Sheep Springs

I think I mentioned that after I went on that petroglyph tour last weekend, I got some books out of the library on the subject in order to find out more about what I'd just seen. One of the books was Rock Art Along the Way by Janet Webb Farnsworth, which gives a lot of good information about rock art sites all over the southwest. She has a section on Little Petroglyph Canyon, but also talks about FOUR other sites in "the Ridgecrest area" that are not on base and can be reached by anyone with good tires and high clearance.

So on Saturday we decided to pay a visit to Sheep Springs. I've got to say, although this is a very nice book, its directions (to this place anyway) were terrible. First, it says to take China Lake Blvd to 395 and go across the intersection to "Randsberg-Inyokern Road," when in fact what they're talking about is BROWN ROAD. Then it talks about going past two gunnery ranges and THEN turning south, when in fact, the turn south is just past the first rifle range -- you pass the second one after you've been on the new road for a few miles. There are several other things about the directions that make no sense. But if you follow the signs for a dirt road called EP26 and stay on it for 6 or 7 miles, you'll get to Sheep Springs. It helped that we also had a local BLM map. The road is abysmal, though, not really a road at all. The book says, "The dirt road is narrow and rocky in spots." Uh huh. I think it may be the rockiest road I have ever been on! MAYBE the road to the Racetrack in Death Valley was worse. Really glad we took Rocket Boy's car, not mine (his has big strong tires).

When we got to the Springs (it's not marked, but in that desert landscape, a spring and its accompanying greenery really stand out), we got out and took a look around.  On the little hillside on the left side of our car in the photo above are lots of boulders -- with petroglyphs on them. It was fun to find them ourselves, randomly, rather than having them handed to us on a silver platter, as in Little Petroglyph Canyon.

Here's one we liked, though it's rather crude:

And this one has very visible sheep:

And we found a few of what we think are cupules:

The twins surprised us by not wanting to look for petroglyphs with us. In fact, although here's Baby A hopping around outside the car...

...he very soon went back in, and Baby B never came out at all. We eventually figured out that they were afraid of the petroglyphs. They'd seen my photographs from my trip the week before and were frightened of the rock art. (On our next trip, we won't tell them what we're looking for.)

So, since we were a million miles from anywhere or anyone, and it was too cold for snakes, we let them stay behind in the car while we climbed up the hillside (we were within shouting distance and we had the keys). We didn't look for long. It was chilly and getting late, and we still had to drive home on that very rocky road.

It was beautiful, though. I'm almost starting to understand the appeal of dirt bikes -- not enough to actually ever ride one, mind you, but I can see that it's a way to get out into the desert and see some amazing country in a way that's hard to do on foot or in a car.

I can't begin to capture the beauty in photographs. I take pictures like this to remind myself how very much more beautiful than this it was.