Medical Research

Recently I have taken to reading about the causes of prostate cancer.  Empathic readers will understand.  Which led me to these startling stories.

Medical researchers along with sociobiologists have recently discovered the cause of the swelling numbers of prostate cancer in men - rising exposure to and fixation on emails and web sites promising enhancement of the neighboring sex organ (you know).  The mechanism of this link remains unknown, tho some speculate that excessive abuse may not cause blindness alone.

Once they established this important process, these medical detectives turned their sights on female breast cancer, hoping to find causation from similar emails and web sites promising glandular augmentation.  Imagine their surprise to find that men read most of that content too.  They dubbed this discovery "Hugh Hefner Disease."

Many in the scientific community cite these results as proof of the accelerating decline and extinction of the male gender.  In anticipation, the National Organization of Women has been funding research on human hermaphroditic reproduction, or failing success, captive breeding.  Said a spokeswoman, "Those clowns won't take us with them."

"Quick, to the rocket ships, men.  Back to Mars!"

Bruce

Clancy is a Good Dog

There, I've said it.  Cause it's true.  In the past few months, he's really come around.  No longer a wild bouncy animal, nipping and barking constantly, waking me up at 6am every day.  [Tho now that we have moved back into California, his 7am is my 6am.  But you can hardly fault the guy for not understanding time zones.  Look at those Wall Street guys.  They mount multiple clocks on the wall because they can't keep track of time zones either.   Must be hard when you want to finagle money out of people all over the world.]

Back to Clancy, who has no assets, other than his looks.  He still has his moments.  Like here, 

when he has jumped behind our recliners, then can't decide how to extract himself from that area.  Several times, no less.  He's no Border Collie.

He's Clancy.  He has his song.  And he lives with us.

Bruce

Death Valley National Park

Say what you will about Death....

Whatta place.  Huge doesn't describe, and I'm too old to say humongous.  It's the largest national park in the lower 48.  In fact, I think it's larger than the land mass of the Hawaiian islands. 

Big. Too big for us to see more than a small portion in the four days we alloted. 

We dry camped for five nights, and felt satisfied with our new solar panel.  May get another one soon.

Each morning we drove out to different attraction, usually traveling one hundred miles per day.  Broad vistas, narrow canyons, a quirky castle built by a scoundrel, a creek with endangered pup fish, colorful hills.  It was the most unusual and unexpected place we've seen since Yellowstone National Park.

Here are a few thousand words.  And this is the condensed version.

Artists' Drive

 View from Furnace Creek

 Zabriski Point

 Mosaic Canyon Rock detail

Red Cathedral at the end of Golden Canyon

Just before our departure, a major wind storm tormented the area all night.  We drove 100 miles the next day, th. Then we waited another day for yet a second wind storm to blow through the area, rather than drive west through the Tehachipi Pass, which is treacherous in bad weather.  In fact, we waited out a snow storm in the Pass just a few months ago, on our trip east.

Bruce

Death Valley - No Contact

We're staying in Death Valley National Park for about one week.  No phone or internet service, so no blog posts.

Stay tuned for further information.  Don't forget to drink water tho.

Bruce

Joshua Tree National Park

Joshua Tree National Park

Say what you will about Joshua, with all his biblical spying and begatting, and his brother looking for free housing in dat fish's abdo'men [thank you Messieurs Gershwin], still he runs a nice park.

He could stand to spend a little money on cell towers tho.  No signal for phone or internet in our campground.  I walked a hard 1.2 miles to an overlook reputed for spotty cell service, only to find the adjective more accurate than the noun.

And all those rocks around the campground, lunging out (effectively) as you navigate the narrow roads and sites.  C'mon.  Move em or hear from my insurance company!

See how we protrude into the road.  Good thing our insurance agent doesn't read this blog (I think).

We started at Cottonwood Springs campground, at the southern entrance. No services at the sites, tho you can find water and septic at the entrance.  This marked the first time we relied on our solar panel for all our electrical power.  We found it sufficient.  Still want that inverter tho.

During our three days there, we drove from the southern entrance to the northwest corner.  The road connects the Colorado Desert to the higher Mojave Desert.  We saw fields of different plants appeared as we gained elevation.  Cholla Cactus Valley, smoke trees, joshua trees, creosote bushes, all growing densely at particular elevations in favorable soil and rain conditions.  Fascinating.

While we enjoyed the park immensely, we won't camp there again.  The campgrounds were not built for a trailer of our size.

On to Death Valley.


Bruce