Sunday, March 11, 2012

Wheeler Pass Rd.

Today I took a little drive up Wheeler Pass Road.  I suppose it crosses through the Spring Mountains but I sure didn't go that far.  It's gravel and I went about 8 miles up before I turned around.  I could probably go quite a bit farther but that was enough for me.  Our town's elevation is 2,695 feet (820m); my GPS said the place where I turned around was at 5,396 feet(1,645m).  It's not a lot but it was pretty continuously UP.  I down-shifted the truck to control the speed on the way down or I would have been on the brakes every inch.  It's a nice, wild place.  Needless to say I forgot my camera so we only have cell-phone photos.
 You can see that the Joshua Tree is doing well up there along with the usual desert scrub.  That is the same Mt. Charleston that is on the blog header; just with a bit less snow and from a different angle.  There are a lot of trails for ATVs and dirt bikes; it makes me want one!  Maybe we'll manage that another year.  The road is probably maintained as a fire road by the BLM.  It's a good gravel road wide enough to meet someone in most places.  In a couple places I saw horse droppings, there are wild horses up here but they were all hiding.

The trip was kind of an antidote to yesterday which we spent wandering around in Las Vegas.  We had a few errands to do and ended up getting home about 17:00.  That's a long day for this old goat and the city traffic is a pain in the ass.  However, we got spa chlorine and shoes and all kinds of stuff.  I like Las Vegas, I really do.  I think it was the errands that were all over the map that bothered me.  I've got to go over, sit in a casino and people watch.  That would be a great day!  Walmartians have nothing on the people you see in Sin City.

We did have breakfast in the casino here in town on Thursday.  It has a sign in the men's room that I've certainly never seen anywhere else.  I'm pretty sure it's not aimed at diabetics.
Ain't it a wonderful world.  Have a good one!

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