Above quote from Nole upon seeing the lava field from the lip of the crater.  It is kind of weird (for a Midwesterner) how there are miles (and miles and miles) with no homes, gas stations or anything but nature and loooong roads. 

This morning we had cereal for breakfast at our free campsite at Kelso Dunes. 

Right after breakfast the boys and I ran off to climb the dunes.  We had plans for 3 hikes today (one without Nole and the girls and two as a family).  We left in such a rush that we forgot our day pack and didn’t bring any water.  Luckily the weather was cool and we had just drank a bunch of juice at breakfast.

We spotted lots of animal tracks and it was a good time of day to take pictures of them because the sun was still low.  Below you can see a bird (probably a raven), an unknown one (the boys say dog but I think it’s something else), and a hamster (the line is made by the tail).

We hiked over the smaller dunes and then the boys went on to climb the largest dune in sight.

I got some peaceful time to myself to just enjoy the sunshine. 

Below you can see our RV in the distance. 

When we separated, I thought maybe they would climb half way and slide down on their bottoms.  They instead decided to climb to the top.   They looked like ants on an ant hill.  They are the little specks in the middle of the first pic below and at the top of the dune in the second pic.  I took these with my camera zoomed all the way in.  The last picture is without zoom from my vantage point. 

They slid and rolled down the dune which they said was fun but got sand everywhere.  And then cheerfully walked back to me.  There were a few times I got a bit worried.  It took them a long time to go the last 200 feet or so up and I thought “they’re dying of dehydration!” or “they got sand in their eye!” but in the end they weren’t even thirsty and made it back with sand just about everywhere except their eyes.  Also, I am still trying to convince Cal that the dunes are a natural phenomena; he insists they have got to be man made!

Then it was time to head to our next planned hike, Amboy Crater.  This one was of particular interest to Nole and the trail guide said it would take about 3 hours to complete.  Nole drove the RV for the first time as we headed down the 3 mile long SUPER bumpy road from our camp site to the main road in Mojave National Preserve.  Once on that main road (which was blissfully smooth) we decided we didn’t want to go back down the bumpy road again if we could avoid it. 

Our itinerary had one more night there so we would need to find a new place for tonight.  But that was a problem for later.  We got to Amboy and started our hike. 

The Amboy Crater was formed by volcanic activity over 10,000 years ago.  The area around it is a lava field and full of pumice stones and ash. 

The hike takes you around the side from the view above to an area that was “blown out” by the eruption and isn’t as high up.  From there you can go inside the crater and/or hike around the rim of the crater.  We opted to do the inside only and then hiked back.  In all, it took us less than 2 hours.  The two pictures below were taken inside the crater. 

We decided on a direction we wanted to head to get a spot for the night and then honed in on what seemed to be the best option.  It was the least out of our way, was free and had a dump station (the shitter was full).  So we pulled into a Flying J truck stop at about 4pm, emptied our literal tanks and grabbed a free RV parking spot for the night.  We had an early dinner of chicken and mashed potatoes and we all went in to the convenience store to get some snacks and treats before bedtime. 

I’m not sure yet if we will do anything exciting tomorrow.  We decided to skip Trona Pinnacles for tomorrow since the road in may be rough and we also wanted to reduce our planned miles a bit.  We planned out tomorrow night’s stop but our old itinerary won’t match up for a day or two so we will have to wing it a bit.  Oh and we missed one of planned hikes because it turns out, two hikes a day is plenty so we will try and do that one on the way back to Nevada.