2013-12-25 35 -119

Location

An agricultural field east of Maricopa, CA, near State Route 166 and not too far from Interstate 5. Bakersfield graticule.

Participants

Plans

We will drive up from the Los Angeles, California, graticule and see if the farm roads are accessible. The dogs might get to play with any hares they find around there too. I expect to arrive sometime around 11:00am and stay until about 11:30. Then we will try to hit the Tehachapi meetup point a couple of hours later, possibly with a lunch stop along the way.

If things go really smoothly, the Ridgecrest meetup point might be within reach too. But that would be an ambitious Christmas day.

Expedition

Bravissimo594

After a nice Christmas-morning sleep-in, Boppy5 and I finally made it on the road shortly after 10:00am. Fueling up at a nearby gas station and ATM, we drove up Interstate 5, exited at State Route 166, and traveled west for a short time. Satellite imagery on Google Maps showed the meetup point to be near the edge of a plowed field. I hoped that the image was not so old that the field would be full of crops.

We turned north on a farm road near the destination and noticed no-trespassing signs banning entry to orange groves beside the road. At this point, I was really hopeful that the field was still plowed and not barred from entry. Fortunately, everything matched the satellite images, so we were able to hike a short way out into the field (which had nothing at all planted in it) and make the meetup point.

The dogs got a chance to paw around in the soft ground and even sniffed a nearby vineyard but found no hares to play with.