Eastern California Petroglyphs - May 2019

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An Anniversary, Ancient Rock Art, & When the World Went Dark

It was a perfect morning.  Moments like this are why we travel, why we love to wake up in what many mistakenly call the middle of nowhere. We think of it as the center of everything. The light was just beginning to build. It was around 30 minutes before the first songs of day birds would ease into the quiet. The low was around 40° so all our windows were open. We were wrapped in the scent of sage as the first coyote's song whispered toward us from far to the east. Other coyotes joined in and the chorus lasted only a few seconds and again it was only us and quiet and sage. As I said, it was a perfect morning, one filled with life, contentment, and possibilities.

We were not alone so I must back up in this narrative to explain.

We left home Sunday, Cinco de Mayo, and it was our friend's, Barking & Mom Spider, 35th wedding anniversary. We were honored that they wished to join us on an adventure as a way to celebrate. We had a surprise for them. Our friends, The Teds, would be joining us at our first campsite.

Mrs. Ted was  watching the resident herd of feral horses when we arrived. Ted is doing remarkably well with his chemotherapy and is able to camp on his non-infusion weekends. Mom Spider stayed at camp with Ted as the rest of us walked and explored the surrounding granite mountains.

We found a series of bore holes for core samples from one of the intrusions.

We suspect these are for a geologic study of this area. The late afternoon was incredible as we returned to camp. Thunderstorms built and we wondered if we would get hit.

We sat out in the night after dinner and enjoyed the pleasant company of our friends. The Spiders, with their milestone anniversary, were the deserving center of attention. Barking launched into wonderful well worn stories recounting their early years. Mom Spider artfully corrected the facts when necessary. We heard how Mom did not answer Barking's proposal of marriage until a year later. You need to be sure about such things. A favorite story was about how clean she found the kitchen in Barking's house when she first visited, very unusual, she thought, for a single male. Turns out that Barking Spider's survival strategy for getting fed was to date waitresses. Laughter drifted across our campsite until it was time to turn in for the night. The storm passed us by just to the north.

The stories continued the next morning.

We said our goodbyes to The Teds as they headed toward home. Our first stop for the Spiders was a well known petroglyph site in the Volcanic Tablelands north of Bishop.

This site has an incredible array of petroglyphs of different ages showing long use of this area as a canvas for rock art.

Here is a very old and primitive sheep depiction.

What continues to draw us to visit this site is the multitude of footprints.

There are also bear tracks and another interesting style.

We took our time and thoroughly explored this fascinating area.

I especially like this one that, to me, could be a California Condor.

I noticed a large nest up on a cliff face and pointed it out to the others. A raven flew from the nest, confirming our thought that it was a raven nest. The bird seemed undisturbed and was joined by its mate on a nearby high point to watch us. The two kids in our group, Barking Spider and the Lady, had to, just had to, climb up and investigate.

The raven quickly returned to the nest and eggs.

Our little buddy, Barking Spider, celebrated not getting carried off and eaten by the ravens.

It was time to call it a day and head to our private hot spring campsite for the night.

Tuesday we put our friends, the Spiders, to work. There is an ancient rock art site we've been searching for for several years. The Lady and I are getting to know the area quite well. "We know a lot of places where it is not," the Lady explains. 

We first visited an old homestead.

We really wished we had Ted along with us when we discovered the old car. With Ted we could have gotten this relic running again.

We enjoyed a long lunch before driving on to our search area. Having the extra pairs of eyes helped as we found so many new clues, but still not the main site we searched for.

Wandering among the pinyon pines, sage, and indian paintbrush was a wonderful way to spend a day with friends.

We returned to camp for another incredibly relaxing night.

Wednesday we continued our tour of ancient rock art sites with our friends. But first we wanted to share a marvelous view of the meandering Owens River.

A long drive took us to another area to explore and search out ancient rock art.

Days spent like this, one after another, are a treasure.

Again it was time to head to a private hot spring campsite. Three nights in a roll after long days exploring and searching was well deserved decadence. Our final evening delivered with nice colors.

Our trip was over Thursday morning and we found it hard to leave.

At the top of this story I gave this adventure three  titles - An Anniversary, Ancient Rock Art, and When the World Went Dark. Forgive me, but I expect you will find this third part unnerving. I do. The vision in my left eye went dark during this trip. I found I could no longer see any of the focus points through my camera's viewfinder. It got worse, to the point that I called when we had cell service and set up an appointment with my ophthalmologist as soon as we returned home. The Lady took over driving. Since I had cataracts removed and lens implants iin both eyes in  February, I expected I was experiencing posterior capsule opacification, a common complication.This was not the case as I heard during the examination, "New retinal detachment. He needs to see a retinal surgeon today!"

 

I am now two weeks post eye surgery. My vision is still poor. I expect it will be a slow and gradual recovery. How will this new adventure of ours turn out? As in everything else, we'll find out. There are not two more positive people than the Lady and me. Just like we will someday find that elusive petroglyph site we have put so much effort in finding, I'll heal up fine and the view through the camera viewfinder will be clear and bright again.

 

I will tell you, editing these photos and typing up this narrative has been a real chore. I must really enjoy doing this. I do.