Deryl and Ray’s Tale
Of Woe and Frustration

 I was looking forward to a Jippy hide.  But that soon turned to dread.  We had no signal at 10 am.  Jippy was on the phone with Deryl saying the signal was on the air.  We tried the end of the road spot – nothing, we tried the church parking lot – nothing, we went back to where we were at 10 am - nothing.  We waited a while. Trying vertical, horizontal and vertizontal polarizations – nothing.  Jippy called back and was giving a signal from another location.  We heard something, or did we?  Took a bearing of 48 degrees.  We went to the end of the road and got a bearing of 64 degrees.  Hmmm.  Decided to head out.  Next decision, take the 91 out and hope for a signal at Green River or get to the 60 fwy and hope for a signal at Pathfinder.  The decision was made along the early stage of movement, to go 91 and hope for a signal at Green River.  The carpool lane made for good movement until the Toll road.  Not having a transponder, we had to get over to where the rest of the highway taxpayers were in slow traffic.  Wayne Hoover and Scott Bovitz went flying by us in the elitist lane and waved to us underlings.

 

We heard not a blip from a transmitter signal on 146.565, so as we approached Green River, there was little hope of hearing such a signal there.  Green River – no signal.  From there we decided to get a bearing at Summit Inn.  Made our way through the nut cases on the road, one blip of 5 milliseconds but not sure where it came from other than it was not in front of us towards Summit Inn.  Pay no attention to that false signal – onward.  Summit Inn - no signal.  Got gas, because where ever we were going was going to be a long way from here.  Mr. Crawford got a call from David Ross asking us if we wanted to have lunch with them in Redlands, told them we were too far away.  Since we heard nothing at Summit Inn or anywhere else, we decided to go with the more easterly bearing we had gotten at the start and go out towards Palm Springs.  We were making good time coasting down the summit, so we decided to attempt to meet up with the Ross’s for lunch if they were still there.  We found them with Mr. Obermeier carving away at dead flesh at “Spunky’s” which had to be the inspiration for “The Hungry Heffer”.  After swapping confusion and half-truths we headed east and wait could that be a signal?  Nah it can’t be.  But yes and it’s easterly.  Okay we will continue.

 

As we went east, we occasionally got a northern direction from the signal; Palm Springs, 29 Palms, middle of nowhere?  As we go thru the windmill farm, it is definitely turning north, so it looks like highway 62 is a good choice.  Gosh now we can hear 2 or 3 transmitters at different times.  At the Morongo and Yucca Valley border we hear a couple of t’s strong to our left, it looks like a few houses and some nearby hills on private property.  We decide they are not strong enough to be that close.  We drive on, but I wonder whether we should have checked that area out anyways.

 

I believe we turned at Old Woman Springs Road, there is a Circle K there with gasoline, and I stop, because I didn’t know where the next chance to get gas would be.  This would prove to be the best decision I made all day.   As we headed on out, the signal was coming from the desert mountains and it looked like Johnson Valley was going to be where we needed to go thru.  We turned on Boone Road and proceeded into the Johnson Valley OHV.  Some gun freak had shot the #*$% out of a map that was posted there, that would have been extremely helpful.  We proceeded on.  To Mr. Crawford’s amazement the dirt road we were on and many others were appearing on his Color Garmin GPS.  Well at least we are not totally going to be lost in the Desert.

 

We got onto “Race Course A”, a wonderful rocky, bumpy road.  We decided the signals were coming from Target Peak or at least we needed to get around the back of it.  Deryl remembered the route around to the back better than I did.  So all we could do is stay the “course”.  As we made our way looking for the dirt roads that were on the GPS, it was often difficult to find the other dirt roads, because the “Race Course” had taken out the visibility of the entrance of the other roads.   What seemed like forever, after about two hours of wonderful rocks and bumps, we made it to Camp Rock Road.  This would lead to the road to Target Peak; the road seemed unusually well graded.  After a short while here comes a semi in the opposite direction!  What is he doing here?  We got our answer as we turned a bend in a short while.  A mining operation was taking down a small mountain.  We got just about to the mining entrance when we saw the road to the right, but wait Deryl said we must have passed the road to Target Peak.  This was the road around the other side of it.  So back we go to where I had mentioned the possibility of a road earlier, but it was again difficult to see due to the graded “hiway” for the dirt haulers.  It was the road and up we went.  The road was horribly rocky.  Neither one of us remembered the road to Target Peak being this rocky.  We eventually reached the top of Target Peak with not even one measly transmitter to be found there.  I wandered out to stretch my legs and Deryl proceeded to pour over maps and determine what was going on.

 

Back down we went to the road we turned around at.  Are we having fun yet?  At least there were signals and lots of them.  As we were now driving in darkness I saw lights approaching from the other direction.  We came upon Mr. Obermeier and Mr. & Mrs. Ross.  Once we got out, Mr. Ross came walking on the road with a sign in sheet.  Yippeee!  At least we found one transmitter.  It was T7.

 

We were encouraged that T5 was not too far to be found.  So we went in search of it.  Signal apparently said it was at the microwave site.  We found the road we thought led to the micro site and it was the rockiest of any we were on today and what fun I thought, we will probably have to come back on it as well.  Another eternity passed as we traversed this wonderful rock path.  Headlights ahead, oh no, no place to pull out, oh well keep going. As we got close to the lights, they start going away from us, how decent of the chap.  After several hundred feet we are at the micro site, we go by the decent chap that turned out to be Doug Dubrall.  I waved thank you as we went by.  Antenna pointed straight-ahead, even larger rocks; I had enough and said I am walking to the transmitter.  We shortly found T5.

 

I was tired; my arms had a workout from avoiding treacherous rocks all evening.  We were headed out to 40.  We came along Mr. Hoover and Mr. Bovitz, heading the opposite direction exchanged a few words about brake lights and we proceeded on.  We passed a few places where no doubt were ways to a transmitter or two.  Signal was not you are there and we were tired and had just about all we could take of the day.  There were a few fun puddles as we continued to the 40.  We reached old 66, took that to Hector, onto 40 west homeward bound.

 

We hear a loud signal get strong quickly, in front and to the right.  Mr. Crawford is on the phone instead of navigating.  I’m asking if it is getting stronger as we approach a large turn out.  I go on by and realize there was a transmitter there.  Great!  How legal is that?  There was a small car parked there however.  On we went.  It was really bothering me that we missed an easy find.  The next off ramp was probably Daggett.  I looked for a way to turn around.  I saw one but traffic was not going to make for a safe slow down to make the turn.  I noticed that at the crossing was a callbox on the side of the highway.  It made sense to have access across the highway at callboxes.  I watched for the next callbox, no traffic, and sure enough there across from the callbox was a path across to the opposite direction of the highway.  As we returned, we went just passed the turnout where the signal was coming from, watched for a callbox, traffic again was cooperative on both sides and across we went.  We parked at the turnout.  Got the sniffer out and stepped in volcanic looking goo.  There it was on the fence.  Great, we had found 3 t’s.  I felt better about our day.  I just hoped Mr. Lewis had a good day; otherwise he would vent his wrath on all of us at the next opportunity.