Livin’ the Dream … The Diaries of a Madman

[KOWBOY]

Floatin' marina and boat ramp at Echo Bay.

 

[KOWBOY]

Drivin' Echo Wash.

 

[KOWBOY]

Concrete sinkers that anchor the floatin' marina. Now a coupla miles up the wash from the existin' marina location.

 

[KOWBOY]

Standin' in front of the truck at the end of Echo Wash lookin' straight ahead at the gravel road goin' up to the parkin' lot. 4 foot deep ditch 'tween me and the road is VERY well disguised. My woman's intuition saved me big time on this one.

 

[KOWBOY]

Boathouse Cove Road.

 

[KOWBOY]

The twisty canyon the road comes up with the north end of Lake Mead down the valley in the background.

Sittin' on top of the first pass and then goin' on down the road.

 

[KOWBOY]

This climb was the definite "gate keeper" for this trail. Certainly steeper than it looks and real potholed. Made this trail a "3" on a scale of 1 to 5. 4wd a must and lockers helped. I crawled with ease.

 

[KOWBOY]

Road on down as sun was gettin' low.

And ended at Boathouse Cove in a tight canyon.

 

[KOWBOY]

Saturday, 21 December

Since I was parked in a deep valley, sunshine was slow gettin’ to me this mornin’. In fact, I was underway ‘fore she made it. Took over two hours to cover the 9 miles back to the main drag. The handful of obstacles were downhill in this direction so just eased on outta there. Nice ride on a beautiful, sunny day in Southern Nevada.

Next turn was the Bittersprings Road. With a tiny sign under the big sign that was added on to recommend 4 x 4. I’m thinkin’ this is a liability, cover-your-ass kinda deal for the gover’ment. In case ya get stuck, can’t say ya weren’t warned. Weren’t no fear of getting’ stuck on this one. Coulda drove an AMC Pacer Wagon down it. ‘Member them? Road ran to the Park boundary and kept goin’ thru the BLM land. Map shows it might go all the way out to I-15. Don’t know, don’t care. Turned around. Road has no redeemin’ qualities at all. 30 minutes of my life that I’ll never get back.

Next stop was the trailhead parkin’ lot for the Northshore Summit Trail. Trail went quarter mile straight up to get on top of a lil’ mountain. Tough, steep hike but pretty views from up there.

Next turn off was for the Callville Wash South … 4 x 4 recommended. Nice, big wash for the first mile or so. Then a nasty switchback that crosses a smaller wash. Here’s where most the tire tracks turned around. It was really tight for the Ford. Kinda like a Lane Bryant shopper tryin’ on thangs in Victoria Secrets … just not made for a full figure. Had ‘er in 4-low and locked up. Off camber to boot and I didn’t care much for it. But got across. Then a fairly steep, loose downhill back into the broad wash. ‘Bout 3 uneventful miles down the wash brought me to the end of the road. No need for a sign here. Can’t go no further without a boat. Pretty cool spot. Directly across the bay from the huge Callville Bay Marina. Massive, floatin’, covered marina filled with mega-buck houseboats. Time to camp.

LOTS of helicopters flyin’ cross the sky. Must be right on the flight path for haulin’ the tourists from Vegas to go see the Grand Canyon from the sky.

Hiked ‘round on the shoreline of my lil’ cove. Sorta like them survival shows on the tee-vee where they’re scroungin’ thru the trash that’s washed up so they can live to see another day. I really like the show where they’re buck-ass nekkid. I got no need for that tho. I’m walkin’ ‘round with some hi-tech clothin’ on and a cold beer in my hand. Fawk ‘em. Anyways … whole buncha water bottles. Worse thang we ever did to this planet was invent friggin’ bottled water. Lots of kids toys too. Reckon when the parents ain’t lookin’, the young’uns are chunkin’ their toys over the side of the boat. And quite a few pieces of weathered lumber. Reckon from when they was buildin’ the marina ‘cross the bay years ago.

Whoa now ... I say WHOA!

Lumber. That’s sorta like wood. Wood burns. Wood burnin’ in camp is a campfire. Reckon if’n a fella had even the least bit of gumption, he could gather all this up and have hisself a campfire. A campfire in the desert on the shores of Lake Mead ... you gotta be s***tin’ me. I commenced to havin’ some gumption.

Tote some lumber … drink some beer. Tote some lumber … drink some beer. Took me ‘bout 5 of them cycles but I got all there was to get. Then whipped out the secret weapon. The Stihl MS201 is the smallest and lightest saw in their Professional Series. Really sweet lil’ piece of machinery. Made quick work of tidyin’ up the lumber into manageable size.

Tote some stones … drink some beer. Tote some stones … drink some beer. Got enuf gathered up for a nice fire ring. Got me a lil’ wood pyramid built and ready to light ‘er off. Sun’s just now fixin’ to ease on over the horizon. Time to head outside.

 

[KOWBOY]

Sunrise at Boathouse Cove.

 

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Down the "gate keeper" ...

back up the road ...

and sittin' in that twisty canyon on the way back to blacktop.

 

[KOWBOY]

The Bittersprings Road. Only of note for the tiny lil' "4 x 4" sign attached to the left signpost.

 

[KOWBOY]

Nice shot from the top of the Northshore Summit Trail.

 

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Down the Callville Wash South.

 

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Campin' at Callville Bay.

The Callville Bay Marina on the opposite side of the bay can be seen in the background.

 

[KOWBOY]

on a mission ...

 

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Sunset on Callville Bay, Lake Mead.

 

[KOWBOY]

Go 'head ...

I dare ya.

I DARE ya to try to convince me that this here ain't Livin' Large.

