The wee Mojave Land Rush!!! And a shout out to Wyoming.

Once upon a time: 

In 1954 Jim's grandfather bought a plot of land out in the Mojave Desert and convinced his son-in-law -- Jim's dad-- to buy an adjacent plot. The properties are north of Palmdale and about 55 miles from home here in Santa Clarita. 

The huge land plots have since been handed down to Jim and his brother, who lives on the East coast.

(I claim the plots are huge but that's cause I grew up on a small island). Truth time: each plot is 2-1/2 acres.

From 1954 till now the two brothers have paid their annual taxes on the land without ever having used it.

In fact there was a question whether they had ever actually seen the land. For sure they knew vaguely where it was located, and both had visited the general area decades ago, but may never have set foot on the actual terra firma.

We planned to rectify this, having discussed the outing for months.

Jim's daughter wanted to accompany us but she had this thing called "work" to occupy her day.

We decided to drive up on a Thursday, June 15 2018. 

Why Thursday? Well that allowed us to put Wednesday evening in the pub to good use firming up our travel plans. 

Thank you Google earth:

Jim started by researching where the plot was located, starting with the property tax bill and ending with images from Google
earth.

The fact that the property is “somewhere near Mojave” was alway a bit vague, but a visit to the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management website provided the location of it — as State: CA, Meridian: Mount Diablo, Township: 032S-035E, Section: 22,  aliquots: SE1/4NW1/4NE1/4NE1/4.

While that may look like so much Egyptian hieroglyphics, there is some logic to the description. (Logic? U.S. Government? Well, sure, occasionally.)

Surveyed townships are divided into sections, each a square of 640 acres. Each is further divided into four equal squares of 160 acres; those squares divided into four quarters of 40 acres each, then into 
four smaller squares of 10 acres, and finally into four squares of 2-1/2 acres each, the size of the purchased properties

So SE1/4NW1/4NE1/4NE1/4 of Section 22 translates (reading from right to left — alright, so logic gets a bit fuzzy) into the Northeast (upper right) quarter of the section (160 acres), the NorthEast corner (again, upper right) of that quarter (40 acres,) then the NorthWest (upper left) corner of that quarter (10 acres,) and finally the SouthEast (lower right) corner — 2-1/2 acres.

A couple of illustrations might help.

Getting there :

We knew the turnoff was off HWY 14 shortly after you cross over Hwy 58.  From there it was going to be pioneer-style exploration.

Hwy 14 is a busy 2 lane as far as Palmdale / Lancaster.

We know the route well as we usually visit Lancaster once a year for a minor league baseball game with the Lancaster Jethawks. All the pleasure of major league style baseball for a fraction of the cost. An important consideration for those of us now on a fixed income. 😀

Once you pass through the hustle and bustle of Lancaster you very quickly arrive at the fringe of the windmill farms near Tehachapi. The bigger wind-farms are closer to Tehachapi itself, but those along Hwy 14 are big enough too. The area has long been known for its constant winds sweeping through the Tehachapi pass, so that's where you want to put windmills, right?

A short digression: a comment on wind-farms and a critique of CJ Box (a favorite author of mine):

CJ Box is an American author I really enjoy.

Joe Pickett is his Wyoming game warden / detective character. I like old Joe.

I love his expression "Things may get pretty western around here".

Personal disclosure here :

I LOVE WYOMING. Tried to buy mountain land in Centennial,  got very drunk in The Wonder Bar in Casper , met the U.S. Ambassador to Ireland in that same bar, did some fantastic hiking in Tensleep, soaked in the HoBo Hot Springs  in Saratoga. And hope to return to repeat all these things again soon.

I have learned a fair bit from Mr Box:

1. Like when placing your cowboy hat on a table you should always lay it crown down.

2. To look cowboy -- and I have no idea why one would want to unless surrounded by cows, but hey --  you have to wear the uniform:

 CINCH jeans and shirts, SOREL boots and Carhartt outer wear.

(If I had known there was a uniform I'd never have joined).

and

3. The egregious errors of Federal conservation efforts which are blatantly evident to the characters of Mr Box's books, in hindsight.

