Monday, January 23, 2012

First ATV Ride of the Season

 

Well, we finally got in a ATV ride. Been wanting to do these 2 geocaches since they were published several months back.

We started out with Dillon, Jean, Wanda and myself. At 10:00 we headed out. after going through several gates we took a break. Then began again. Around 11:30 Jean was feeling bad, so Dillon and her headed back home. Wanda and I continued on to the Petroglyphs where the first cache was. After a very short walk we found the cache and then drove down the road a few hundred yards to try and get out of the wind for lunch. Had lunch and on to the next cache about 2.5 miles further as the crow flies. Shortly after leaving the lunch spot the road turned up hill and across all kinds of rocks. It was slow going up then down the other side. We reached and found the second cache, the went on forward to Ft Cummings.

Here is the track from the GPS (36 Miles)

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Cache 1.

In 1846 at the request of the United States government, 500 men, 33 women, and 51 children from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints volunteered to serve in the U.S. Army as part of the Mexican-American War. The Mormon Battalion was the only religiously based unit in United States military history. They marched on foot from Fort Leavenworth, Kansas to Los Angeles, California.

This cache is found near where the Mormon Battalion camped on November 17, 1846. Many of the features they described are still here. Daniel Tyler, a member of the Battalion, wrote, “After leaving Cooke’s Spring, we passed through the gap in the mountains, and came to a place where mining, for precious metals, had evidently been carried on at sometime in the distant past. There were at least thirty holes cut in the solid rock, from ten to fourteen inches deep, and from six to ten inches in diameter, evidently for the purpose of catching and retaining water when showers occurred. Here we also found, for the first time, California partridges or quail. These bird do not differ much in size from those of the Eastern and Middle States, but are of a bluish color, and oblong bodies, and beautiful top-knots. They are swift runners. A new variety of oak was also found here, which has since received the name of Emory Oak (Quercus emoryi); also a new and very beautiful variety of oose, or Spanish bayonet, some of the leaves which are a yard long, with edges resembling saw-teeth and stalks running up the center for fifteen to eighteen feet high. One of our guides here killed two goats which must have strayed from some passing herd or been stolen and then lost by some Indians, as both were ear marked.”

 

Cache 2.

In 1846 at the request of the United States government, 500 men, 33 women, and 51 children from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints volunteered to serve in the U.S. Army as part of the Mexican-American War. The Mormon Battalion was the only religiously based unit in United States military history. They marched on foot from Fort Leavenworth, Kansas to Los Angeles, California.

The Mormon Battalion camped here November 16, 1846 prior to Fort Cummings and the Butterfield Stage Station being built here. Daniel Tyler, a member of the Battalion, wrote, “Passing around the base of a mountain on the 16th to a narrow canyon, we found a marshy water hole, which was given the name of “Cooke’s Spring.” Here we found much broken earthen ware scattered all over the ground.

Wanda and I made it back home around 3:45 PM.

That’s all.