September 2014 part 2: stranded in the desert

It's sort of fun going back through my photos from last year to see what I took photos of, which means documenting what we were doing. We had adventures!

We've been thinking about buying a plot of land in the Nevada desert. It's super cheap if you don't mind being hours of driving from somewhere, which is fine with us. Our destination was sort of the middle part of northern Nevada but we left a bit later than we planned and ended up staying the first night on BLM (Bureau of Land Management) land somewhere around Elko, Nevada. We arrived at our spot on the dark so couldn't really see what we were getting into, but somehow managed to put up our tent and get a good night's sleep in. When we woke up, this was our view:

If you've never been desert camping, I highly recommend it. It's dark, quiet, and has no mosquitoes. Also the smell of desert sage is lovely. Sure you have to watch out for snakes and scorpions at higher elevations, but that hasn't been an issue for us. On this particular morning, it was so lovely to just get up, put on some shoes, make coffee and sit in my camp chair.

Some sort of ant hill?

While I was sitting in my camping chair, drinking my excellent camp coffee, a couple of antelope pranced by and one came close enough to say hello! It was quite a magical moment.

Mr. Cupcake checked out the cactus.

Oh hey don't mind the cattle moseying by.

We put the truck in 4WD and climbed some pretty steep terrain to check out this plot but we decided it did not suit our needs. It was interesting though, there was evidence of some structure built out of rocks on the top of the hill, long since unused but you wouldn't be able to see it until you are 20 feet away from it.

Don't worry, dead snake is dead.

Well then we packed up and headed west towards Battle Mountain. There were some properties just south of the town we were going to go look at. We were about 11 miles out of the town when suddenly we realized the AC stopped working (which is a problem when it's 85 degrees in the desert) and then Dan knew we were doomed. The battery wasn't charging which meant that we were minutes away from not being able to drive the truck.

We turned around and got not very far when the truck died. It was a Sunday, 1:30pm. The only auto parts store in Battle Mountain that was open on a Sunday was Napa and they closed at 3:00 and they don't deliver. What do we do? With no truck battery we also had to conserve our cell phone batteries. We weren't there long when a grumpy old timer came by to see what we strangers were up to, gave us a boost and advised us to drive as fast as we can into town. Meanwhile, Dan called back to the unhelpful Napa guy and ordered & paid for a battery and alternator, please leave it outside, we'll find some way to get it. So we got about three miles towards down on the charge from the old guy before the truck died again. Now we were only eight miles away. Stranded. 2pm.

This was a lonely country road with not much traffic. Still, you'd think that people driving by seeing a vehicle with their hood popped and then two people walking towards town who are obviously not from the area would maybe, maybe! stop and say "hey do you need any help?". Now to be fair we didn't stick out our thumbs or anything but already Battle Mountain seemed like quite an unfriendly place. Not even the cops who drove by twice stopped to investigate.

So we walked for 5 miles on a Sunday afternoon in 85 degree weather. We had about a litre of water between us. After walking for an hour and a half on a hot gravel road, I had severe blisters on my feet so when someone finally stopped and offered us a lift into town, of course we gratefully accepted.  The guy lived outside of town, was just running in to the grocery store, and on hearing our story, gladly gave us a lift back to our truck with the 40-pound battery and alternator. He wouldn't take any money for his kindness (so there is one nice person in Battle Mountain).

Dan had the tools to get the new battery in but not the alternator. We drove to the O'Reilly in Elko (Dan knew they would be open late on a Sunday), borrowed tools and the tester, only to discover Napa had given us a faulty alternator. At this point, we were dirty, dusty, sweaty, hungry and tired, so we decided instead of camping again we'd get a motel room and finish dealing with the truck in the morning. Meanwhile, I could barely walk for the painful blisters on my feet, so I was happy to have a bath.

The next day (Monday now) we went to the Elko Napa (much more friendly) and they not only replaced the alternator and provided tools for the installation, but they also upgraded the alternator to a better quality one at no extra charge.

Then we drove home. The end. 

Camping trip to Idaho

Oh look I remember how to blog!

On Saturday morning despite me feeling completely crappy, we were determined to go camping. It was the 4th of July, Independence Day, and Dan never gets Saturdays off from work so we had to take advantage of it.

My sister was texting me all day from her adventure with our mum and her kids at the beach where it was 34 Celsius. I converted our temperature and it was about the same.

Stopped at the Greek restaurant in Logan for lunch. It was nice to have falafel!

