More Wind and Fire

Hen I posted, Wal-Mart on the south side of 215 fwy and the Starbucks strip mall where both closed. The fire had jump the 215 and both north and south bound traffic had been stopped. The 15 fwy through Cajon pass is also shut down. According the Forest Service IC they may get an air unit into Arrowhead before sundown. The Incident commander said if they can get a helicopter, they might have a chance at stopping the Grass Fire. It's still windy and expected to remain so through the night.

It's Fire Season!

Remember 03? Well, it's a repeat. After 3 days in the wind tunnel, we finally got our fires. Is John Schlesinger planning a visit?

Mojave Road

We tackled the old Mojave Road this weekend. We picked up the trail outside of Needles and finished at Afton Canyon. All in all, a great time and incident free, almost. Somewhere during the last 10 miles, J.W. hydro locked his Dodge Ram in a water crossing. He stalled out in 3 1/2 feet of water with a locked up motor. After towing him out, we put the truck on an incline and drained 5 gallons of water from the exhaust. When we tried the motor, nothing. It was still locked up. When we pulled the the throttle body off, we saw that the intake manifold had about a gallon of water in it! We used a combination of siphoning and a Coleman mattress pump to suck out the water. Next, we pulled all the plugs, breaking one, and prayed. The motor cranked over and shot water out each spark plug port. After some drying and a jump start, we got the truck running albeit badly. We finished the trail and nursed J.W.s truck back to Barstow on 7 cylinders. Quite an adventure indeed. It helped that we were well prepared and had enough technical know how to get out of the jam. We are theorizing that when J.W. started crossing, he went too fast and flooded the intake. To make matters worse, when he backed of the throttle, back pressure sucked water in tho the exhaust and past the catalytic converter. Could have been worse though. More pics when Blogger gets their act together.

The Winds Are Back

It's that time again folks. Santa Ana season. For those of us in the "Berdo", we have a 2 months of -50% humidity (where H2O is sucked out of you and redistributed to those less fortunate or unwilling to produce their own) and a constant 30 mph wind with gusts up to 187.6 mph in the canyons and passes. You people down in the "Cucs" and "Up There Land" don't know nothin' bout wind. Whens the last time you played "Find the Trash Cans" a block away?

And don't forget the annual mend the fence get together. This is when the neighbors stop by and say, "You may remember me from last year. Yeah, well the fence is buckling again so I'll be doing some mending on your side of the yard." That's when I say, "No sweat, needs some help?" And they say, "Oh no, I do this every year, so It's no problem."

Another lovely perk about wind season is the haunting banshee like shrill of a stiff breeze finding it's way into any available crevasse afforded to by a much neglected bedroom window seal. May be I'll finally replace those two sliders upstairs.

Well, enjoy the nice breeze in your part of the valley. I'll be up here collecting my roof tiles from the 215 fwy and watching the STOP signs bend in half.

Kardinal

Jam Master "D" in da house!

GO SOX !

Bean Town's two biggest fans. They ah wicked cool.

If Don were here...

We would need to make one of these. It's powered by chainsaw motors. I've got one to start with. Link below. http://www.dolmar.com/755.php

Baldy 10.02.07

I Tackled Baldy with Matt and the boys. We started at Maker Flats and took the fire road to The Notch, then via Devil's Backbone to the summit. The boys did well we had minimal stops until the final summit push. We made the summit by 10 AM (started at 7:30 AM) and it was glorious. We had Temps in the 40's to 50's with a nice breeze. On the way down, we planned to return down the Bowl Trail and check out the plane wreck on the southwest face. It wasn't until we passed the only other hiker on the mountain that I realized we had taken the wrong trail off the summit. I asked If he started at Manker and said, "No, the village." I though the scenery was a little different.

We ended up going 4 miles out of our way and finishing at the visitor's center, 5 miles down the hill. MAN, that decent is steep. From the ridge near West Baldy to the gulch at Bear Flat, it is absolute torture. The decent was down Steep, rocky and loose switchbacks through shoulder wide thickets. All sun, no breeze. Anyone who wants to hike up from the Village is nuts! Anyway, Amy's dad picked us up and drove us back to Manker Flats. All in all, a fun day.

Go Angels

Fisheye

"...as an everyday piece of equipment it has limited applications and it's novelty value can quickly wear off."

Whatever.