Almost Home

We are camped in Norman, OK at the Cleveland County Fairgrounds just a block and a half away from two of our grandsons (and their parents, of course).

We left Mesa, AZ early on Wednesday morning and drove until midnight - well the clock said midnight but due to crossing two time zones, our bodies said only 10 PM. We found a city park in Vega, TX in which to spend the night and then headed on to Norman and arrived here around 2. It would not be a Lindstrom trip without something going wrong -- our Jeep would not start so we had to get it jumped. Not bad as far as bad things go.

We are enjoying spending time with our family and getting ready to celebrate 4 birthdays. Granted, one birthday was 6 weeks ago, and one birthday was 10 days ago but the other two birthdays will be Monday and Tuesday. It is so much fun to watch a 2-year old open his gifts and play with each one before opening the next. The soon-to-be 6-year old is beside himself looking forward to his party on Saturday. It will be an exciting day.

We will head home on Monday. Our route will take us by the RV dealership where our new RV is being prepped for pick-up later in April. We are both very anxious to see it again and to make plans to move into it. This good ole Born Free has served us well but we are both ready for something a little bit bigger.

I will keep you posted when we take off in the new coach.

Hot Days & Cool Nights

We have enjoyed our stay at Lake Havasu despite the spring break noise of boats and motorcycles. We decided to stay thru Saturday so John bought a fishing license and has gone out fishing every day. Hasn't caught much but he is catching some fish and getting lots of sun. I have enjoyed hanging around the campground and walking and shopping. One day I walked about 5 miles and another 3 miles . The boaters here love their big offshore boats which are very noisy. And this weekend was a big motorcycle motocross race. Saturday morning they must have had an all-motorcycle run that started at 7:30 AM! The roar they made as they ran the course would have woken us if we hadn't already been up and moving. And the track is over a mile away from where we are camped!

One morning I came across a miniature covered wagon with a burro standing next to it. As I approached, I saw a girl sitting near the wagon so I stopped to visit. She was pet-sitting the burro and a dog while the owner went out trying to sell his books. The writer was on a "tour" with his wagon and burro, promoting his book about a 4 year traveling adventure in the desert southwest. I think I saw this man the day before as he was walking on the boardwalk under the London Bridge. He was dressed in tie-dyed shorts and t-shirt, wearing black work boots. He had a full head of white hair and a full white beard, reminding me of Santa Claus.

After fishing one morning, John and I rode our bikes into town to have lunch and explore some of the campgrounds located on the island. John's lunch was a Captain Crunch Burger made with crunchy peanut butter, onions, cheddar cheese and mayo. Very similar to the goober burger in Sedalia but, according to John, much better! We have decided that if we come back to Lake Havasu, we will stay longer and stay in one of the campgrounds on the island.

Or we might check out some of the areas below Lake Havasu. As we drove south along the river on Sunday morning we saw many other campgrounds right on the river,some were very green, we saw one especially nice golf course carved into the rocky hills, and some great backwater where John swears there will be fish. Parker Dam and the town of Parker were inviting as well.

We will spend a few days with John's mom in Mesa before heading to our daughter's home in Norman, OK.

Here is a parting shot of our trusty Born Free. This is her last trip as our new motorhome has been built and we will pick it up in mid April. We had many a good times in this RV.

Lake Havasu

Tuesday morning we headed south to Lake Havasu with a long stop just outside of Las Vegas to shop at an REI, a sporting goods store.

Lake Havasu is not really a lake but a very wide, slow moving part of the Colorado River and this is Spring Break season for destinations like this. We understand it started two weeks ago and will run up to Easter. Lake Havasu State Park is right in town and on the lake so, of course, the campground was full but they did have lots of nice overflow parking. The only difference between overflow and a regular site is the site has a picnic table and a fire pit. Both of which we can live without.

We took a walk along the shoreline and ended up under the London Bridge that was brought here in 1976. Turns out we are less than a mile from the hot spot for college kids. There is a beach on both sides and under the bridge and it is lined with students and boats starting about noon and going until who knows how late. They are a fascinating bunch to watch - well John likes to watch the girls and I watch the boys.

Today we rode our bikes down to the bridge and then crossed over to the island where there is a 3.7 mile walking /biking trail around the island. We saw three different RV resorts, a golf course, a remote control airplane area, several marinas and houses next to lots of empty lots. We found an interesting hamburger joint where we could watch more students parade by in their bikini's, swim suits and beer bongs. I've never seen so many tattoos nor such a variety of pictures on their bodies.

