The challenges of blogging while teaching….and, also, off to the Mojave Desert for spring break!

Maybe it's because the last couple of years have been challenging teaching years for me. Maybe I'm getting old and decreipit; maybe it's something else; maybe, maybe, maybe….. But I'm finding it hard to keep up with regular blogging and teaching, even to report in on the little adventures that Kathy and I take around southern California. Besides the usual problems of teaching, I've been fighting with my iPhone which, thank you very much Steve Jobs, now does not like to play either with any of the non-Apple products, or even with a Mac using all Apple gear. Don't get me going on THAT one….

So I'm going to try to do better, without making any promises. When last we left you, we were just starting off for a winter holiday vacation to Death Valley. Since then we've been to Bakersfield (stop snickering; there's quite a bit to see and do there) and a return to Tehachapi over the President's Day weekend, and we've just returned from another four-day jaunt to the Mojave.

I debated on whether to do the most recent trip to the Mojave first, or finish with the winter break Death Valley trip. I've decided for the former, though I'll get around to the latter RSN (real soon now), I hope.

In brief, we went to the Mojave, and then returned to Ash Meadows, a national wildlife refuge about 40 minutes to the east of Death Valley. We had visited it wholly by accident on the second day of our Death Valley trip, and realized that there was lots more to do in this desert wetland. Thinking that the rains might have made even more things bloom and have water on the ground, we decided to make it the focal point of our tour. Along the way, however, we stopp ed by the California poppy reserve in the Antelope Valley west of Lancaster (the far western part of the Mojave Desert), started to explore the old Route 66 that lies to the south and north of the current route of Interstate 40 to the east of Barstow, and drove through the Mojave to Kelso and then on to Nipton, California. We saw the Ivanpah solar array, passed by the bizarre casino architecture in Primm and Las Vegas, breakfasted with an old friend who relocated recently to Las Vegas, and the drove to Ash Meadows. California and Nevada are filled with landscapes of astonishing beauty, even in the deserts. Stay tuned for a blow-by-blow account of our travels.

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Source: The challenges of blogging while teaching….and, also, off to the Mojave Desert for spring break!