(no subject)
Oh. Where to begin? I feel like I'm going nuts a little bit. So there's a chance we may move soon. We found a great house in the beautiful town of Port Costa at a reasonable rate. Just looked at it today, and it's pretty spiffy! I have no idea how it'll work out with the lease applications and so forth; Steve's cousin is the only one of us with a job. Steve and I both would have to pay rent out of savings until we found work. We'd pretty much have to find jobs right away. At this point I'm willing to settle for part-time, temporary, or anything. Gone is my idea of this magical, mythical 9-5 full-time +benefits dream career (that is not much of a dream, anyway).
I saw a career counselor just before New Year, because I don't know what the fuck I'm doing anymore. I feel like my entire conception of what the work world is like has been shattered and I have no idea how to claw my way back in. She asked me a bunch of questions to the effect of steering me in the direction of finding a job that's suited towards me and my personality. She referred me to a career center here in town where I'll take a personality test to figure out which jobs are best for me, then they've got training programs for job skills, and it sounds to me like they try to match people with jobs that fit their skill set (as much as I hate the phrase "skill set", haha....). Basically I had planned to go to this place and do all this as soon as I got back from Death Valley. Then I got sick.
We arrived Sunday night, exhausted, tired and smelly. We'd had like one shower that entire week. It was kind of a hard trip, I felt, just due to weather conditions being what they were: cold, cold, cold. Temperatures dipped below freezing the first 3 nights we camped out. The first night of our trip we actually stayed in a motel because a snowstorm hit the Tehachapi and Northern Mojave regions. Californians do not know how to drive in snow because it snows so infrequently... a bunch of major freeways were closed, and people going/coming from L.A. had to be routed the long way around through the desert because of the snow. This meant basically traffic was backed up all along that detour for miles on end: trucks, cars, etc., everyone stranded and moving at a snail's pace. That night we stopped the car at a motel in Mojave and took the last room they had. It was an older building, not insulated too well and we had the heater going all night just to stay warm. The next morning, the sun rose to reveal the entire desert blanketed with fresh snow. It was an incredible sight. Really screwed up driving for a lot of people, though. We made it to Death Valley later that day. My first experience of Death Valley was pulling into a parking lot overlooking a valley filled with mist. Couldn't see a damn thing.
Our original plan was to do a few short one-night backpack trips, driving to the next location in daytime, but we ended up not being so well prepared for such a trip with the weather conditions being as they were. It was a cold winter week in the desert with many roads being impassable. Actually (and we found this out the hard way) you really need a 4-wheel drive vehicle to see many parts of the park. Steve's cousin's Toyota Avalon could only make it so far on those rocky dirt roads, and we wound up down a muddy drive with a nice flat tire. We spent a whole day driving to Pahrump, Nevada on the spare to get the original tire fixed. First stop: Wal-Mart, who wanted $140 for a new tire. Ouch. No, thank-you. Bob's Tires, a tiny, dusty garage a couple miles away sold Steve's cousin a used one for less than one-third the Wal-Mart price. Bob and his cohort also balanced the wheels and made sure it was good to go. You really can't beat small-business mechanics. One of the dudes' moms even brought him lunch that afternoon. Awww... simply priceless.
We stayed at the expensive campground that night. A heavy dew fell and froze in the early morning hours. Sleeping outside in the cold is challenging. I spent a good deal of time and energy trying to stay warm the entire time we were out there. I'd brought along a plethora of warm, layered clothing and spent at least 50% of the time wearing the full-on abominable snowwoman ensemble, complete with coat and ski-hat. Hell, I should just get a ski MASK, it would save me all kinds of trouble. This managed to keep me from being totally uncomfortable, but conditions were still far from ideal. Harsh, dry winds shrieked through the mountains and valleys, drying the hell out of my skin and making it hard to sleep. Days were relatively pleasant, ~50 degrees with occasional wind gusts but nothing too bothersome.