This afternoon John finally got the kayak out and went fishing. The first time this winter. No luck but he did enjoy being out on the water. I was just plain ole lazy!

Pahrump

I love saying the name of this town - Pah - RUMP! We are in Nevada so everywhere you turn you will find at least a slot machine - grocery store had 8 lining one wall, the gas station had one next to the door, even the office of the RV park had a slot machine. And even in this small town, every other block has a casino on it.

We spent Sunday night at Terrible's Lakeside RV Park but it was too far from town, and pretty crowded so we moved to one in town behind the Gold Nugget Casino Monday morning. It was not as nice but it wasn't crowded and we could walk or bike where we wanted. We could also washed the RV on site. So we now have a clean RV - inside and out We also picked up the Jeep. They replaced a broken shifter cable for $130. Too bad we had to spend so much getting it towed.

Golf Below Sea . . . .

Level, that is. We played golf today at the lowest golf course on earth - or so they say. The Furnace Creek golf Course at Death Valley, CA is at 214 feet below sea level. Must be good for my game as I shot my lowest score ever - 94. (It was a really easy course). I won't talk about John's game. On the way to golf we toured the ruins of a borax processing factory and the famous 20 mule team wagons.

After golf we drove to Pahrump, Nevada where we will spend a couple of nights until the Jeep is fixed - we hope. Even this drive has lots of great desert scenery. We drove almost the full length of Death Valley then crossed at least two more mountain ranges and then into Pahrump Valley. It is all brown, dry and rugged. The only green we have seen is golf courses and a few oasis.

Titus Canyon and Trouble

Wow, can that wind blow. It was windy yesterday but had calmed down some during the evening. Then about midnight a HUGE gust of wind blew thru the valley, we suspect 40-50 mph, and kept us up most of the night. We eventually had to close all the windows to keep the dust out!

The clouds are thick all around us and the wind is blowing 35-40 mph but no rain so far. We checked at the ranger station about the rain and Titus Canyon and he didn't seem to think we would have much trouble this morning. The road thru Titus Canyon is a one-way road that is gravel, pretty narrow and very winding as well as high. It goes thru a 5250 foot pass.

The beginning of the canyon is across a flat plain then thru rocks that hold fossils and climbs pretty fast. As we are climbing the rain starts falling but not so hard that it causes problems. At times the canyon walls close in on us and then it widens out and opens up somewhat. There used to be a mining town called Leadfield where they mined lead for about 9 months and then it closed down. As we move down Titus Canyon to its eastern entrance, we keep searching for bighorn sheep but don't see any. We stopped for lunch when it started raining harder and then sleeting. We had to travel slower due to slick mud so John geared down the Jeep into low.

The last mile and half is when the canyon is the most narrow. At some points it is only 20 feet across. It is hard to explain how this feels and even harder to express in pictures but we tried.

At the end of the road is a rest area where we pulled off to use the potty. That is when trouble struck. This has been one of our better trips with little or no mechanical problems until now. John had the Jeep in 4-wheel drive low so he put the car in neutral to take it out of low and something snapped! The Jeep is now in neutral and will not go into any gear! We have no cell service, no internet, no nothing!

But luck is on our side. A group of motorcyclist informed us that due to the rain and sleet, a ranger was coming behind them to close down the canyon. When he showed up, he was able to radio another ranger and they called a tow truck for us. An hour and a half later we were being towed back to the RV and the Jeep was going to be towed to a Jeep dealer in Pahrump, Nevada and we were short $600 for the tow.

The wind had not stopped blowing all day. The dust flying up the valley, at times, obscured the mountains on the other side. The RV was one big dust ball and our mat and BBQ table were gone (a friendly neighbor caught them for us) when we returned. There is no way John can cook outside so we went across the street to the bar!

Castle, Crater & Racetrack

On the north end of Death Valley National Park is a home that gained notoriety as a castle that was built over a gold mine, but what most people think is remarkable is that a home of this size and beauty was built near Death Valley. The house was built from the 1920's - 1939.

