Home to Lockett Meadow
Set off 6.15 am, arrived Lockett Meadow 5.30pm or so. Convoying in two cars, the Outback and the Fiat 500, the latter so that Beth has a car for her senior year of college. Coffee from Starbucks in Victorville, sitting in the parking lot in our camping chairs eating home made frittata. We drove through the slightly odd Oatman with its donkeys. Blistering 110 degree heat. Lunch was in Locomotive Park in Kingman.
Beth and I arrived around 5.30pm in Lockett Meadow having agreed with Jeri that it made sense for the Outback to scout ahead to try to secure a site, as camping was on a first come, first served basis. The mountain road was gravel with large rocks and dips but the Outback was fine. We assumed Jeri would simply take longer in the Fiat going carefully to avoid obstacles. The road climbed up a steep hill and it was longer than we imagined, not that we put much thought or analysis into the exercise. after three miles of this, Beth and I drove around the one-way campground loop twice and selected site number 12 as the best. We filled out the envelope and put the $26 inside then drove to our site. No sign of Jeri and no cell reception. After waiting for a few moments, we decided the best option would be for me to take my bike and ride down to meet Jeri, who was presumably not far behind. I left without my phone, helmet, gloves or cycling shoes; I don’t know why. The problem with this approach is knowing how far to go before turning back because although biking down the hill was satisfactory, biking up would not be so easy. At every bend, I considered whether to stop or carry on. The problem was, each bend revealed a short stretch of road with another bend further along. I kept going and started down the steeper section, wondering if somehow Jeri had in fact made it to the Meadow and was already driving around the one-way loop. With some degree of worry, I stopped a passing car coming up and asked the driver if he’d seen a brown Fiat 500 and he told me she was ‘chilling at the bottom of the hill’. Right, so now I was committed to go all the way down and indeed, there she was at the bottom, reading. She had tried to drive up but was put off by the rough road and the fact that the Fiat had bottomed once or twice.
The next step was to work out how to get the loaded Fiat, the two of us and my bike back up the mountain to the meadow. We took the front wheel off and jammed it in; some people in a car nearby suggested we also take the rear wheel off which was a good idea, but we decided to do this INSIDE the car. Amazingly it came off and we stowed it in the back. Thus equipped, we drove back up the mountain, gingerly avoiding the deepest ruts. Got to the campsite after about 20-30 minutes. The Fiat was not put off by the ‘road not maintained for passenger cars’ sign. Beth was just starting to get worried, alleviated somewhat by the fact that Jeri’s text message saying she could not drive up the hill had at last been received by my phone. We celebrated with a nice spaghetti bolognese dinner served with red wine and much talk of what had happened.
Lockett Meadow was beautiful and the stars were out in force; we took a nice stroll around the loop before climbing into the Autana.