 

[KOWBOY]

Sunday, 22 December

Yesterday evenin’ was a most excellent example of why the hell I’m out here.

Soon as I stepped outta the camper, spotted a fox easin’ his way down the shoreline. Beautiful critter. Hope he ain’t pissed I done gathered up all the lumber.

Lit that fire. Then kept pourin’ the wood to ‘er and pourin’ the beer to me. Switched over to the exterior speakers on the camper stereo. Stars so close I wanted to try to grab ‘em. And damned near got drunk enuf to try. Latest I’ve stayed up on this trip. Finally burned up all the wood and crawled … liter’ly … my sorry ass up into my bunk. Livin’ large.

Sunrise came to another perfectly clear, blue sky this mornin’. Done run outta eggs and pancake mix too. Bowl of Frosted Flakes and start packin’ up. Took the time to tote all them stones away and distribute ‘em in back in the wash ... with the blackened side turned down. Just a lil’ pile of ashes to blow away in the lake like the ashes of your dear-departed great uncle. Left only tire tracks. Took only pictures.

Throwin’ the doubler lever in while still in 2wd seems to be a real nice gear ratio for easin’ on down these washes. Just idle along and enjoy the scenery. That steep, loose downhill was now uphill. Threw them levers into 4-low and locked ‘er up. 1500 rpm and eased on up without even spinnin’ the meats. That nasty switchback was a lil’ easier goin’ out ‘cause you could see to hug the bank on the driver’s side. Couldn’t stop for no pics in the middle of it ‘cause lost my emergency brake coupla days ago. Maybe broke one of them new cables. Mite have to look into that one day.

Throw them levers back into reg’lar 2wd and just ease straight across the black top. Puts a fella onto the Anniversary Mine Road … 4 x 4 recommended. Just a gravel road and goes up to an actual mine. Big sign says ya can dig around if’n ya want. Got no int’rest in that and the road was borin’ so turned around. On the way back down I followed some tracks off the main road into a wash that ran parallel to the road. Change of scenery. Whoever the hell made them tracks weren’t drivin’ no fullsize rig. Got myself in some right sticky situations. Gotta coupla pics of the first squeeze. Then got myself into a hairpin corner that I flat-out had no bid’ness bein’ in. Tried to make the turn and started spinnin’ the tires. Hit the rear locker but weren’t enuf. Thankfully the front hubs was still engaged from the trail across the road. Since I couldn’t open neither door. Woulda had to of done a Dukes of Hazard and went out the window I reckon.

Last few days I been workin’ real hard on buildin’ a solid relationship with them levers for my Atlas. Ain’t no dif’rent than dealin’ with a woman. Ya mite like to be thinkin’ you’re the Boss … but ya ain’t. Gotta work ‘em just right to even have a hope of gettin’ what ya want. Got three sticks to play with. Sometimes throwin’ one ya don’t want allows ya to throw one that ya do. Not outsmartin’ ‘er in any form or fashion … just takin’ what she’ll give ya. But I’m friggin’ stuck now and I can’t even open my damned doors. I need to my front axle. I need ‘er now. And I can’t go forward or back’ards to try to coax ‘er along. Gotta remain calm. Any sign of desperation at this point in time mite put me at a serious disadvantage in our relationship. I start by sayin’ ”please”. Never hurts to mind your manners. Then I gently caress the shifter knob. Runnin’ my fingers lightly ‘round the whole knob. Touch here … touch there. Teasin’. I know she’s ready now. I can feel it. Damned thang slipped in like butter. Just like ya read about. Hit the front locker for a coupla turns of the tires and pulled the big ol’ beast outta that corner and onto straight ground. Just good livin’.

Back on the main road and down to the turn-off for the mega-marina at Calville Bay that I had been starin’ at last night. Really nice set-up here. Didn’t look deserted like Echo Bay. Nice lookin’ bar but was too early I reckon and they was closed. Bummer. Went in the lil’ store and got a detailed trail map of the area and a Dr. Pepper. Campground had a really nice RV dump station so I pulled in there. Topped off with water and emptied the lil’ s*** tank. Just ‘cause I could. Back out to the main drag and down the road.

For the first time, I bypassed a road. The “West End Wash Road” was a dead end and headed away from the lake so I didn’t see much future in it. Hope I didn’t miss anythang. Which then led me to the turn-off for the next road that happened to be headin’ towards the lake. Road went to both Boxcar Cove and Crawdad Cove. No mention of 4 x 4 on this one. Terrible washboard road. Eased along just as slow as if were a real 4wd road. At the fork, took a left to head to Boxcar Cove. Don’t know why. Just did. More miserable washboards. Did get down to the lake tho. Not a real nice area since so readily available to Joe Public. Fella in an ol’ 2wd Dodge with an even older metal topper on the back was camped in the middle of the area. Seady lookin’ fella. Big pile of firewood so reckon not leavin’ anytime soon. Followed a two-track that goes off to the left over the bluff. Not real sure if’n it’s a legal road or not. Pretty good climb and grab 4wd high and the doubler. Get to the top and I spy my prize down below. A rocky spit of land stickin’ out into the lake. Hike a short bit to confirm the road goes down there. Dropped down a few pretty good ledges and then went down a sandhill. And out on to the point. Surrounded on three sides by water.

This rig was conceptualized, designed, and built so that I could briefly live in a spot exactly like this spot. Got ‘er parked and set up in no time. Sat out on that rocky point in the bright sunshine and drank beer all afternoon. What a great spot. Water drops off deep from the rocks. Be great fun in the summer to dive off ‘em if’n ya can take the heat. I won’t be here in the summer. Bet lotsa Folks will tho.

 

[KOWBOY]

Always practice good camp etiquette.