Riding finally, Woohoo!

I finally got to go riding for the first time since I got here, I got the Pred registered on Friday and took it out Sunday. It was pretty hot so I only rode for about 2 hours.
It was a lot clearer than I had expected with the fires...to bad I didn't bring the good camera with me.Turns out I sliced a tire on the ride, guess I'll be fixing that on my day off.

Bouldering

This class was basically on techniques for climbing. It was in an area much like the city of rocks near Silver. The class after this was navigation with a compass (in the same area) and belaying techniques (signals, knots, etc).Bouldering - going up small rocks with no ropes:
Found this guy in the house the other night, I set him free outside. While looking on the internet to see what they eat, I found out they also have these guys in Iraq, but they can grow to be 5 inches long.
Oh, and I got the truck back so I can finally go riding.

Mountaineering

Tuesday was the first day of the mountaineering class that I am taking over the summer and Wednesday was the first hike. It was a rough one too. It was a steep trail/road, steep enough that I would think twice before riding the Predator up it, and it was sandy like a lot of the washes in NM which made it harder to go up. Then near the top it got twice as steep and sandy - I wouldn't take a 4x4 ATV up this, but the view at the top was really good. Today I was pretty sore when I got up, but I have pretty much loosened back up. Here are the pictures:

That white stripe is the LA aquaduct.Way out there you can see the airstrip for the Inyokern airport. Some time I will go back up there on a clear day and get a better picture.
Ok, the info was about a mile hike with about 1700 ft in elevation gain.

Visit from the parents

Yey, I had some more visitors last weekend. My parents came to see me for the weekend. We drove up Death Valley to see Scotty's Castle. (Tip: do not trust yahoo maps to get you there with the address on the website) We finally got there around noon and our tour was at one. It was a really cool tour, it was to bad the castle was never totally finished because it would have been quite a place. When it was constructed it cost around $1.2 million - without being finished. There would have been a giant pool out front that was never quite finished. The place was self sufficient with its own hydroelectric power plant and it sits on a natural spring that put out quite a good amount of water. This was about 1/4 of what would have been the pool. The "windows" allow light into the mechanical rooms below the castle.This was a view from the other side of the pool. To the right of the castle there is another set of bunk rooms that were rented out when the castle was a home along with the stable/garage. Over to the left there is a building with some generators in it and the clock tower. Then behind the clock tower there was enough firewood hauled in to last the castle until 2011. More pictures can be found at http://s149.photobucket.com/albums/s73/wolverine350r/Scottys%20Castle/?start=all if you want to see them.

By the way, fuel up before you go - it was well over $6/gallon in Death Valley.

The Good, the Bad, and the Expensive

This last week was full of good and bad. The good: Angela was in town all week, it was a three day work week, we got to have a lot of fun together (wedding registry, time trials, just going places). The weather was fairly nice too.

Bad: The fuel pump in the truck was dieing (good - I was able to pick one up when I picked Angela up in Ontario and replace it in about 3-4 hours with some help when I got home). Continuing with the bad - the next day the truck decided it had enough, and I lost reverse. I have read you also generally lose 2 and 4 also, but I haven't driven it. I think I am looking at $1600-$2000 for repairs.

I don't exactly trust the TA to go through the desert for 2 hours, so we rented a car to take Angela back to the airport.

It was a pretty little car, nice blue, 6 speed auto, power everything. The mileage wasn't very impressive though, we got 27.5 to 28.5 mpg average over the rental. Our Accord we rented here on the site visit averaged 32 ish if I remember right, and the Elantra we rented for a long trip to Denver averaged 38 mpg over that trip. The second thing about the VW was that I couldn't get comfortable driving it no matter what I did, definitely cross this one off the list of cars to look at for the future. At least it was essentially free to rent it with the gas savings versus the 16 mpg of the truck.

Here are some fun California gas prices, these two stations are across the street from each other.


In Ridgecrest it varies from $4.32 to $4.46 for regular.