Last Thursday, late in the day, we left to drive to Death Valley. The weather forecast was pretty dismal, so we decided to take our time driving there. The choice was driving to Mojave down the 5 – OK, I give up, I am going to start adding a the to the freeways to identify them as freeways, southern California style, so the 5 it is –  or driving to Bakersfield down the 101 and then crossing over the coast range at Highway 58.

We chose the 101 and 58. I had been on 58 a month ago and loved it, but I had only been as far as the Corrizo Plain. It turns out that 58, through the Coast Range, is a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde road. Before and up to the Corrizo Plain, 58 wanders through oak covered hills with small, picturesque, ranches; after Corrizo, 58 goes through the Midway-Sunset oil fields. It was the end of the day and the sun was setting in an ominous sky which gave the oil fields an extra mordoresque oomph.

The next day, we were up early – for us – and headed over Tehachapi Pass into the Mojave Desert.

Just like the map show, everything changes from green to brown as we climbed up out of the Central Valley – or, The Great California Central Valley as we were taught as kids; and it should be called great: it is the largest flat place in the United States – and enter the Mojave Desert. Right at the pass, the wind farms have a lot more windmills than the last time we came over the pass. Each one is much bigger and they were all operating. As an aside; it is sort of strange that on the other side of the Coast Range, all the old windmills used to pump water have been replaced with photovoltaic cells to drive electric pumps; end of aside.

On the other side of the pass, the landscape opens up to the Mojave Desert. Deserts have personalities – the Arizona Desert (Sonora) is sort of a cowboys and Indians desert; Nevada, sagebrush and wild horses; the Mojave, Repoman and flying saucers, Charlie Manson, and -it turns out – spaceflight. In the distance is the gateway to the desert – the town, using the term very loosely – of Mojave.

The Town of Mojave is an interesting place. Because it is dry and close to the – former? – aircraft production and research center of Los Angeles, Edwards Airbase, and a rocket testing range; it is the center for alot of airplane related nonsense. That is nonsense to me, but probably not to the guys doing it. This is where the first non-stop, non-refueling, round the world flight started and ended. This is where Paul Allen’s SpaceShipOne took off and landed.

This is where Branson’s SpaceShipTwo is built. It is the airport – now called a Spaceport –  and, presumably, if you book a flight into space; this is where you will take off and, presumably again, land.

It is also a graveyard for discarded jets that may, or may not, be recycled into what we used to call the third world.

Beyond Mojave, the desert gets increasingly mountainous with vast valleys and iconic endless roads diminishing into a perspective lesson. We came from a road on the right and actually turned left towards Trona where we plan on leaving the paved road. If you double click on the photo, you can read the sign.

To be continued….

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We got this email from a neighbor – a neighbor that lives at least a mile away, though – yesterday and I am both horrified and thrilled.

We had a mountain lion kill a deer on our back porch, and it almost broke our sliding glass window.

(See the photograph below.)

It was very early in the morning, around 4-5am. The deer appears (footprints) to have gone to the watering hole. The mountain lion appears to have been in stalking mode on the stairs. It attacked the deer as it was moving along the back porch to the hillside.

The lion slammed the deer against the back slidingdoor, almost breaking it, then started eating a few feet away.It feasted in one abdominal, and butt area, without biting the neck or adding other wounds; it discarded the stomach and some green organs. My turning on the lights and shouting at it frightened it away. I dragged the carcass;300 feet to the eucalyptus tree line.

Upon returning 30 minutes later, I discovered something had been eating the bowels that fell out of the carcass, including the liver and possibly the heart. It could have been a cat, but also the mountain lion since Animal Control advised that it may still be in the vicinity. It may be feasting on the carcass right now.

Blue jays are squawking because lots of red-tailed hawks are swooping in for a feast on the kill. We can expect a lot of carnivore predators out tonight; bobcat, coyotes, mountain lion, etc.… I’ve called the neighbors to advise keeping their dogs indoors tonight.

I’d seen a mountain lion once at or near the house, and it was not very afraid of me when I cornered it next to a big bush/rock. It moved away, but not really fast, when I jumped and yelled. I have many photographs of bobcats which did not do this sort of damage. Also photos of coyotes which hunt in packs and bite the neck of the prey, dragging it down.

Animal Control may put out an alert for Portola Valley, suggested I keep a shotgun in the house, in case they break through the window the next time. We have a lot of windows around the porch, from which I have photographed a lot of bobcats, boars, and deer, but never a kill.

Portola Valley awaits you… with a carnivorous hummmmm……

Horrified because the whole thing seems much more violent that I thought it would be – not that I had thought about it very much – and I can now easily imagine a writhing deer/mountain lion combination breaking through our back door and rolling around the livingroom.  All I have is a 16" ruler to fend them off. Thrilled because the email came through the PV Garden Club which now seems much cooler; the writer seems so nonchalant, and thrilled because  we live in a town where they aren't scrambling helicopters and SWAT teams over this.