Bye Fresno… (05-02-12)

Hello, Utah.  Well, tomorrow we’ll say hi to Utah.  Right now we are in Boron, CA overnight after leaving Fresno this morning.  We plan to leave here very early in the morning because the forecast calls for pretty strong winds.  We didn’t unhook, so we should be able to scoot out of here pretty quickly.

I really fell down on the job of picture taking in the last week or so, so I asked Kirk to send me the pictures that he took last weekend.  This is the best of them. Paul and I went up to Kirk and Karen’s cabin again to make them work on the cabin some more.  Paul and Kirk tore apart one of the bathrooms, moved the sink and were planning on moving the toilet, but they decided they need a corner toilet, which they didn’t have, so they stopped after moving the sink.

In the meantime, Karen and I were painting the living room wall, and a closet.  The projects were fun, partly because it wasn’t our cabin, and partly because we just have a good time with Kirk and Karen, regardless.

The month we spent in Fresno went by very quickly and had a different feel to it than our usual stops.  There wasn’t any sightseeing or hiking- it was more like just day to day living. We spent some days working on projects, or hanging out at the trailer.  Thanks to Suzy, I had a gym membership for the time we were there.  I didn’t go as often as I should have, but at least I went a few times!  We managed to squeeze in quite a bit of socializing between projects, giving us a pretty good idea how it would be if we actually lived near our friends, although we all agreed we are exhausted and couldn’t have kept up that pace.

Our original plan called for us to leave Fresno last week, but one of the major things Paul needed to do in Fresno was install the Straight-line System on the trailer axles.  We have tandem axles on the trailer and the way it works usually is that the front axle is pulled along, and the rear axle is pushed.  (In theory) That can cause irregular tire wear, which we have had an issue with in the past.  DRV, the manufacturer of our trailer, shipped us this Straight-line system for Paul to put on, at no cost to us. Unfortunately, the package was missing a few crucial bushings, which meant we had to wait for them to arrive to finish the upgrade. Once they got here, it only took him a few hours to finish the installation. Once that was done, he rotated the spare tire into the mix, so he can assess whether there is still a tire wear issue or not.

Since we had to stick around anyway, I decided to go ahead and order my new Verizon iphone. It arrived yesterday, so I’ve been busy updating all the contacts etc.  Unfortunately the phone that has most of my contacts is dead and I won’t be able to retrieve everyone’s phone numbers.  I have some of them, but not all. 

I’ve also been doing a fair amount of research.  In the next month we will probably visit 7 national parks and monuments, before landing in Salt Lake City at the beginning of June. I don’t in general like to over-research things, but I also don’t want to arrive at these parks with no idea of what we should see and do.  So, all of my traveling friends, if you have thoughts on Capitol Reef, Zion, Canyonlands, Grand Staircase Escalante, Mesa Verde, Arches, Moab, and Natural Bridges, bring it on!

I think we might have waited just a little too late in the year to visit these parks, based on the weather forecast, so I also did some shopping and got some new hiking boots that will be more appropriate for hot desert weather. My good boots are really backpacking boots- heavy, leather, hot, but very stiff and sturdy. I bought a pair the other day that will be lighter and not waterproof, so they’ll breathe better in the heat.  We are already figuring we’ll have to get up and out early every day, to beat the heat, but if we need to do that, that’s ok too.

I’ve also been calling and bugging Yellowstone National Park every few days.  When we booked our reservation there for this summer, we made two separate 11 day reservations, with a 3 day gap between them.  Our thought was that we would try to get there in mid June, but if it was too cold or snowy, we’d cancel and just use the early July reservation.  Now we’ve decided we might as well use both reservations, so we can relax and enjoy the park.  But, we still have a 3 day gap.  So, I call every few days to see if there are any cancelations. The people on the phone are awesome, and apologetic. They encourage me to keep calling- there’s bound to be a cancelation!  Of course, we’re so big, there aren’t many spaces that will fit us, but we’ll keep checking.

So, tomorrow it’s on to Zion National Park. One of the hikes we tried to do there last time, but couldn’t, was The Narrows. Hiking the Narrows is essentially hiking for miles in a river. In order to do the hike, the water flow has to be below a certain level.  Last year it definitely wasn’t.  This year we’ll have to see!

The three B’s

Borax, Boron, and Borates.
Borax= Borax is a company, and a common name for the mineral.
Boron= the 5th element in the periodic table, and a town in California.
Borates=  minerals containing boron, commonly used in many household products.

When I was a kid I remember Borax being a soap (Borateem) but really it’s more of a performance enhancer.  43% of all Boron is used to make glass-   fiberglass, Pyrex, insulation, crystal etc. 17% is used in detergent, bleach, soaps etc. 12% is used in ceramics, enamels, glazes, etc. and 5% is used in fertilizer. It’s an essential ingredient for plant growth.  It’s even used as a flame retardant, in circuit boards and in cosmetics.  Quite a versatile mineral.

I mention Borax because huge quantities of the stuff have been found in this area of California, (including Death Valley National Park) and we have spent the last two days learning about it. Actually, this place is loaded with minerals and ore, including gold and silver.
     In 1881, Aaron Winters, of Death Valley, was told that the white stuff all over his land might be Boron. He heard from a stranger that if he were to pour alcohol and sulfuric acid on the ore and ignite it, if it’s boron, it will burn green.  It did, and the frenzy for Boron began.  Really, I want to know, in a time when cell phones, or even regular phones, didn’t exist, there was no internet, no cars, etc., how does someone find out that if this thing burns green, it’s worth a lot of money??  And how do they figure out how to even use it in products??
      Anyway, the land was soon sold to prospectors, and eventually fell into the hands of Francis “Borax” Smith, who consolidated the properties with his own and created Pacific Coast Borax Co.   Now all he had to do was figure out how to get the borax out of the valley and over to the railroad in Mohave.  It was 165 miles of desolate, road less, barren land, with summer temperatures reaching 130-150 degrees.

The solution was the 20 Mule Team. 

The wagons were custom built, at a cost of $900 each.  They were the biggest, heaviest and strongest wagons ever seen. Weighing in at 7800 lbs, each could carry 12 tons of borax.  There were two wagons  in each “train”, followed by a water wagon.  The most experienced drivers, called “skinners” were hired to haul the borax, and the mules were well trained for the job and even responded when called by name.  In order to turn corners without cutting it too tightly, 6 of the mules were taught to jump the rope and walk sideways  (depicted in the picture)  so that the wagons would follow the path behind the team. They could cover 16-18 miles a day, making it a 10 day trip through the desert to deliver the borax.

The mule teams were used for 5 years to bring the borax out of death valley, until the railroad was brought into the valley.

Although times have changed,  borax  is still  being mined  in  this area.  The mine  is  now owned  by U.S Borax Inc. and it’s one of  the two  largest borax mines in  the world.
After  spending quite a while in the Twenty Mule Team Museum,  we drove out to the mine and spent an hour or so in the visitor’s center.  They charge a $3 entrance fee per car, which we thought was pretty strange, but then we saw that they donate all the proceeds to local charities. 
Here, instead of mules, the borax is trucked out of the open pit mine in massive trucks  that can each haul 240 tons of material. The tires alone  are 11 feet tall.