Rebecca and her hubby head out to the desert for Thanksgiving every year, and their Death Valley/Mojave travels are always worth a peek. She has several posts planned. From the first major entry:

We swang through Barstow for gas and lunch, then headed east along I-15 towards Afton Canyon. There are several interesting things that happen in the short, 6-mile-long Afton Canyon: the Mojave River emerges from beneath the surface and flows through the desert, the railroad shipping lines run between the canyon walls, the historic Mojave Road passes through, and several interesting historical sites are scattered around.

Our plan was to set up camp in the campground at the east end of the Canyon, then drive in along the Mojave Road and check out the many sites I had queued up in my GPS. Unfortunately, the river was high enough to prevent us from crossing in our truck. It was certainly possible we could have made it across in our stock Trailblazer, but being solo we didn’t want to risk it – we probably could have been talked into it by someone with a winch! Instead, we did what we should have done at the beginning – strapped on our daypacks and started off on foot down Afton towards Spooky Canyon. It was 3 pm and seven miles round trip on flat, easy navigable terrain – piece of cake!

Too much water in the desert … hey, that’s why we like California.