Month: January 2020

Desert Days: Wildlife Refuge

Posted on by Annie

I wasn’t much for venturing away from my little BLM paradise last week, but my friend Stacy, an avid birder, convinced me to join her for a walk at the Arlington Wildlife Refuge, about a half hour’s drive from where we were both camping. I’m not much of a birder, since I usually can’t spot the bird fast enough and I never remember their names (I have trouble with people names, let alone bird names!). But the prospect of a walk in a new place was enticing enough to get me going. As wildlife refuges go, this one isn’t going…

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Saddle Mountain BLM, AZ

Posted on by Annie

After my desert tour of Southern California, combined with a quick one-nighter in the LA Basin, I headed east, back to Arizona for a few weeks. First stop was Saddle Mountain, a spot of BLM (Bureau of Land Management) property near Tonopah, and about 10 minutes off Interstate 10. It’s also far from the craziness that is the Quartzsite area this time of year, when snowbirds, full-timers, and lots of RVing groups converge on that area. More than a few of us showing up at Saddle Mountain had either completely bypassed Quartzsite or were seeking refuge after a few days…

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Desert Days: Photo Walking

Posted on by Annie

I was having a down day, which happens, even in a really amazing place like Death Valley. Everything was getting on my nerves: generators firing up at 7:01AM, noisy campers the night before, people walking through my site on the way to the bathroom… it was just one of those days. I decided to go for a drive and grabbed my Sony A7 on the way out the door. I thought maybe today was the day to hike Golden Canyon, but as I drove by it, I could see the parking lot was so full there was no way my…

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Desert Days: Afternoon Hike

Posted on by Annie

The desert is one of those places you have to slow way down to experience. I pity the people just passing through, either on a day trip or a one-night camping stop on their way to somewhere else. You have to let the desert in to your soul slowly. Sit and listen to the silence and you’ll start to hear the faint birdsong, the buzz of insects in the bushes, the wind through the branches of the cottonwoods.  One of the best ways to get to know the desert is to walk through it. So let’s go on a hike…

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Mojave Preserve, CA

Posted on by Annie

You’d think growing up in Southern California that I would have seen just about everything within a few hours of the place, but you’d be wrong about that. I didn’t know about Mojave Preserve until several years ago, when I convinced my roadtripping Jedi master, my Dad, that we should take backroads from Hemet to Vegas to visit my sister. One of those backroads ran through Mojave Preserve and we were both amazed and delighted to find some amazing geology as we drove from Amboy to Kelso to Baker.

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