Badwater Basin, the point of interest noteworthy for being 247 ft. below sea level and the lowest point in North America was where we found ourselves on Tuesday afternoon, several hours before the tire blew out. A huge crowd of tourists chattering to each other in a variety of languages convened at this spot in a melange of rental cars, eagerly reading the posted narrative which told of Badwater's first pioneer and his donkey's refusal to drink from the saline pool. Beyond the water's edge salt flats vanish in the distance, creating a surreal mirage where sky meets earth at the horizon. Salt flats are actually very crusty and crystally up close and they crunch beneath your toes. I did my darndest to leave as much of it as I could undisturbed. There are a few creatures like the Badwater snail which thrive in such an environment.
The free campgrounds tended to be at the higher elevations, which are naturally colder in the winter. We managed to find a couple of spots that weren't too bad at ~2,000 ft. elevation, easily accessible from the road. All of our backpacking plans were basically shot to hell by this time. We had wanted to venture out to one of Death Valley's several ghost towns, but alas, the car wouldn't make it up there. We did go on a couple short hikes, one around the crater north of Scotty's Castle, and another one just south of Stovepipe Wells. Oh yeah, and a short walk across the sand dunes. It was a bit of a lazy camping trip in terms of hiking; I would have liked to do more, but it took quite a while to get from place to place and see everything we wanted to see and still have time for long hikes. We can do all those things next time, I suppose.
Overall, Death Valley is a splendid place, but the climate is very harsh for most of the year, yes even in winter! Seeing snow on the surrounding mountains was absolutely beautiful, though. On the way home we drove up 395, which was really cool, and I saw a bunch of new placed I'd never seen before. There was a ton of snow, and I mean a TON, especially in Mammoth Lakes. There were tons of skiers having a blast! Mammoth Lakes is a party town for rich kids and drifters who are really, really into skiing and snowboarding. We hung out at this bar called Clock Tower Cellar, where we met the nicest bartenders EVER and a few other folks, one of whom
incidentally is from Humboldt, and he knew about the exact spot where Steve and I camped by the ocean last May. It is indeed a small world.
The night after we arrived home, I fell ill. I hoped it was allergies until it became undeniably a cold. And so here I am now with a stuffy nose and a cough, typing away about these adventures and hoping like hell that I make it to the career center before the end of the week, if it means getting a job that much faster. We'll see.
I saw a career counselor just before New Year, because I don't know what the fuck I'm doing anymore. I feel like my entire conception of what the work world is like has been shattered and I have no idea how to claw my way back in. She asked me a bunch of questions to the effect of steering me in the direction of finding a job that's suited towards me and my personality. She referred me to a career center here in town where I'll take a personality test to figure out which jobs are best for me, then they've got training programs for job skills, and it sounds to me like they try to match people with jobs that fit their skill set (as much as I hate the phrase "skill set", haha....). Basically I had planned to go to this place and do all this as soon as I got back from Death Valley. Then I got sick.
We arrived Sunday night, exhausted, tired and smelly. We'd had like one shower that entire week. It was kind of a hard trip, I felt, just due to weather conditions being what they were: cold, cold, cold. Temperatures dipped below freezing the first 3 nights we camped out. The first night of our trip we actually stayed in a motel because a snowstorm hit the Tehachapi and Northern Mojave regions. Californians do not know how to drive in snow because it snows so infrequently... a bunch of major freeways were closed, and people going/coming from L.A. had to be routed the long way around through the desert because of the snow. This meant basically traffic was backed up all along that detour for miles on end: trucks, cars, etc., everyone stranded and moving at a snail's pace. That night we stopped the car at a motel in Mojave and took the last room they had. It was an older building, not insulated too well and we had the heater going all night just to stay warm. The next morning, the sun rose to reveal the entire desert blanketed with fresh snow. It was an incredible sight. Really screwed up driving for a lot of people, though. We made it to Death Valley later that day. My first experience of Death Valley was pulling into a parking lot overlooking a valley filled with mist. Couldn't see a damn thing.
