Today started in a completely unexpected way: with Sean sending me to grab something and that something being a note that started me on an incredibly creative and sweet scavenger hunt, leading me around the house and eventually to a little anniversary gift that he'd promised he wasn't bothering with this year. The gift was labeled from "Sausage" (one of our dogs) though, so I guess he did manage to keep his promise, and I owe our dog some treats as a thank you. :p The gift: The Jungle Book: Rhythm and Groove PS2 game. I didn't even know such a game existed! No clue how our dog always manages to find such rare items for me.
Sean's mom is apparently better at celebrating our anniversary than I am too because the next thing on our agenda was opening a card she'd sent, wishing us a happy bronze anniversary and concealing a bunch of money she'd sent for us to spend on a nice meal! (In light of the current state of things — Coronavirus and all — I think that will amount to a lot of take out. Haha) THANK YOU!!! ^_^
Deciding to celebrate away from home today required a combination of a little thinking outside the box and willingness to leave things to chance. Our initial plan was to drive 1 hour 15 minutes to Roger Spring hot spring to the north of Lake Mead. We'd never been before and had been wanting to explore a couple of other sights on the way to it. The location was so remote, we didn't see any reason not to go or for it to be closed. Still, we didn't get our hopes too high and were ready for disappointment, so when the road entering the Lake Mead area was entirely closed off, we did little more than laugh.
We headed back the way we came and then continued to Arizona, assessing our options along the way. They didn't make it easy on us. It seemed all entrances to Lake Mead were closed as was nearly every other nook and cranny of desert road we could think up where others don't normally venture much. The roads to little places like White Rock (where we had yet to explore), Willow Beach, the Gold Spike hot springs trail, and everything else we could think up were barricaded. Even the Hoover Dam Lodge was fully shut down with the roads into it closed off, its power out, its parking lot empty. (There would've been nothing for us to do there anyway but it was just strange to see.)
Finally, not long after crossing the border into Arizona, we gave up and went to u-turn, but curiosity got the better of us just as we were doing so. Across from us was one of the first open roads we'd found since leaving Boulder City. We couldn't tell where it led but it didn't look like the sort of road most people would ever give a second look to when driving by. All you could see from the highway was a rocky, unpaved entrance that instantly turned off and was sign posted with a warning — something about there being nowhere to turn around ahead or it being a several mile-long dead end or something. I couldn't resist. Apparently, it was called Black Joe Mine Road. 4x4s were recommended, but we didn't get more than maybe half a mile on it before I started seriously doubting that it was traversable for your average 4x4, and our cell service there was spotty at best. Still, I had to know where the road led, so we decided to park and hike out into the near-silent desert to dispel the mystery.
We couldn't have been much luckier with the weather: ultimate cloud cover with light, intermittent sprinkles of rain. Had we gone one day later, the sun would've ripped us a new one.
As the road vanished into the distance and the trail wound up, down, and around the rocky hills, we became increasingly surrounded by a rainbow of flowers, many I'd never seen before, particularly not in the desert. I had no idea any part of the nearby desert area I now call home was capable of such vibrance! Of it all, however, the most odd plant life we encountered must've been this vivid, orange, string-like vine that, at first, I honestly mistook for plastic netting. It was so thin. I'd assumed someone had abandoned a net in the desert and that it'd caught on the bush I'd spotted it on and melted into place. As we walked onward though and I became more observant, I soon noticed the strange, orange plant engulfing vast areas of desert, clinging, in particular, to all the other plant life it could grab hold of. It was so strange, I could hardly believe I'd lived so close to it for 13 years now without ever before seeing, or at least noticing, it. There was no shortage of other awe-inspiring sights during our little adventure, but all paled in comparison, in terms of strangeness, to that orange plant.
After an hour of walking, we found another vehicle. We wondered how it'd made the trek up and thought the owners were pretty brave for daring to attempt it. As we approached, however, that stopped being the most curious thing that came to mind. The vehicle had a Colorado license plate, a broken windshield, and no owners in sight in any direction. We deduced that they must've driven up recently, cracked the windshield on this or another such road, and decided to hike, likely up the nearby mountain, today.
Our first trail seemed to end there but there seemed to be another trailhead just in front of the vehicle. There was also a trail headed off to the right. We opted for the one to the right and walked til it reached what seemed to be an end. With a field of flowers that may not have been lavender (I have no idea what they were) covering what could possibly have been a trail to our left and a dead end at a large hill with a dry riverbed in front of it ahead of us, we eventually opted to go right. There was no sign of the mine that we assumed the road had been named after, but I can't honestly say we looked very hard either. Instead, we decided to wander back this new way, adjacent to the riverbed until that seemed to either vanish or maybe just get left behind by our wanderings. Our sense of direction didn't fail us though. In hindsight, I suppose we might have had to put some effort into getting truly and utterly lost between all the geographical giveaways. Still, it was fun to loose the path for awhile.
Other noteworthy moments from our hike included:
-Finding a good-sized lizard, who was too cold to move himself out of the way, in our path. Fortunately, Sean saw him before our shoes got to give him a less pleasant greeting, and we were able to relocate him to a more choice location.
-Stopping for a short picnic, where we scarfed down a couple of well-earned pb&js while paint markering a nearby rock to commemorate the moment. (If you're pissed about us writing on a rock, feel free to see yourself out from here! :D)
We reached our vehicle again after being away for 2.5 hours. Obviously, celebrations were in order so we busted out the shandy, snacks, more food, sausages (for dogs), and 90's Megamix dance hits for a sort of tailgate party. 🥳 A couple last rock-defacings and shenanigan-partakings later and we were headed back towards our comforts at home.
As we reached the Nevada border again, we saw highway notice boards announcing things such as, "ENTERING NV - SELF ISOLATE FOR 14 DAYS - STAY AT HOME ORDERS IN EFFECT" Well....you can't really socially distance much harder than we just did.
Back at home, we didn't let the fun die. Amongst other things, we spent our evening with friends (virtually, via Zoom) and solo dancing like the loners we are. Lol
It was our friend Nayla's virtual graduation party so we joined in to celebrate and hang online with her, her sister, and dance game friends. Getting silly with Jackbox games and the big bottle of whiskey Sean and I had handy were just a couple of the things that made it so fun. It was so nice getting to catch up and see some familiar faces.
Later, Sean and I busted out Just Dance 2016 and Hip Hop Dance for the 360, as I don't think we'd played either before, and got to laugh at each other's horrible dancing. XD What's a spouse for, right? Anyway, we had an early morning this morning but a fairly late night at the end of an awesome, if impromptu, celebratory day.
So...What's in store for year 9 then? 🤔
