I tried to prepare this post yesterday but I felt like I couldn't think straight. For some reason, I didn't make the connection between my mental fuzziness and the noxious odor of the glue that had just been used to install our new tile floor in the basement. By dinnertime, I was feeling truly awful and finally figured out why. We opened all the windows despite the freezing temperature and aired out the house. Now I can think again. After reading the disjointed story that I wrote yesterday, I'm glad that I didn't post it!
Here it is but hopefully I've made it clearer than it was...
It keeps snowing here, as I'm sifting through my photos from our desert trip. Early one recent morning, a pair of coyotes visited our snow-laden clearing. The wildlife are having a tough time with our seemingly endless May snow. R found a baby rabbit floundering in deep snow. He picked it up with his soft Labrador mouth and released it unharmed. I'm glad that it was R and not one of these hungry coyotes who found the baby rabbit.
At the end of my previous post, we had arrived at Rattlesnake Canyon hoping to hike/bike to see ten fabulous arches about 2.5 miles away from our campsite. However, we were in a deluge of rain. We hoped that the next morning would dawn sunny and warm. Alas, our hopes were dashed as we heard the rat-a-tat-tat of freezing rain on the van's roof the next morning.
We slowly ate breakfast while gazing out the windows hoping for a break in the weather. Indeed, the rain stopped around mid-morning. R and the Runner started a run and disappeared in the direction of the the fabled arches. K and I started in the same direction with me on my mountain bike. Believe it or not, I made it only 20 yards. In that short distance, the mud coated my tires so thickly that they would not turn within my bike frame. I stopped and tried to roll my bike back to the van but the bike wouldn't roll due to the dastardly mud. I tried carrying my bike but the mud must have weighed 100 lbs. My elegant solution was to drag my bike on its side, leaving a deep furrow in the mud road. I spent the next hour cleaning the mud off my bike, making it functional (although certainly not "clean"). I failed to take a photo of my mud-caked bike because my mood was horrendous at that time.
After cleaning my bike, K and I wandered around near the van. We could only walk a quarter mile from it without my shoes become 2 ton clown shoes with huge wads of mud stuck to them. I kept wondering how R and the Runner were faring in their quest to see the arches. I had a bleak vision of them stuck in the mud somewhere down in the canyon. I was also starting to ponder the notion that the roads were truly impassable and that we might be stranded in that place for a long time. Visions of "Gilligan's Island" were dancing through my head.
Despite being landlocked by a sea of mud, K and I enjoyed wandering in a brief sunny moment.
We saw vivaciously colored flowers. These "Four O'clock" flowers were blooming in the morning. These flowers open in the late afternoon and stay open all night, in contrast to most flowers. The reason is that Hawk Moths are their primary pollinators, and they're nocturnal.
Bluebirds flitted nearby with the skies darkening behind them.
I thought that the weather pattern had changed until we descended to the best lookout point for gazing over the plains and into the canyon. Oh my.
Almost immediately, another round of thunder, lightning, and a pelting rain engulfed our world. I could barely walk the 100 yards up the muddy hill to the safe haven of the van because my feet slipped back down the hill by at least 6" for each step. At one point, I left the trail, and started using my arms to pull me up the hill by grabbing boulders as I crawled. I was starting to understand what "impassable when wet" meant. I was also regretting the time I'd spent cleaning the inside of the van before our trip. It was rapidly becoming a mud-fest.
The two R's were still down in the canyon. I was starting to worry about them. K and I hung out in the van waiting for them.
They finally returned, having evaded the lightning and slipped all over the slick mud trail. The Runner sported the muddiest shoes that I've ever seen. Before the lightning forced them to turn back, they'd made it to the first of the ten arches rumored to be in the canyon.
Soon, we had another period of calm weather. My back was starting to scream in pain from being sedentary in the van too much. So, I pedaled my bike in the opposite direction from the arches. I discovered that I could ride 0.33 miles in that direction without hitting impassable mud.
I'm sure that the next part of the story will teach you that I am truly nuts. I proceeded to ride back and forth on the 0.33 miles of passable road for more than an hour. The Runner sat outside the van and shouted out my "splits" as if I was doing a high intensity workout. My best split was 3:26 for a 0.66 mile "lap" on the rough dirt road. In the end, what could have been a dismal ride was hilarious with me sprinting back and forth like a maniac, and my coach shouting encouragement. Even enticing birds watched me sprinting back and forth like this spotted towhee.
By dinnertime, it hadn't rained for a few hours. We hiked out the road in the "escape" direction to test the mud. The ground felt almost solid under our feet so we decided to seize the moment to try to flee.
Based on the weather forecast, we knew that we had no choice but to seize even the tiniest of dry weather windows to try to drive out of there. Otherwise, we might spend our entire trip in a 0.33 mile radius. It was a beautiful little area but we had planned to travel much further!
The start of our escape drive was on perfectly flat and easy roads through sagebrush plains. Yet, at times, we fishtailed as if we were negotiating black ice on a steep road. After slip-sliding for miles on flat roads, we made it to a junction where we knew that we had a very tough, but short, descent over steep and muddy roads. Darkness had fallen so we decided to sleep by the side of the road and wait for daylight to try to negotiate the final part of our escape. In the morning, I looked back at our tracks from the night before. You can see how deeply we were sinking into the jelly-like mud on the easy road.
You can also see that the storms stilled chased us. So, we immediately hightailed it down the boulder-pocked precarious hill. Within less than a mile, we were in trouble, mired in the mud. Thanks to the Runner's driving skills and the bull-moose power of our diesel 4wd van, we backed out of the mud.
After discussion, we decided to barge through a private road with huge signs screaming "no trespassing" guarding its entrance. Our map showed that it was an easy route back to civilization. We created an elaborate story of a "female" medical drama requiring us to rush to the hospital in case anyone tried to stop us. Thankfully, we didn't see a soul while committing our misdemeanor.
We made it out, with the Runner having seen only one arch and me seeing none. But, I've never been so happy to see a paved road and the cliffs that it overlooked, especially with the angry storms still circling us!
We'll go back to Rattlesnake Canyon someday. The photos of the arches there have convinced us that it would a perfect spot to enjoy nature's beauty in total solitude. However, we will choose a window of time when there is ZERO percent chance of rain.
