Jeeping Day #1

The past 24 hours have brought some unusual desert weather.

We have had 0.76" of rain. 

Last week they had a blizzard that closed three interstate highways

and produced several inches of snow.

All this in an area that sees, on average, less than 2" of precipitation all winter.

Our campground is at nearly 4900' elevation.

This winter may not be so warm as those past.

No matter,

we plan to enjoy exploring.

China Wash is right behind our campground and the beginning of our route today.

We both spotted this unusual 'thing' and had to check it out. 

It looked like a kind of crystalline growth.

It turns out not to be crystals at all.

Water ran down the slope behind and splashed here creating bubbles.

The sand is fine and light enough that grains were lifted and became part of the bubbles.

When the water subsided these amazing structures remained.

More rain followed by........

 this wonderful rainbow. 

This is surely one of the most bizarre rocks I've ever seen.  There was an abundance of them in this one area.  This was by far the largest.

Someone(s) dug this big hole in hopes of finding an ore worth mining.

Apparently at this point they abandoned it.

A lot of work.

Vic has the binocular trained on our campground -

the cluster of white spots in the background are the RVs.

The view from our front window late this afternoon.

I ran outside to get this one last photo for the day.