Our original plan was to do a few short one-night backpack trips, driving to the next location in daytime, but we ended up not being so well prepared for such a trip with the weather conditions being as they were. It was a cold winter week in the desert with many roads being impassable. Actually (and we found this out the hard way) you really need a 4-wheel drive vehicle to see many parts of the park. Steve's cousin's Toyota Avalon could only make it so far on those rocky dirt roads, and we wound up down a muddy drive with a nice flat tire. We spent a whole day driving to Pahrump, Nevada on the spare to get the original tire fixed. First stop: Wal-Mart, who wanted $140 for a new tire. Ouch. No, thank-you. Bob's Tires, a tiny, dusty garage a couple miles away sold Steve's cousin a used one for less than one-third the Wal-Mart price. Bob and his cohort also balanced the wheels and made sure it was good to go. You really can't beat small-business mechanics. One of the dudes' moms even brought him lunch that afternoon. Awww... simply priceless.
We stayed at the expensive campground that night. A heavy dew fell and froze in the early morning hours. Sleeping outside in the cold is challenging. I spent a good deal of time and energy trying to stay warm the entire time we were out there. I'd brought along a plethora of warm, layered clothing and spent at least 50% of the time wearing the full-on abominable snowwoman ensemble, complete with coat and ski-hat. Hell, I should just get a ski MASK, it would save me all kinds of trouble. This managed to keep me from being totally uncomfortable, but conditions were still far from ideal. Harsh, dry winds shrieked through the mountains and valleys, drying the hell out of my skin and making it hard to sleep. Days were relatively pleasant, ~50 degrees with occasional wind gusts but nothing too bothersome.
Badwater Basin, the point of interest noteworthy for being 247 ft. below sea level and the lowest point in North America was where we found ourselves on Tuesday afternoon, several hours before the tire blew out. A huge crowd of tourists chattering to each other in a variety of languages convened at this spot in a melange of rental cars, eagerly reading the posted narrative which told of Badwater's first pioneer and his donkey's refusal to drink from the saline pool. Beyond the water's edge salt flats vanish in the distance, creating a surreal mirage where sky meets earth at the horizon. Salt flats are actually very crusty and crystally up close and they crunch beneath your toes. I did my darndest to leave as much of it as I could undisturbed. There are a few creatures like the Badwater snail which thrive in such an environment.
The free campgrounds tended to be at the higher elevations, which are naturally colder in the winter. We managed to find a couple of spots that weren't too bad at ~2,000 ft. elevation, easily accessible from the road. All of our backpacking plans were basically shot to hell by this time. We had wanted to venture out to one of Death Valley's several ghost towns, but alas, the car wouldn't make it up there. We did go on a couple short hikes, one around the crater north of Scotty's Castle, and another one just south of Stovepipe Wells. Oh yeah, and a short walk across the sand dunes. It was a bit of a lazy camping trip in terms of hiking; I would have liked to do more, but it took quite a while to get from place to place and see everything we wanted to see and still have time for long hikes. We can do all those things next time, I suppose.
Overall, Death Valley is a splendid place, but the climate is very harsh for most of the year, yes even in winter! Seeing snow on the surrounding mountains was absolutely beautiful, though. On the way home we drove up 395, which was really cool, and I saw a bunch of new placed I'd never seen before. There was a ton of snow, and I mean a TON, especially in Mammoth Lakes. There were tons of skiers having a blast! Mammoth Lakes is a party town for rich kids and drifters who are really, really into skiing and snowboarding. We hung out at this bar called Clock Tower Cellar, where we met the nicest bartenders EVER and a few other folks, one of whom
incidentally is from Humboldt, and he knew about the exact spot where Steve and I camped by the ocean last May. It is indeed a small world.
The night after we arrived home, I fell ill. I hoped it was allergies until it became undeniably a cold. And so here I am now with a stuffy nose and a cough, typing away about these adventures and hoping like hell that I make it to the career center before the end of the week, if it means getting a job that much faster. We'll see.