of the day before. Lovely day -- warm but not hot, not windy. It seemed very quiet in the preserve, not even many birds. I suppose it's still a bit early in the season.

"I wish we'd come here more often," Rocket Boy said, and I agreed. But the time for that is over now. The Kern River Preserve will belong to its other visitors and we'll have nice places to go in Colorado.