Post by paulshiroma on Jul 1, 2011 0:17:45 GMT -5
Back last July, I took Andrew on his first rockhounding trip. It had been years since I had had the opportunity to do any rockhounding so, after some additional research into some of the local areas, we decided to try the Marble and Ship Mountain areas for opalite, trilobites, chalcedony, garnet, etc. We booked a room for the weekend of July 9-11, 2010 at the new FairField Inn in Twenty-Nine Palms and I secured the time-off from work. Since I only have a passenger car we also reserved a 4x4 rental.
A few weeks before we were to leave, one of my staff offered to swap vehicles with me so that I wouldn’t have to use the rental, which was really gracious of her. Actually, it was her husband’s 4x4 ;D. So, after work on Friday, I loaded up the truck and off we went.
The drive out to Twenty-Nine Palms was pretty uneventful, if a bit crowded due to Friday afternoon traffic. I had planned to get us to the hotel and checked in before 4:00 PM so that we could grab dinner and do a bit of rockhounding along Kelbaker Road.
We got out to Kelbaker Road without issue and my friend’s 4x4 had little difficulty in getting over the berm, through the wash, and out into the collecting area. We did some basic collecting finding only some minor things before we ran out of daylight and drove back to Twenty-Nine Palms.
Once back on the road, I noticed that I couldn’t get the truck out of 4WD. It didn’t seem to be having any problems otherwise – it just wouldn’t shift from 4WD to 2WD. So, after a bit of fiddling around, we drove back to the hotel and dropped off a call to my friend for some help (they were out and I only got voicemail).
Saturday, we drove to the local Dodge dealer who quickly looked underneath and mentioned that the connecting rod that joins the shift lever to the transfer case had apparently dropped off. He put in the order to have it express shipped to him and setup an appointment for me to leave the vehicle with him on Monday.
So, Andrew and I had an extra long weekend in a brand new hotel, swimming in the pool, playing video games, eating out and doing some site-seeing through Joshua Tree National Park, ironically enough – in a rental car! All in all, it was a really relaxing weekend and it worked out okay that we didn’t do any rockhounding since the local temperatures soared that weekend to well over 110.
We picked up the truck on Tuesday morning and headed for home. So, no rockhounding adventure but a really relaxing weekend.
As an aside, if you ever need a hotel in that area, the Fairfield Inn in Twenty-Nine Palms is relatively new (2009) and the staff is really great. They juggled rooms for us to ensure that we could stay as long as needed until the truck was fixed. Great bunch of folks.
Thanks for reading!
A few weeks before we were to leave, one of my staff offered to swap vehicles with me so that I wouldn’t have to use the rental, which was really gracious of her. Actually, it was her husband’s 4x4 ;D. So, after work on Friday, I loaded up the truck and off we went.
The drive out to Twenty-Nine Palms was pretty uneventful, if a bit crowded due to Friday afternoon traffic. I had planned to get us to the hotel and checked in before 4:00 PM so that we could grab dinner and do a bit of rockhounding along Kelbaker Road.
We got out to Kelbaker Road without issue and my friend’s 4x4 had little difficulty in getting over the berm, through the wash, and out into the collecting area. We did some basic collecting finding only some minor things before we ran out of daylight and drove back to Twenty-Nine Palms.
Once back on the road, I noticed that I couldn’t get the truck out of 4WD. It didn’t seem to be having any problems otherwise – it just wouldn’t shift from 4WD to 2WD. So, after a bit of fiddling around, we drove back to the hotel and dropped off a call to my friend for some help (they were out and I only got voicemail).
Saturday, we drove to the local Dodge dealer who quickly looked underneath and mentioned that the connecting rod that joins the shift lever to the transfer case had apparently dropped off. He put in the order to have it express shipped to him and setup an appointment for me to leave the vehicle with him on Monday.
So, Andrew and I had an extra long weekend in a brand new hotel, swimming in the pool, playing video games, eating out and doing some site-seeing through Joshua Tree National Park, ironically enough – in a rental car! All in all, it was a really relaxing weekend and it worked out okay that we didn’t do any rockhounding since the local temperatures soared that weekend to well over 110.
We picked up the truck on Tuesday morning and headed for home. So, no rockhounding adventure but a really relaxing weekend.
As an aside, if you ever need a hotel in that area, the Fairfield Inn in Twenty-Nine Palms is relatively new (2009) and the staff is really great. They juggled rooms for us to ensure that we could stay as long as needed until the truck was fixed. Great bunch of folks.
Thanks for reading!