Walter Scott was a cowboy from Kentucky,a showman with Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show and a con man. In 1902 Scotty started convincing wealthy businessmen that he had a gold mine claim in California and they should invest in it with him. During his time with the Wild West Show, Scotty learned how to promote himself and his schemes to make money. He was very flamboyant, out going and told a good story. And that's how he sold shares in his secret gold mine in Death Valley, CA. One gentleman who invested with Scotty was Albert Johnson, a millionaire businessman and former architect from Chicago. Albert's health was not good and he was encouraged to seek warmer climates so he decided to visit his "investment gold mine". It soon became very obvious that Scotty had no gold mine but Albert didn't mind. He enjoyed Scotty's company and loved the California desert. When his wife wanted to join him on his vacations to Death Valley, Albert decided to build a vacation home at Scotty's "gold mine" .

So with Scotty on site and Albert working with an architect from Chicago, the Spanish-style castle-in-the-desert was built. Albert had to be self sufficient in the harsh desert so he used solar panels to heat the water and a gushing spring to power a generator for electricity. Special insulation was used in the walls to and water falls were featured in some of the rooms as a cooling mechanism. He also built a special room where they could watch silent films with a pipe organ for the music. The pipe organ could be played manually or with roller music. It has over 1,200 pipes. One huge piece of the home that was never completed was the swimming pool. The hole was dug but then the depression came along and they ran out of money. All the tile for the pool lies in piles in the tunnels. That is the other unique aspect of this castle is that Albert had tunnels dug under the home running from room to room.

At one point the house was used as a bed and breakfast. As guest were dining, Scotty would get a few of the servants to go to the tunnels and bang on pots and pans. The guests were told it was miners digging for gold underneath the house. Scotty had his own room in the house but only used it to fool people into thinking it hid the secret entrance to the gold mine. In reality, Scotty lived in a small cabin about a mile away from the castle. It became know as Scotty's castle after Albert and his wife passed away. Their estate paid for Scotty to live there and be cared for until his death.

Just down the road from the castle was Ubehebe Crater, a 770 foot deep crater created when a steam-explosion occurred and blew out this hole.

We then aired down the tires on the Jeep and drove 27 miles down a washboard gravel road to go to the Racetrack! On the way we passed Teakettle Junction.This is probably the slowest race you will ever see on earth. The track is actually a playa created by a dry lakebed. The racers are boulders or rocks that move mysteriously across the lakebed leaving furrows in the mud. Some of these rocks weigh up to 700 pounds. The furrows show how the rocks have wiggled, jiggled, zigged and zagged across the perfectly flat bed. Geologists have a theory that rain may make the mud bottom slippery and that wind "pushes" the rocks along. No one has ever seen them move so no one knows how or why they move. It was a long drive back on the washboard road!

Death Valley National Park - Day 1

Everything in this park is a long way away. Our original plans had been to move campsites but the ones near the Visitor Center were not much nicer so we decided to stay where we are. Since we drove 30 miles to the Visitor Center we opted to explore this area today so we drove another 3 miles to Golden Canyon Trail. It was described as an easy 2 mile round trip but the sign at the start of the trail indicated that we could add some other hikes and extend it to 4 - 5 miles. So we did that! The Golden Canyon trail went up between two gold colored walls but you could see the Red Cathedral Cliffs behind them. As we went further up the trail, the canyon became narrower to a point where we scrambled over large rocks and boulders to access the end of the canyon. And it was worth it as we were right up against the Red Cathedral Cliffs. They were beautiful!

We walked back about 1/2 mile and then took the Zabriskie Point trail that rose up about 500 feet to a view point overlooking many, many alluvial fans scattered across the valley. Then we walked down thru Gower Gulch along a wash, across two dry falls of rocks and then a long path at the base of the mountain back to the parking lot. We estimate about a 5 mile walk.

After lunch we drove down to Badwater, another 14 miles down the road. Any water found in Death Valley is full of salt and minerals. When this area was discovered the miner's donkey would not drink the water so he named it Badwater. This is the lowest point in North America at 282 feet below sea level. We walked about 1/2 mile out into the salt flats which are not really flat but mud and salt broken ground. On the way back towards the Visitor Center at Furnace Creek, we stopped at The Devil's Golf Course. The ground here looks like freshly turned soil except that it is all salt crystals which are hard and very sharp. Someone made the comment that only the Devil could play on a golf course like this. Then near the visitor center we discover a resort with a golf course! Can you imagine playing golf in Death Valley? Maybe Saturday!

The drive back to the campground was about 30 miles. We took a short break, cooled off (the temp was at 86°) and then took another hike thru Mosaic Canyon which was located just across the road from the RV. The beginning of this trail took us thru polished marble walled canyon. It was so pretty. The upper end of the canyon was quite wide but narrowed towards the end. We did not go all the way to the end as we were pretty tired. We estimate it was a 2.5 mile hike.

