October 23
63mi/101km
+3200ft/975m
It was a relief to wake up to a wind-free morning. We realized yesterday that there are over 1500 geocaches along the ET Highway. That means there’s one every tenth of a mile. We stopped to find one before leaving town.
With a gentle breeze today, we really enjoyed the scenery. We are crossing basin and range topography. Climb over a mountain range, cross a long valley, climb over the next range, and so on. We got into a Joshua Tree forest containing 2 species which normally do not overlap.
We came to the Black Mailbox, a popular meeting spot for UFO enthusiasts. Once upon a time it was a real mailbox for a nearby ranch, but nowadays it’s a box where people leave goodies and messages to aliens. Today, there was booze, beer, and weed amongst the notes.
At the end of the ET Highway, we were surprised to find a little tourist shop, and we stopped for soda and ice cream. Then we joined the Great Basin Highway. We’re amongst bigger mountains than this morning. We’ve gotten into creosote and juniper, and more Joshua trees.
We found a nice spot to camp off a side road, a nice distance from the highway. It’s a bright moon tonight, and we’re only about 20mi/32km from the town of Caliente. It’s supposed to be windy again tomorrow, so we’ll likely stay in town for the night, but we’ll see.
