It is funny. I am still in California, but it feels like I have landed on the Moon. Nothing is familiar to me. It is like starting life all over again. For one thing, this city is laid out northeast to southwest. I guess I am used to a nice grid. I knew where N,S,E,and W were. Now, I do know where the north star is in the night sky. And I can see where the sun is rising and setting, but my house is eschew from the cardinal directions. Boundary Cone is my best landscape reference, but it keeps moving, wait, are there two of them? See how bad it is. Hence the 360 degree mountain reference. Can you see what an amazing place this is? No wonder it is sacred to the Mojave Indians. Oh, and there is the fact that there are three US states. Ok, from now on it is the land of the Mojave Valley Nation. Nature recognizes no arbitrary boundaries, or just grows around them. We should do the same. I hope I have time to explore. It will take awhile. Here's hoping I stay out of the sand. I wonder if there is quicksand?
Here is home.N
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EAST: Four clicks east at the Topo site.
Northeast: Two clicks northeast at the Topo site.
The road through Oatman is using the Sitgreaves Pass. See below.
Four clicks northeast on the topo site:
I am definitely going to check this book out at our library. Hope it has what I want.
I am now reading Bitterness Road: The Mojave: 1604 to 1860 by Lorraine M. Sherer with Comments by Frances Stillman, A Mojave Elder.
The first official U. S. expedition to the area was in 1851 shortly after the U.S. acquired the Southwest from Mexico. It was headed by Captain L. Sitgreaves of the U. S. Topological Engineers. I mention it here because he traveled through the Black Mountains and the Union Pass and then on to the Colorado River and the Mojave villages.
See first topo map below.
The second topo map below shows Sitgreaves Pass, which he did not take, but was used by Ives who surveyed the area in 1859 and named for Sitgreaves.
North: Five clicks north on the topo site.
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