Hot showers, Ahi Tuna for supper and an ice cream treat. Great Day!

Headed East

The rain that was forecast for today has not materialized and we are happy about that but all the wine growers will be sad -- they really need the rain in this area.

At times it was an eventful drive and at others it was quite boring. As we left Paso Robles we drove thru miles and miles of almond trees. Some were in bloom while others hadn't even budded out yet. Then as we neared Lost Hills, CA we began to see a forest of oil wells. Hundreds of them for about a mile along the highway and extending as far as the eye could see north and south. I googled it to find out that this is one of the largest oil fields in North America. It was discovered by accident when farmers drilling for water struck oil in 1922. It had its peak production in the 30's then started slowing down until 1976 when new technology found better ways of extracting the oil. Today production is still increasing.

We took Hwy 395 up the west side of China Lake Naval Air Weapons Center and then cut across to Death Valley National Park. It was after 4 when we arrived at the first campground at Stovepipe Wells so we made camp in the parking lot like camp area. We picked the path all the tent campers took to the only restroom on the grounds so foot traffic was heavy most of the evening.

John fell asleep at 9 PM in his chair -- long day!

Great Wines

I got to thinking that you might like the names of the wineries we have visited in the Paso Robles region. Yesterday we were at Croad, Changala, Dunning and Pipestone.

One of our favorite wines is a zinfandel made by Turley Winery. That was our first stop this morning and we were not disappointed! They only grow the zinfandel grape and the quality of their wines proves it. The vines are never staked up and they do not irrigate their fields because they don't have a water source. Some of their vines were planted here in 1922 and are still producing grapes today. The vintner owns 23 vineyards so he really knows his 'stuff'. We came away with 2 cases of wine to be shipped home.

After lunch we stopped at Pear Valley, Tobin James and Chumaia (pronounced koo-may-a). Pear Valley had some nice wines so we bought a couple of bottles. Tobin James is a larger winery but still has estate wines. We overheard one of the servers tell another couple that the bar came from Blue Eye, MO and that pricked up our ears! Of course, we had to say something and I think we got some preferential treatment because of that. We must have tasted 8 wines with the last 4 being reserved bottles that not everyone gets to taste. We bought 3 bottles. The last stop was a very small vineyard whose tasting room was in the same place as their tanks and barrels. The owner came walking in shortly after we arrived from one of his fields. We liked his wines as well and we liked the owner. He was a real talker and seemed to enjoy telling stories of his trip to China where he sells some of his wines. We laughed a lot and stayed longer than normal and bought a bottle.

Tonight we are going out to eat at a highly rated restaurant named Artisan's. Tomorrow we go back to "roughing it in the wild" as we head for Death Valley.

Paso Robles

After we left the Castle yesterday, we stopped in San Simeon for a wine tasting of the Hearst wines and then spotted a vista point with a lot of cars so stopped to see what was going on. This is the area of the California coast where Elephant Seals come to mate, give birth and molt. Right now the mothers have finished feeding their calves, have mated and left to head for Alaska. The babies are left on the beach to fend for themselves. They have to learn how to swim and how to find their food before they will take off to go up the coast. Some of the huge bull seals are still hanging around but they will be leaving soon as well. Certain groups of the seals will return throughout the year to molt before heading out again to hunt.

We spent the night in a state park and then drove thru dense fog into Paso Robles, another of California's wine valleys. We got set up in an RV park and after lunch tasted wines for most of the afternoon. Most of the wineries grow the Zinfandel grape but we found some other nice red wines and a few whites. John had picked out a few wineries he wanted to visit, focusing on the small boutique wineries or ones who bottle from their estate grown grapes. Three of these focused on the Rhone style of wine making.

We were not real impressed with the first winery but at the second we visited the hostess was very friendly and recommend two other home wineries up the road. We enjoyed both of them and even bought a case of wine to be shipped home. None of these wineries produce more than two or three thousand cases a year and one of them only 700 cases.

We walked around down town for a bit, stopped for a cocktail and appetizer before heading back to the RV for the evening.

Hearst Castle

Oh, man, are we sore today! We either haven't been getting enough exercise or that was a much tougher climb than we thought yesterday! Or a combination.

