APRIL 30, 2013 – Mojave: John Wayne & TV series’

After so many recent trips to Barstow I decided to go to Mojave, at the other end of the desert. On the way I stopped at the scenic Lake Palmdale viewpoint. It was still under 80 degrees then.

38 miles later I arrived and it was noticeably hotter.

I drove my 22mpg Element because I thought that there’d be the usual dirt track for desert caching. It was a surprise to find a nice paved road at the beginning of the 45 cache John Wayne Series, JW1 John Wayne (GC3DZKE). I should’ve trusted what I thought I’d seen on google maps, driven my 48mpg Prius and saved $20. in gas. Oh well…

The caches were mostly 35mm film containers in ½ buried PVC tubes 0.25 miles apart, 5’ to 50’ off road. I’m used to stopping every 0.10 miles. The different spacing threw off my practiced rhythm. And because the road is 50’ from the freeway, I half expected some passing sheriff to take an interest and come out to investigate. But none did. I didn’t see another person during my entire stay on the series roads, even though another cacher logged some of the same caches that day.

Approaching the end of the road I wondered if I’d need to turn around, go back to the beginning and cross the freeway to reach caches #21-#45. Nope! There was an underpass.

The other side was almost a mirror image with another nice, paved and completely vacant road. The caches were the same too. After finding #45 I drove a few minutes and passed through town. I was just in time to be delayed 7 minutes by an incredibly long, slow moving train.

The 25 cache TV Series was on yet another paved frontage road. Here the caches were spaced 0.15 miles apart. But they were mostly 100’ off road. Many of them were prescription bottles attached by wire to their PVC holders. These were ‘a pain’ to log. It wasn’t easy to bend down and stay bent down while trying to open the locked caps with 1 hand. And then everything had to be put down to stamp the logs and return the containers.

In the end I found 66 caches (40 + 25 series caches & 1 odd ball) in 3 hours & 15 minutes. Thanks Tehachapi Fords for hiding all of them (minus the odd one).