But in a recent outing Mr. Box allowed Joe Pickett go on a misinformed rant about how California was polluting the beautiful windswept Wyoming landscape with wind-farms because Californian's didn't want wind-farms in their own sight line. This statement is wildly false.

California will exceed Gov Brown's goal of 50 percent renewable energy by 2026 by building wind-farms and solar array farms across the state and still maintain the most beautiful wild spaces throughout its coast line, coastal mountains and the High Sierras.

I suspect wind-farm proliferation in Wyoming is more the result of unbridled capitalist exploitation from within Wyoming than from the desire of Californians to protect their vistas.

OK, back to it: getting there after Hwy 14:

If you look at Google Maps outside of Mojave you can see that old HWY 58 runs straight up from Hwy 14. Of course we didn't take that route.

Instead we crossed over Hwy 58 and exited at the road to California City.

And turn left onto Cache Creek.

Continue till you see this:

Then follow the sign to get your rocks. Oh, and on the way we noted a public service billboard laying out the symptoms of Valley Fever. Nice to know, we thought.

These dirt roads are actually part of an off road network of trails that until I got into the desert I knew nothing about.They are called Off Highway Vehicle Routes, for those wishing to bash around the landscape on four-wheelers and ATVs. The trails are managed and maintained by the US Forest Service. (Our tax dollars doing good work yet again).

When you get to this map

Follow trail marked MK10. The MK stands for Middle Knob Subregion. ( Makes one wonder what is a region if this is a subregion).

Some of these off road trails go for ever:

I mean look at that one it goes to the horizon.

Jim's acreage is visible on the left hand side (LHS) of the first trail photo above (MK10) just below the slightly grey triangle of earth on base of distant mountain.

We drove along MK10 and took what we believed to be the second left turnoff. Which led us eventually to here.

Jim's car couldn't get up this little hill.

Because his sump is hung too low. ( Chinese joke springs to mind but I will resist temptation ).

See sump drag marks on ground. And Jim's SUV is more the grocery-run city type; no four wheel drive.

From here we set out on foot, both of us wearing sandals or flip flops. Because we came prepared.

I find this type of High Desert landscape quite beautiful nowadays. It took a few years for me to appreciate it, but now I see it.

We figure this grove of Joshua Trees is around about where the plot is located.

That's Jim flip-flop hiking through the desert. Being the manly CA cowboy that he is, no concerns about thorns, stones or rattle snakes.

And the next few shots are where we believe the land is:

With the property line being roughly the line of Joshua Trees.

The view in other direction is very Mojave.

Note the peak in the distance. There are a string of these peaks along the backbone of the desert. Due East of Hwy 14 as you drive North. Jim described them as looking like giant ancient dinosaur vertebrae. A great expression, I thought.

We rummaged around for a while, picked up some dirt which Jim put in old glass spice jars to give to his children as evidence of their inheritance. "Some day, children, this will all by yours." 

We also found some desert ordnance. Finding ordnance is still strange to me so I had to photo it.

A dried out example of local flora made me think of the desolation that deserts denote.

But then I checked myself - changed perspective, and looked again.

Beauty truely is in the eye of the beholder. 

Objective met. Photos and dirt in hand, we prepared to leave.

We waved at one of the two neighbors as we passed.

And got a much nicer shot of the old truck as we drove out. Jim, ever the lifelong copy editor, noted that the apostrophe was unnecessary and improperly used.

Mojave:

I had heard about the airplane graveyard here and have wanted to see it for some time.

Worth a drive for sure.

I believe you can tour it nowadays with permission. Time was, reportedly, you could just walk right up and enter.

And once back in the city limits of Mojave, for your evening entertainment we have 

and a bit of desert humor.

`

or

One other billboard outside of town caught our attention, it's located at a big junkyard along Hwy 14. The billboard announced in huge letters "SYPHILIS the Silent Killer". ( Is that what killed the grass in earlier photo ?) It does make one wonder with billboards advertising Valley Fever and Syphilis what exactly is going on in Mojave?

The drive home:

We turned off Hwy14 onto West Palmdale Ave, headed out toward Elizabeth Lake and turned south onto Boquet Canyon Road. This Canyon road is a lovely drive and worthy of reasonable commentary, but that will be a whole other story.