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Panamint Valley December 26, 2019  - January 8, 2020
The crescent moon and Venus just after sunset early in the trip. On the night of Jan3-4 the Quadrantid meteor shower was mostly obscured by clouds.
My old Jeep had a problem with the park/neutral switch and idle control valve. The bumpy roads fixed them both (at least temporarily)	The people who had put up an space alien mailbox last year had a star party. They had probably 30 or more people show up. Other then them there were less people out than normal for New Years.
I towed the old Jeep out to a site near the Surprise Canyon cutoff the day after Christmas. The next day when Scot brought his trailer out there, there were people starting to set up camp right next to it. He found another place a half mile or so away. When I got there he intercepted me before I could get to where my Jeep was and I put my trailer next to his. He gave me a ride so I could retrieve my old Cherokee. I asked the people where they were from and then told them I was going to move my Jeep since they had taken my campsite. Their response was "Oh we didn't see anybody around". Latter a trailer which I recognized as having been out that way for many years for New Years showed up and camped with them. They were just pissed that I had taken their favorite campsite and their buddy's had decided to steal it back. By the way ASSHOLES are from Riverside.
Mine between Darwin Falls Parking and China Garden
I always wondered if I could drive up the steep way, We went the easier way to the right and cut back to the left. Upon examination we decided to go back the way we came. Near the top of the steep route there was a place where you would probably hang up on the frame trying to go down. I would have hated to have gotten to there and have to back all the way down if we had tried going up that way.
China Garden
What I used to call a coi pond is actually goldfish	Somebody has decided to paint a rock in the last 5 or so years since I have been there
The first of my digital pictures I can find of China Garden seem to be from January 2004. I also found some from March of 2014. I know I was there around New Years 2016 but didn't get any pictures. (That was the year the grand kids pole vaulted my Cherokee) There is actually another place called China Garden on Hwy 178 in the Kern River Valley below Lake Isabella. The rock wasn't painted in 2014. The goldfish bond was pretty much void of cattails in 2004. The pond was larger and less overgrown then. From China Gardens the water drops below the surface again and comes back up about less than a mile mile down the canyon as upper Darwin Falls. I noticed at the parking area for Darwin Falls they have only one picture, that of the lower falls. Probably to keep the tourists from hurting themselves attempting to climb up to the much taller upper falls. In 2014 the loading dock like structure did have China Garden painted on it.
Lower and Upper Darwin Falls from New Years trip 2003. The upper is many times higher than the lower
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