The old Mojave Trail

The guys have been planning to do the old Mojave Trail for some time now. I've been shown tons of pictures and blogs to persuade me to join their excursion...well Josh won and I tagged along. I wasn't too excited to jump in a car with an almost 1 1/2yr old and trying to keep Caleb entertained can be a challenge. But all in all it wasn’t as bad as I had imagined but my back sure took a beating turning around ever so often to hand him toys, snacks, drinks etc. We left Friday and decided that we'd take our time during our drive to Laughlin, NV. Our first stop was the Bass Pro Shop....yeah that was FUN and the kids loved looking around at all the dead carcasses all over the walls and the HUGE fish in the neat tanks. Next stop were the Outlets in Barstow for lunch and some retail therapy. We finally arrived at our hotel Avi (not quite in NV). We took the kids to the pool to burn off some built up steam, that ended a little too soon because the pool was mainly in the shade and there was a slight breeze and needless to say they got cold. The Cains arrived not too long after and we all got together for some dinner, made plans for our early morning departure and picked the same eating place for our breakfast stop in the morning.

And so our journey began…

The ride

driving Papa's truck

Wonder what he's thinking

No we have nothing to do with building the Thomas buses

3 little monkey's sitting in Papa's truck

Just pulled off on the begining of the trail and the guys are airing down

Say NO to crack

One of the many cattle crossings

Cairns (pile of rocks, aka petrified dinosaur poop...what we told Emily). This is what we followed and how we could tell we were on the right trail

Coral at Ft Piute

Missing any rocks??? These kids might have them. Cups and rocks kept them busy for hours

The trail in the distance is the road we just traveled

The wheels on the bus go round and round

Perfect photo prop

Penny can. Put a penny in for good luck

Nevada Southern Railway

That's one dirty mush

Snooooooze time

The stick gatherers

Buds

Cooking some dinner

What guys?

Camp

Group Shot

Old Indian Petroglyph's covered these rocks

Camp Rock Spring

Old Indian Petroglyph's

ssssss...SNAKE

Coral and Government watering holes

The kids at Kelso Train Station

Old Post Office

We ended the trail at Kelso and weren't able to finish the other half. The kids got restless and we found out there was a race on the other half of the trail. So we decided this was a good stopping point, considering we still had a good 3 hours driving home. Maybe later in the year we’ll finish the other half…I was really looking forward to seeing the Lava Tubes.