inglorious wanderer

The preserve which was declared by President Obama as Mojave Trails National Monument  in February this year. It had  been officially known as Mojave Natonal Preserve under the 1994 California Desert Protection Act.  Cinder cone lava beds? Who knows? I am exploring on my own and I can only look at the map. I took these photos halfway from the  Baker entrance and the Kelso Depot visitor center.  Mojave could also be Mohave,  a word that might have been derived from  aha macave or mahav, Native American words that might meant people living by the water. The Mojave tribe may have lived by the Colorado River. The Mojave National Preseve is basically considered a modern-day ghost town named Kelso. The Kelso Depot which has been converted as a visitor center  was built by the Union Pacific Railroad system.  The railways along with the depot are still intact.  While the railway traverses from southwest to the northeast, visitors have the option...

From Barstow, I drove 188 miles one way to see for myself the original London Bridge. I drove more than 3 hours by I-40 just to make sure that the London Bridge in Lake Havasu City in Arizona is not a joke. A  bridge reconstructed from the remains of the original London Bridge built between 1176 and 1209 that survived till the 18th century and a total cost of $5.1 million to relocate in Arizona is not a joke. Instead of the Thames River, the Orginal London Bridge is constructed over a channel that flows from Lake Havasu and Colorado River. Instead of the industrial and cosmopolitan setting of the modern day London Bridge, the Original London Bridge has a vast desert wilderness as a backdrop. The London Bridge at Lake Havasu is to me similar to calling the ancestral domain of the Havasupai as Grand Canyon. 

It's been years since I first summitted Stanley Peak. It was sometime in August 2012 when I joined a hiking group raising funds for children with cancer. I started hiking the year before. The group started at the Daley Ranch main gate at La Honda Drive. I was just following the group giving occasional answers to anyone who asked me basic questions: What's your name? Where are you from? I have forgotten about the meadow nor the oak trees. But there was a ranch house. I don't remember seeing the lake or water reservoir. Long before the Robert Daley claimed 1,600 acres of the area for his ranch, the Kumeyaays used the land for hunting wild game and for harvesting wild tree acorn. Wild tree acorn nuts  gathered from oak trees were pounded into acorn flour, according to historians. As the highest elevation at the in Daley's ranch    

Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area is one of the five NRAs located near a major population center that combine the preservation of significant historic artifacts and the use natural areas like open space preserves in locations that can provide  Santa Monica skyline  Best time of the year  The western town The church  the church into the wild west and the church

The eastern portion of the  Anacapa Island is twelve miles away from the coasts of Oxnard, CA accross Santa Barbara Channel.  Along with Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa , San Miguel and Santa Barbara, Anacapa Island is among the five of the eight islands under the jurisdiction of the Channel Islands National Park system. The island features a lighthouse that was initially unmanned using acetylene beacon placed atop a fifty foot tall metal tower. On December 2, 1853, the captain of a steamer crashed into rocks off the middle part of the island confusing the island for an optical illusion caused by the refraction of light from the sky. East Anacapa Island, to this day, features the light beacon initially built by the Coast Guard in 1912 and a light station built in 1932. The sinking of a steamer however did not spare the Chumash from being colonized and displaced. The Chumash,  who were the first inhabitants of the island  referred to their home as ...

In between the two fences that separate United States of America and the Mexican United States in the southwestern end of the international border are three bunkers that were used to monitor invading Japanese fleets during the Second World War. Rumors of impending attacks of Japanese forces were unfounded.  Life went on for  both sides of the fences and cross-border migration continued with the usual stories of Mexicans coming north for the unskilled and seasonal employment opportunities and gringos going south for less expensive leisure. We didn't cross the border, the border crossed us. Life goes on south of the border. Come to look at it, life seems to even look peaceful and uncomplicated  from afar. I have crossed the border a lot of times and I could tell that a lot of the things told about Mexico or the Mexicans are not true. I am amazed at how naïve people had become in believing could build a beautiful wall from the Gulf of Mexico ...