Back to the desert

I was lazy on Saturday and didn't go anywhere. On Sunday, I was planning to try hiking up White Canyon again, but due to a fortunate set of circumstances, I went on a much shorter hike. I relaxed so much on vacation that I'm kind of out of shape. My legs were getting wobbly by the time I got back to the truck.

I saw a few flowers on this hike. These are Mexican Gold Poppies.

Blue Lupines.

Hedgehog cactus.

I haven't looked these up.

I had been in the area I went to yesterday before, several years ago. At that time I had seen white markers on posts off in the distance. I wondered what they were, but not enough to go look at one. Well, I probably wouldn't have learned anything if I had gone to look at them, anyway. Unless I had gone to this one.

A marker that has fallen over.

Hey, I bet there's something interesting in here. I hope it isn't a practical joke.

Paper, in a baggy to keep it dry.

A mining claim, filed on 1/2/1998. I figured it was something like that.

I wonder if mining claims expire if you don't do anything with them, and how long it takes to expire. I might have to put back all that gold I found. Ha!

On a completely different note, and inspired somewhat by yesterday's earthquake and by this funny feeling I have that something is about to happen, I hereby predict that on either 4/6 or 4/9, there will be a mostly unexpected event related to a volcano that will make world headlines.

Have you every heard somebody say, "I thought that was going to happen!" I think things are going to happen all the time, but they don't. It's probably something I got from Mom. She's the best worrier in the world. Anyway, I'm wrong 99.9% of the time, which I think is probably worse that random chance would allow, which is probably why worriers think it's a good thing they worried about something (as if they somehow prevented it from happening). Anyway, I figure that by writing this prediction down, I will be able to see how wrong I was in a few days, and maybe I will be able to dismiss such premonitions more quickly in the future. Gee, I hope Mount Rainier doesn't send a pyroclastic flow through Seattle. Click below to see all of the pictures.

2010_04_04