We broke camp early and drove 30 miles up the coast toward San Simeon and the Hearst Castle. William Randolph Hearst's father, George, was a miner from Missouri when he came out to California during the gold rush. He did not find any gold but he did discover a huge silver deposit and made a fortune. He also fell in love with this part of the California coast. With his first money he started buying land, and more land, and more land. He married Phoebe Elizabeth Apperson Hearst and they had one son, William Randolph. The property that George bought was a favorite camping spot as Willy was growing up. At the age of 10, mother and son took off on a year and a half world tour of all the wonderful European churches, castles and art museums, which shaped Williams ideas of what an enchanted home would look like.

William worked hard, and built his own fortune on top of his fathers, starting off in the newspaper publishing business but adding more businesses all the time. At one point he owned over 45 companies. At the age of 40 William married a New York dancer and they had 5 sons. But it was not a happy marriage, but since divorce at that time had a bad stigma, he never divorced but he did have another companion. William did not like the east coast and was drawn back to the Hearst Ranch where he envisioned his enchanted home. He met a female architect, Julia Moore, who came to share his vision for this castle. It took 15 years to build and is still not completed and will never be finished. William died at the age of 88.

The castle is truly magnificent! It is built on the top of a 1600 foot mountain and looks like a Spanish Cathedral on the outside with two bell towers towering over the rest of the mansion. The Casa Grande, grand house, is surrounded by three other cottages where the family lived as the main house was being built. They are not really cottages but two and three story houses with 10- 15 rooms each.

The main house -- Casa Granda -- has 69,000 square feet of living space, 1,000 sq. ft of closets, 115 rooms, 38 bedrooms, 42 bathrooms, 14 sitting rooms, a large living room with 2 pianos, a game room with 2 pool tables, a huge kitchen, 2 libraries, 2 heated swimming pools, tennis courts and a movie theatre. We toured the main body of the house. One wing was for visitors and the other wing for the staff but they are not open for tours. At one point Mr. Hearst had 80 paid staff running the house. The bedrooms were grouped into suites with a sitting room and two bedrooms. The bathrooms and closets were across the hall. Construction was started in 1919 and the Hearsts moved in around 1928. Work stopped on the house in 1947 and William died at the age of 88 in 1951.

The whole house was built as a museum with ancient art and modern art pieces throughout. Almost all the ceilings were imported from Europe, the walls were covered with ancient tapestries or choir chairs from churches in Europe.

I'll let the pictures tell the rest of the story:

Valencia and Oats Peaks

This morning as we were preparing our hydration packs for an all day hike, we discovered a leak in one water bladder. That created a mess and it took us awhile to get going after cleaning up from the leak. We drove over to Los Osos and then to Montana de Oro State Park. Our friendly chamber lady said this was a great place to hike with lots of trails and wonderful scenery.

We chose two trails with lots of elevation change to get ready for our Grand Canyon trip. It was two miles up Valencia Peak with the last mile being the steepest up to about 1300 feet. We then came down one mile and took a connecting trail over to Oats Peak Trail, stopped for lunch and then climbed back up to 1300 feet again on Oats Peak. We took the easier trail back down to the Jeep. We estimate that we hiked about 8 miles today.

The views from these peaks were awesome. We could see the coastline with crashing waves on steep cliffs. There were lots of other high peaks and steep valleys throughout the area. At one point we spotted two birds that were either hawks, falcons, or eagles. We don't know which, but they were awesome to watch. The breeze was stiff at times but hiking creates a lot of heat so we didn't mind the cooler temps and wind too much. We met up with a boy scout troop taking a hike and a couple from Canada stopped to take our picture and visit for awhile.

After showers, John was nice enough to take me out to dinner so I didn't have to cook. Unfortunately, we did not get to watch the sun set into the ocean due to clouds. But it was still a nice evening.

Morro Bay

We drove thru Los Angeles today at mid morning but we couldn't tell it by the traffic. At least twice we had to slow to almost a dead stop due to a busy interchange but we made it thru and got to Morro Bay which is north of Santa Barbara and near San Louis Obispo. We are camped at a State Park right outside of town. The ranger that checked us in has zero personality and we were almost ready to move on because of that. But we found the Chamber of Commerce and Sharon was an enthusiastic ambassador for the area. She had information for hiking and biking and dining that we have found to be right on the button.

