Saturday, July 4, 2009

Last weekends Adventure.

I better post this or it will never get done. It's not like we go out and do adventures every weekend. It's not like I'm trying to avoid doing stuff around the house like clean out the back room, and under the house, and put up the siding, or save my life and put in a tub for the cute fiancee. It just turns out that way, honest.
We had my son last weekend, side note yesterday my son was trying to climb off the roof at his mom's house and it looks like he jumped off the rickety ladder that was too high up and landed wrong and now has two banged up ankles, I will keep all posted on this as he is waiting on Xray's to tell how bad it is....sigh Where was I, oh yes we had my son last weekend. The cute fiancee wanted to go out to Barstow to the Harvey House. It was at the old train station at Barstow and there is a Route 66 Museum there also. Luck for use we like getting early starts because it was hot out in the desert. Unfortunenatly there was no tour for the Harvey House but there was a Rail Road Museum there so we looked around there and took pics at the train station.
The Rout 66 Museum.

Inside is some cool stuff for all us nostalgia junkies, even cute fiancee's favorite year Mustang.
'64 and 1/2.

There was even a display for the Harvey House, showing the uniform's that the Harvey Girls had to wear.

There was a lot of fun displays and articles on the walls and racks. I got a kick out of this old switchboard, thought my mom would like this picture she told me she ran one at one point.

Ruth Buzzy now comes to mind......"May I connect your call...snort"

We walked around the Old Barstow Station, which still has the Harvey House name on it.



we looked over some of the train displays.

It didn't take long to go through these two museums and the grounds of the Old Barstow Train Station but I had a back up adventure planed. Not far from Barstow is a place called Rainbow Basin.

If you like Geology, and desert color this is a nice stop. It has camping nearby. I would recommend in the cooler months. It was almost 100 the day we were out here.
The place is full of colored and layered rock formations.

The picture there shows a bunch of Joshua Trees in a sandy area on top of this green butte, and this lone layered lump of rock in the middle of this canyon.
Some of the formations are clay like sedimentary that were laid down eons ago and time and water have been shaping them.


The last picture looked like snow on the hills. While driving up this narrow wash Cute fiancee saw something that looked like obsidian up on the canyon side, so we stopped. find.

My son climbed up to look at it.

Turns out it was just some dark material that had flowed down into the cracks at some time in the ancient past and as the canyon face falls off it shows what looks like a rock or in cute fiancee's case some obsidian. She wants be to find some so we can make a rock fireplace with lots of obsidian in it...grin Alas it was just a paper thin formation on the face of the canyon. We found a piece below the formation that explained what it was.

The Rainbow Basin is a big loop and drops you off back onto a desert road that you can turn left on and go out the way you came or right and head off into the land of old Silver mines, dry lake beds and more desert. We went right. We ended up near an area that at one point people were prospecting and digging test holes looking for silver. Every time we go to a place like this we become rock hounds. We came back with some cool specimens.

We finally came out of the desert out near Hwy 58. It had been fun but it had been hot and we were not ready for 100 deg. Nice clear day with thunderheads trying to form on the horizon.

We had come out old Route 66 from Victorville to Barstow. It is fun to see what was but sad to see what had become of the past. All the run down old road side buildings and stores. On the way back home, up Rt. 66 again I had to stop and get a picture of the logos painted on the Highway pavement.

One of these days I would like to drive the whole Route 66, see the Mother Road. If I do I will post it here.
Kris

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