DIGITAL PHOTO FRAME IMPORTERS

This rock had a funny shape to it which made the double track.

This photo appeared in the following ideotrope albums:

Biking the Mojave Fall 2007 - Introduction
I biked through Death Valley in October 1996. It was 109°F at Furnace Creek. The area is beautiful, but it was way too hot at that time of year. I knew I wanted to come back on my bicycle when it was cooler. This year it worked out to take about 3 weeks after Thanksgiving. I ended up spending 18 days to cycle from Palm Springs to Las Vegas. I spent about half of that time in Death Valley NP. In Baker I met a group of cyclists on racing bikes with a support vehicle. They were cycling from Palm Springs to Las Vegas in 2 days. I saw a lot more desert than they did.
Coachella Valley and Joshua Tree National Park
I crossed the Coachella Valley on Ramon Rd. It was over 70°F, probably the warmest day of the trip. It wasn't 'til I turned onto Thousand Palms Rd. that I felt like I was heading out into the desert on my own. The San Andreas Fault system runs along the northern end of the Coachella Valley. The faults allow groundwater to rise to the surface resulting in a number of California fan palm oases. It's wonderful to see oases in the desert.
It was a 1300m climb on Berdoo Canyon Rd. to the Coachella Valley-Pleasant Valley saddle in Joshua Tree NP. I didn't see a single person or vehicle in Berdoo Canyon. Climbing out of Pleasant Valley I saw the first person, a fellow adventurer. Patrick was walking solo across Joshua Tree NP from west to east. That's a heck of a trek. That park is huge and has only one known spring. Patrick had set up two water caches before his trip.
Amboy Road and Mojave National Preserve
I bought enough food in 29 Palms to last 4 days to Baker. Heading east on the Amboy Rd. I met the only other touring cyclist of the trip. He had come down from Bishop through Death Valley NP, Baker, Kelso, Amboy - much the same route I was planning to take. When I met him, he had run out of food. I shared some almonds with him but didn't have much sympathy with his plight. The reason he didn't buy food in Baker was because there wasn't a health food store! Well, I told him there was a grocery store in 29 Palms, but it might not be up to his standard.
One of the things I was looking forward to on this trip was experiencing the transition zone between the Sonoran Desert (lower, farther south) and the Mojave Desert (higher, farther north). Creosote bushes grow in both, but most other flora is limited to one ecosystem or the other. In the transition zones you can see a mix of vegetation. What I saw ended up being less dramatic than Washington County, Utah where the Colorado Plateau, the Basin and Range country, and the Mojave Desert all come together. Joshua Trees were the main ecosystem indicator for me. I knew I was climbing high when I started to see them.
I was surprised how much traffic there was on the Amboy Rd. It wasn't much, but a lot of the paved roads that I was on during the trip would have one car every 10-30 minutes and perhaps none all night. The only truly busy roads were the road north out of Baker (on a Saturday morning) and the Pahrump-Las Vegas superhighway which has a wonderful bicycle lane.
I climbed Sheep Hole Pass to get into the Amboy Valley. It was in the Amboy Valley where I became accustomed two aspects important to cyclists in the Mojave:
Distances are deceiving. You can see really far. It takes much longer to cross these valleys that it appears that it would.
The slight inclines up alluvial fans or other fill climb a lot more than they appear to. In Colorado I'm not accustomed to seeing the whole climb since there are usually canyon climbs here. Leaving Amboy, for example, I climbed over 3000 ft. on a slowly rising alluvial plane. It took hours.
I enjoyed time off the bike to walk out to and up Amboy Crater. The following day I climbed to the top of the Kelso Dunes. And one day later I climbed one of the cinder cones east of Baker. I enjoyed having a diversion each day. Each of those areas is beautiful in its own way. The creosote bushes in the Amboy Valley are particularly green because of the shallow water table. Kelso Dunes are simply fantastic, and the cinder cone area with over 30 cinder cones and not another person felt like another planet.
In Baker I bought enough food to last 10 days and ate at the Mad Greek at my brother's recommendation. I had taken a rest day the previous day because of rain, and Baker was a bit flooded. Folks were out pushing water around with brooms. At the store the locals were telling each other how much their roofs leaked.
Death Valley National Park
Heading north of Baker the saddle that separates the Silurian Valley from Death Valley is only about a 50' climb. From there I left the pavement and stopped at Saratoga Springs to see the incredible wetlands in the desert. I had planned o

This month's them for 52 Weeks of Blythe is "Non-dolly collections." I don't really collect anything else but I do have tons of mini scrapbooking albums that I've made.

Which one is YOUR fave???

Here they are:
1. My son’s 10 year old State Baseball trip

2. My son’s Soccer Album

3. LOVE this album- I made 3 little mini albums that go inside this Tupperware dish. Concept is that you need “family,” “work,” & “play” to have a balanced life (like a well balanced meal, hence the dish)

4. Funny album about how my family tries hard to ruin the photos I take of them. Get it??? Un-GRATE-ful…… using a cheese GRATER. LOL

5. Inside this decorated shampoo bottle is a mini album about all the hairstyles I’ve had in my life

6. Just about my boys’ grandfather

7. The neighborhood kids jumping on a mini trampoline – Each page has a photo of one kid doing a fun “trick” & I named each one by how the jump looked. Funny!

8. Mini album about what I will miss about not having a daughter in my life (was an entry into a scrapbooking contest)

9. LOVE LOVE LOVE this album. Used a vegetable steamer & inside are individual pages about my “steaming hot” hubby

10. Altoid tin - 2005 Christmas

11. Clearbox mini album of pix of my kids walking on a railroad track

12. LOVE LOVE LOVE this one too!!! This one is about our little girl neighbor & her adorable outfits she always wears. I took 10 pictures of her in 10 different outfits. Then cut the pictures at her waist. Then you can turn the top part & bottom parts at different times to create mix & match outfits. Remember those old books where you can make a bear have a bear head, alligator body & cat feet.

13. Sweet cut out album of my boys being BROTHERS

14. Little mini album of my son playing with his first hand held video game. The album sits inside a decorate camera bag

15. I took a road trip with a bunch of girls who along with me were scrapbook page designers for the company Junkitz. GREAT trip!

16. Cardboard album of the “next generation” of my family. Need to add the two newest kids though.

17. Matchbook style album – Wrote a little story about how aliens took over our neighborhood. Inside are pictures of all the kids that I photoshopped to look like aliens with big heads. I let the kids name themselves with alien names too. Another funny one!

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