January 19-25 -- Birds, Goblins -- And My Hot Water Hose Popped Off

Now that I've captured your attention with that post title...And, of course, it's all true. These past few days started out normally enough with a 2 more trips to the Overton Wildlife Management Area here. Though I didn't see anything terrifically spectacular, I saw some unusual (for me) sightings. The great thing about the wildlife area is it's so vast -- over 17,000 acres -- that you feel like you can see anything at any given time... Here are some of the birds I encountered --

Prairie Falcon (only the second time I've seen one at the OWMA).

Crissal Thrasher -- a "resident" here, but usually a hard bird to see as it's very secretive.

Rio Grande Wild Turkeys, a transplanted species; the OWMA is probably the best place in SE Nevada to view wild turkeys

A female Northern Harrier with the red rock of the Valley of Fire in the background

And later that evening, I went to an overlook of the Moapa Valley and and the OWMA's Honeybee Pond for the sunset -- 

On January 22 it was time for a return to Little Finland in the Gold Butte area of SE Nevada. It's a fascinating place; it's also referred to as "Hobgoblin's Playground" and "Devil's Fire"; you'll see why. The road to it is rough and suitable only for high-clearance, 4WD vehicles. The entrance road, which is paved, though rutted in spots, goes past a sign that reads "Bundy's Melons" -- Cliven Bundy's place, he being the fellow who refuses to pay to graze his cattle on public land and now owes about $1 million. The last I'll say about that is his sons are the leaders of the standoff at SE Oregon's Malheur Nat'l Wildlife Refuge. The bumpy road ends up at an area called Whitney Pockets, an area in the high desert filled with large formations of red Navajo sandstone, similar to the rock that can be found at the Valley of Fire, 20 miles to the west. The unpaved road then splits off in 2 directions, and we head to Little Finland. At one point the "road" goes through a wash, and up on the high walls you can see petroglyphs -- 

Here's a closer view of some of them; you can also see bullet hole in the lower right, where some yahoos were using the panel for target practice. As of right now, these petroglyphs, and all of Gold Butte, has no type of protection, though there are efforts in that direction. It is a priceless part of our heritage, and deserves some sort of status. 

Onward to Little Finland...We finally arrive. The front part looks like a castle wall, and makes the whole area of Little Finland resemble a huge spaceship like the mother ship in the movie "Close Encounters"; something from the sky that has dropped into the desert. 

Little Finland is named for the "fins" that along with the hoodoos and other eroded areas of Navajo sandstone turns the area into a land of hobgoblins and other fanciful figures. The Navajo sandstone is ancient sand dunes that have become fossilized,and weathered down through time. There are petroglyphs here, too, and are unusual in that they're etched on rock that is horizontal, not on vertical walls as with most petros -- 

Here's a closeup of one of the figures, a desert bighorn sheep  created with primitive tools --

Two of the rock art panels -- 

Little Finland's formations can be wildly fanciful, leading to many descriptions. A friend , when seeing this photo, described the smooth, round rocks as looking like a giant's liver. The whitish substance is a salt, which comes from the rock -- 

There's water here, enough to nourish fan palm trees in the area just below Little Finland. And their courses add texture to a landscape already filled with textures -- 

Here's the course of a "wet area" -- it doesn't deserve to be called a creek as there's no running water in it -- winding its way through Little Finland -- 

And at another angle, looking south, with a background of the formations -- 

One of the wet areas falls down the side of the rock - and there actually is a tiny bit of running water --

The tiny "cascade" is at the bottom, near the center -- 

The salt minerals add to the already fanciful formations, formed by softer rock in lower levels, leaving the harder rock on top -- 

A friend said this looks like a dog's face on the upper left -- 

More of the salt accenting the swirling patterns in the rock --

And the fins of Little Finland  --

We timed our visit for the sunset. Sunsets can be very intense here, with the fading light making the landscape look unreal, like a scene from another planet. And if the spectacular sunset colors don't pan out quite the way we wanted, it's still pretty spectacular --

The redrock Navajo sandstone formations to the north are bathed in Last Light --

As the sun sets, the Virgin Mountains to the east are lit up --

The formations of Little Finland are silhouetted against the evening sky --

And the fanciful figures of Little Finland sleep for the night; here's a man with his tongue sticking out --

Back in Overton, we end the day with pizza at Carley's, one of the few restaurants in town, indeed in all of the Moapa Valley. A ramble through Little Finland, a pizza afterwards; sounds like a near-perfect day to me!  

Okay, about that hot water leak...Around 2:30 the following morning, I heard a thunking noise, followed by what sounded like water. I thought it could be sprinkling outside, or the irrigation system used to water the plants had been turned on. I opened the door, and there was no sign of either. Then I looked behind me -- and water was pouring out of the cabinet under the bathroom sink. I rushed out to turn off the water from the city system; apparently there had been a spike in the water pressure, and the hot water tubing had popped off the connector to the hot water knob on the sink. Luckily, there wasn't too much water damage -- that I could see; things stored underneath the sink had just gotten wet. But I spent the next 2 days trying to keep the re-connected tubing from dripping when re-connected. And in the process I learned a lot about RV plumbing. I initially thought a disaster had happened; I'd checked outside and water was dripping from a screw on on the end underneath the shower area. Oh oh, there may be a leak in the pipes under the shower, which I can't get to. Fortunately, it seemed to be caused by the residual water from the initial leak as it stopped after awhile. I dodged one major bullet. But it was a bear connecting that darned hot water tubing to the connector without leaking; first it would be fine, then a wet area, then dripping -- then I shut off the water. It took TWO DAYS for the connection to finally hold where it remained dry (so far). In the process I found out that the hose was flexible nylon tubing, and a simple screw-on clamp should work. It finally did, but it didn't for the longest time. And Lance had used one-use clamps, which the local hardware stores didn't have. In fact, they'd never seen it before, and thought they were special clamps. They weren't; they were just the kind that you had to "crimp" to fit around the hose, as opposed to the ones you tighten down with a screw. I'll probably eventually replace the nylon hose with, say, a PEX one with special fittings to lessen the chance of it happening again. But I'm no plumber, and can't get to the other end of the hose as it's hidden behind a wood backing -- and I just don't want to compound the problem as there are a lot of other hoses back there. So once I'm back in Portal and do the things that have been put off since I left Faranuf over a month ago, I'll take Discovery to the nearest Lance dealer (nearly 200 miles to the west, in Tucson) and get all of the water system pipes replaced with PEX ones. Because once something like this happens, you don't know what the high water pressure did to the other pipes and fittings, especially the ones you can see or get to. Oh well, another added expense... 

So now I'm caught up with my blog, it's Monday the 25th, and I think I'll head back to the wildlife area this morning (as it's an "odd" day)  to think about something else besides water connections for awhile..