The weather has been rather cool. It was supposed to have gotten up to 65 today but it didn't make it much past 60 which wasn't too bad with the sun shining and the wind calm. We rode our bikes up the huge Black Hill thru the state park golf course -- not bad but a bit on the pricey side. We then toured the town, riding up and down several side streets as well as the tourist district. Sharon from the Chamber said that riding bikes on the sand was lots of fun, so after watching the surfers, we took off for about a 3 mile ride down the beach. She was right, it was almost like riding on soft concrete. On the way back to town, we found a nice bike path after riding along the freeway for a short distance.

Lunch was at the local fish market with an Italian name - Giovanni's. I had a really good soft shell blue crab sandwich and John stuffed himself with a fried seafood combo plate. We walked the tourist district before heading back to the RV. It was a total of 15 miles on the bikes.

Journey Golf

It rained off and on last night but dawned sunny and cold. The day started off with a breeze that died down as the day wore on. We had a 10:40 tee time set at The Journey at Pechanga Golf Course. Our RV looks out over part of the course and it is beautiful. It was a difficult course built onto the side of a mountain so a number of the holes had very elevated tee boxes. Their signature hole #6 has a 175 foot drop. The views from these tee boxes was awesome. Off to the west we could see snow topped mountains and toward the east we knew there was an ocean but couldn't see it. I shot a 100 which is pretty good for me but John doesn't want to talk about his game.

This is a quiet evening in the RV while we make plans to move on tomorrow.

Temecula Valley

Temecula Valley is in the Southern California Wine Country. There are over 40 wineries from the small boutique vintner to some full-service wineries with resorts. We visited Old Town to get some visitor information, coffee, cheese and chocolate covered bacon, before heading out on the wine trail to do some tastings. We had no idea which one to choose as we hadn't heard about any of them so we just stopped at ones that looked interesting.

We didn't care for the wines at Leonesse Cellars. The hostess seemed more interested in selling us a club membership that touting their wines. We stopped at Monte De Oro because of the size of their tasting room and restaurant. We liked some of their wines, but they are very young wines as they just recently opened. But we could taste the potential, so we bought three bottles. We drove past Falkner Wines to check out their parking lot as they are on the Harvest Host list of places to possibly spend the night. We then stopped at Baily Wines because we wanted to find out about the actual grape vines they had along the road. The vines looked very old and gnarly and John said they were probably an old Zinfandel grape. This is a very small, boutique winery that has been around for a long time. Once we started tasting their wines, which were actually pretty good, I asked our wine connoisseur if he knew about the vines. He said that most of the vines we could see were cabernet sauvignon and were, indeed, very old.

John was very good to me tonight and took me out to eat at Lucille's BBQ. Their ribs are almost better than those at Bandana's and that's GOOD.

Moving On

The weather reports for this area predicted very high winds with gusts up to 70 mph starting on Tuesday so we decided to not be in the desert when that event occurred. Therefore, we will not be taking the 12 mile hike and abusing ourselves.

We chose instead to drive to Temecula and to stay at a full service campground. We are on the Pechanga Indian Reservation in the middle of Temecula, staying at the Pechanga RV Resort that is part of the Pechanga Casino and Resort. Once we got settled in, we walked around the area and then walked thru the casino. I think we were lost in there, but John says he knew where we were the whole time, we just couldn't find the door to the hotel where we had entered. I don't understand the attraction of slot machines. One just sits in front of the machine and punches one button over and over and over. They don't even have any "arms" any more! I saw no signs of excitement, anticipation or energy on any one of those people.

We made a tee time on the Journey Golf Course for Wednesday.

Hellhole Canyon and Maidenhair Falls

Because we didn't have anything else to do today except laundry, we loaded up our new hydration packs and took a six mile hike up Hellhole Canyon. The first part of the walk was along the desert floor with a slight rise as we neared the canyon entrance and then it got interesting! The description of the trail said "some rock scrambling required." Well, they got that right! We kept losing the path in the rocks, making our own path thru the rocks or backing up and trying another route over the rocks. As we neared Maidenhair Falls the route got more complicated because we had to cross the creek back and forth a few times. At least we were in the grove of palm trees where it was much cooler.

We found a large rock upon which we ate lunch and then we actually found the falls. For whatever reason, the way down was much clearer and seemed easier until I slipped on top of a rock and bruised my shin really well! I'm sure I was a funny sight with my butt up in the air and my face down on the rock! John didn't think so.

Now we need to decide if we will stay and do the 12 mile hike or move on. They have posted a high wind warning for the mountains starting Tuesday noon so we will be leaving before then for sure.