35: snap shots

Dear Friend,

This is the last day of November, 2025. Where are you today? What are you up to? How are you and yours? We hope that (as much as possible) you are where you wish to be, doing what you wish to do, and that everyone is happy and healthy!

Frank and I have been making our way south in Nevada along highway 93 through the Great Basin.

It’s turning out to be sort of a reconnaissance journey, a chance to experience snap shots of the area.

We’ll definitely return at a warmer time when we can continue to travel into the higher country and stay longer above 6,000’, where the current overnight temperatures are consistently well below freezing. Even though we have a 4-seasons trailer, pipes of all sorts can still burst, that would be bad.  

We feel that we’ve already pushed the envelope, camping at close to 7,000’, our little propane heater chugging away, windows beading with condensation, the door freezing shut…  but spending time in open space(s) has been priceless!

We often hike along trails and on off-highway vehicle roads out in the middle of nowhere. I've mentioned before that sometimes it seems there is no water around for miles. I worry about the animals, fenced out of water sources.

So, it was good to see this water source plunked out in the desert of the Great Basin.

Water, freshly drawn from deep within the earth, is accessible to animals, birds and insects.

We saw tracks of elk, deer, coyote, burro, horse, cows, and other friends…

Then, on Wednesday, (the day before Thanksgiving), we moved on and dropped down to 4800’, camping for two nights at Cathedral Gorge, a popular Nevada State Park campground.

The area is an ancient lake bed. The wrinkly cliff faces are bentonite clay, over time, eroded by wind and water.

There are many openings in the walls of the gorge where visitors can explore slot canyons. The slots get very narrow but many are passable. Sunlight filters in from the openings above.

One of the interesting things that we saw out on the trail is an uninterrupted field of biocrust.

In the desert, biocrust (also called cryptobiotic soil), is made up of many living organisms like lichen, moss, fungi, cyanobacteria, (like Spirulina, but not exactly). Biocrust builds up on the surface of the desert, holding moisture in, keeping erosion at bay. The desert is covered with these little bumpy structures. At the end of this blog/letter, I’ve included a link to a video called 'Moab’s Biocrust,' an informative video made for visitors to Moab, but with helpful information that applies to all deserts.

We hiked the trails at Cathedral Gorge and Frank was able to get a few photos. But the campground was a Thanksgiving Holiday destination and there were lots of people… so, to give you a better overview of the park, I’ve included a video-link to 'Cathedral Gorge State Park' following this blog/letter.

There are 24 campsites in the Cathedral Gorge campground and, once we pulled in, all were full. In the middle of the day on Thursday, a group of 10 musicians (of varying ages) from several different campsites came together in the center of the campground to play Christmas music. It was obvious that they knew each other, had played together before, and were at the beginning of their musical careers… they played for 3 hours, brass, woodwinds, one violin, and an electric keyboard, and though they had many starts and stops, they seemed to enjoy themselves.

Meanwhile, I worked on fixing our dinner and prepared a pumpkin pie to go into the oven.

We hadn’t used the oven since April. (Frank’s birthday cake had unfortunately launched a two-week mouse invasion - mice were safely returned to the desert from whence they came and holes were patched). So now, with the trailer completely sealed, we figured we could splurge on propane and bake a pumpkin pie, it was, after all, the only thing that Frank really wanted for Thanksgiving. But as he went to light the pilot, the oven turned into a flame-thrower, indicating a detached manifold. Trailers wiggle and shake, connectors get knocked loose. The band played on, Joy to the World. Fast forward, Frank + tools + time = pumpkin pie. The pie was cooling on a rack as the concert concluded with, For He’s A Jolly Good Fellow! 

It has been a meaningful Thanksgiving week, month, year, taking time each day to share our gratitude for family and friends, and for the places, creatures, sights and sounds that we’ve been able to experience on this journey.

Of course, there is much more to the story of our Thanksgiving week, saying 'so long for now' to the wild horses, purchasing two new deep-cycle batteries, stopping in to the only laundromat around for a much needed clothes wash, celebrating a new septic hose, (yay), and getting to see more beautiful scenery along the way as we’ve moved on even lower in elevation, now at 3400', to another beautiful Wildlife Refuge. We’ll have fun photos of some new friends to share next time.

In each blog/letter, I thank you for checking in to read Tracks by the Post, today is no exception, Thank You. And I mean it when I say that your care to be here is like a comforting hug. We are truly grateful for you!

Please write to us when you get a chance, just a quick catch-up or a novella, either way, we appreciate your emails and we’ll reply as soon as we can.  

Wishing you and yours a cheerfully light first-week of December,

Gently Be,

Leslie and Frank

PS: Here are the two links that I told you about:

Cathedral Gorge State Park

Moab’s Biocrust