We spent an exciting day off-road with our friends, Ray and Kathy, in their bright red Jeep.
We started our adventure at an elevation of about 1100 feet at Caliente Springs. Our friends are experienced at off roading. Other Half and I are rookies. They advised us to brace for the dust and the bouncing.
Our goal was to reach the summit of Santa Rosa Mountain, a mere 8000 feet above sea level. We packed sandwiches, water bottles and an unopened bag of chips. The perfect mountaintop lunch.
The ride up the mountain was indeed dusty. And bouncy. In fact, we bounced so much that it tricked my FitBit Zip into crediting me with walking 18,892 steps. I’ll take it. Makes up for all those steps I lost when I ran my first FitBit Zip through the washer.
The road was narrow and required some maneuvering to clear fallen rocks and washed out embankments. We stopped along the way to take in the spectacular views.
We even saw snow along the mountainside. Hard to realize there’s snow anywhere in this area when the temps range from warm and windy to sweat-your-butt-off and windy.
The higher we went the bigger the trees got. There was also evidence of fire. A couple of the trees carried cryptic messages about the dangers of fire.
We reached the summit, took in the expansive views and pulled out the sandwiches and the chips. Have you ever wondered what happens to a bag of potato chips at an elevation of 8000 feet? Me either. My general expectation, if I had one, would be that nothing happens to a bag of chips at 8000 feet. That would be wrong.
The chip bag was ready to POP. Something must of happened to the air pressure inside the bag. Or whatever.
The good news is we got the bag opened prior to it popping. An off road adventure is always better with chips.