Dan had the beef shawarma with Green lemon rice.

Oh hey it's Mr. Cupcake in Idaho!

We went to a campsite called Gravel Creek. Small campground, not many campers, stinky bathroom, and all of the mosquitoes in Idaho were there. Despite our 25% DEET Deep Woods Off, we both now suffer with at least three dozen bites a piece. The nice thing though was that there were No Fireworks Allowed and, given that it was the 4th of July, that was precisely what we wanted.

We love our truck tent.

Everywhere we went, we left just before the rain hit. Also: on our route we popped into Wyoming for a minute. I bought lottery tickets! Maybe we will win $70 million! (FYI there is no gambling in Utah).

Here we are at the Craters of the Moon! This was a pretty awesome place. No mosquitoes! Sort of windy! It's nice to see lots of people still tenting.

We started on a walk around the big crater. Pretty spectacular scenery. This area saw lots of volcanic activity between 14mya and 2,100 years ago. Nothing much grows now, lots of different types of igneous volcanic rock. Obligatory goofy Dan and Stacey photo:

This trail was 3.5 miles. We didn't know that when we started. Word to the wise: if you plan to hike on volcanic rock, DO NOT wear sandals. Unless you like blisters and having flesh-piercing rocks lodge themselves into your sweaty feet and crying. 

Lots of tiny desert plants growing in just a few spaces. 

Once was molten lava.

Lava lava

Dan says this is a lava tube. His dad Paul was a radio astronomer before he retired and spent some time working on Hawaii. They have volcanoes there, so when Dan visited all those years ago, he learned really a lot about volcanoes and was thus an excellent tour guide for this.

Because why wouldn't you wear a saucy sun dress while hiking on volcanic rock in sandals?

We got to the end of this trail and it was nowhere near the beginning. We didn't have the map with us. My phone only had 23% and GPS could not locate us. So we just started walking to where we thought the campground was. We discovered later that we took a wrong turn and instead of 2 miles back, it was four. So we had just done 3.5 miles and my feet were already sliced up from the rocks getting in my sandals, Why not walk for another 80 minutes? Lucky there were no bugs, the weather was fine, and we made it back to camp before the sun set. Dan made us an excellent dinner and we joyfully went to bed expecting a good sleep.

We had the highest spot in the campground. Awesome view, but now we know that it is also subject to the most wind. The fly to our tent was flapping much of the night, right in our ears, so we didn't get much sleep after all.

The best coffee is the coffee you make when camping.

Who needs blocks when you can just use nearby random materials to level your truck? Dan is a pro at this.

I almost forgot to take photos of Mr. Cupcake.

Farewell Craters of the Moon!

My 41st birthday

Last year, for my 40th, we had so much fun at the Natural History Museum of Utah, I decided that I want to do something like that - cultural - every year for my birthday. Today we went to the Living Planet Aquarium in Draper. It opened about a year ago but we were waiting for all the crowds to die down before we went. And then we forgot. But first!

Dan made me a terrific breakfast of corned beef hash. We had corned beef and cabbage on St. Patrick's Day, the anniversary of the day we met (eight years ago!), and there was so much leftover we decided to have it for breakfast too.

The next thing we did was to get a family photo of me, Dan, Sam, and Mr. Cupcake. Everyone but Sam was excited about it.

Then we got in the van and drove to Draper. We were really looking forward to being there on a weekday when it was less likely to have lots of children. WRONG. There were school buses full of them. And pregnant moms with their little ones (this is Utah, after all). People referring to sturgeons as sharks and caimans as alligators and crocodiles. Anyway, we found lots of good stuff.

 Anaconda. 14 feet long.

 Pirhana!

 Electric eel.

 Macaw!

 Toucan. He was eating and I caught a video but he was behind netting so the pictures all have string blurring them.

 Tiny yellow frog.

 Another yellow frog.

 Otters! They were fun to watch. They move pretty fast though.

 This was the first time I had ever seen penguins. They all had zip ties on their wings and we didn't know why. I'll have to contact the aquarium and ask.

 Sea horses

 Pipe fish

 Sleeping sea horse

 Cuttle fish. He and Dan had quite a long conversation including posting and lots of color changes.

When I opened up Google a few minutes ago, I saw this!

Just this minute Dan is serving me up a steak curry so I have to go eat my birthday dinner now. No cake for me, I'm losing weight again and can't afford cake calories!