Yesterday we camped atop Mt. Palomar and drove through San Bernadino National Forest, and through back road pastoral towns where we saw miles and miles of old fire damage; even the air smelled charred. Soaked at Desert Hot Springs (where we had interesting conversations with a group of traveling peace pilgrims), encountered a sand storm that nearly blew us off the highway, and finally settled down Old Woman Springs Rd. and into the sweet smell of pinon trees.
Today: “Ain’t nobody here but us chickens...” We’re off-road about 30 miles into the Mojave Desert, and I kiss the ground with thanks that I’m married to an adventurous man (who doesn’t mind loud music). Open your heart and “Say what you need to say…” (that would be John Mayer at about 120 decibels; also a theme song for Bucket List) as we creep through barren desert sands and burnt out tumbleweed. There is actually a plan: find Opal Mountain on land owned by the BLM (the locals have labeled the Bureau of Land Management “bastard lowlife morons” with very impressive professional looking signs I might add). I don’t think they like those guys very much.
We have found our rock hounding site, and with a rock pick, collecting bag and chisel, Kent (after parking us atop a mountain to catch menyana’s (spelling… “tomorrow” in Spanish) desert morning sun, immediately boogied in search of the common opal and agate (stones carried to increase one’s self-esteem, which makes me want to barf;) I was hoping for something lofty like enlightenment! No matter. Common opal comes in orange, red, green, yellow and white. Although it doesn’t have the fire attributed to precious opal, it does seem to be “fired” with an inner glow (good enough for me). It occurs in seams in the mountain rock and is easily fractured.
After a full day of rock hounding, we came back with lots of specimens. We climbed to the top of Opal Mountain and I remembered this quote: “I wouldn’t trade one hour of this marvelous air for all the cultural riches of New York. It’s as real as a glass of cold white wine.” Fine scene indeed. On the mountain top a single raven came circling above my head; he was cawing and riding the wind currents up and down (no wings flapping)…pretty amazing. I turned to see a pile of rocks and went to investigate; there I found a glass jar with paper and pencil and entries of others as far back as 1998. I added our words of wisdom and started on back down the mountain. We agreed there was no day greater than this one…so far!
