Graboids!

As so many of you know.

Wait. Let's be honest here. As just the couple of you readers know, when we went out west this year, we were going to be Graboid hunting. Let's face it. Sasquatch's don't live in the desert. So Graboids became our focus.

Many times out in Quartzsite we had seen Graboid sign. The far off distant dust cloud.

As much as we chased it around the desert, we would never get close enough for the ultimate proof.

We left Anaheim, California and heading northeast into the deserts of California. It doesn't take many miles of driving out of the city to reach unpopulated desert. Perfect habitat for Graboids. We found a spot in the desert at the foothills of the Sierra Mountains to set up a base camp.

Once camp was set up, we looked around at our surroundings and we could not believe how breathtaking it was. We had the Sierra's to our right and the Cottonwood Range to our left. The Graboids could move through the valley floor easily, trapped by the mountains.

Those that may not know, A Graboid is an underground monster that senses vibrations through the ground. When it senses prey it shoots out of the ground and eats you.

We went to town to explore the sightings when all of a sudden a Graboid shoots through the floor of the building we were in and almost got me.

Luckily for me I am like a Ninja. Super fast and cat like. I escaped to bring you this tail. The end.

Lone Pine, California. I have never heard of the place before but that is where we were at. A beautiful place at the foot of the Sierra's and very close to Death Valley. Steve C. and Earl had mentioned this place to us and said how nice it was. The Alabama Hills are here and this area was used in the filming of hundreds of movies, westerns and TV shows. Steve also said that they had a Graboid in the museum, hence our purpose.

Walking through the museum was amazing. The rich film history here. My hero's as a child growing up walked these hills, rode their horses around here and of course shot the bad guys. Hero's like Clint Eastwood, John Wayne and Burt Gummer. Hopalong Cassidy, The Lone Ranger, Audie Murphy, Tom Mix and "Fatty" Arbuckle. If you were a cowboy star in the 30' to 70's, chances are you were in Lone Pine at one time or another.

Sadly the western movies kind of faded away. Lone Pine still sees some action from Science Fiction movies. Such as Star Trek and my favorite, Tremors. Jeep has filmed many commercials here because of the rugged landscape. Ironically the last two movies filmed here were westerns. Django and The Lone Ranger with Johnny Depp.

In the movie Tremors, They filmed the pole vaulting scene in this area. It is in the Alabama Hills. The rocks in the foreground and the snow capped mountains in the background made for great scenery for many, many movies.

We had planned on staying in this area for a couple of days, but the weather was going to change on us once again. The winds were going to be fierce on our travel day, so we packed up early and hit the road vowing to come back again someday.

"Tango, I'm tired of the hot dusty desert. Take me someplace lush and green."