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<\/a><\/p>\nin his first new vehicle in over a decade, a Toyota Trailhunter, snorkel ‘n’ all. We set off for the spring on his upper 80 in the Buffalo Hills, to check it and the truck’s offroad features out;<\/p>\n
all was well although, as is often the case, livestock had been enjoying the spring.<\/p>\n Not a problem getting up there though nor did, after consulting the manual [mainly to figure<\/p>\n out the auxiliary lights], further – higher – investigations to where a panorama<\/p>\n from the Granites to the Selenites, Limbos, Foxes and down the desert to the Virginia Mountains above Pyramid Lake unfolded present any trouble at all.\u00a0 Nice.<\/p>\n Higher still, lights sorted,<\/p>\n we got to an upper upper spring where the track finally ended so turned, descended<\/p>\n to overlook our vast estates –<\/p>\n Wall Spring the nearer, Parker Ranch<\/a> a half mile to the south –<\/p>\n and experienced how well that eight speed automatic holds on hills.\u00a0 Quite well, actually,<\/p>\n and on the gravel acceleration and handling are truly remarkable. We drove south to the blue pit*<\/a> from whence most of said gravel originates, then on a whim onto the desert<\/p>\n across from Bronte Siding and up the soft playa of the Smoke Creek<\/a><\/p>\n to return to shore along the “Speed of the Earth’s”**<\/a><\/p>\n line of solar-powered 21st century strobes, winding up<\/p>\n at the early twentieth century section house from Bronte now aground at Parker Ranch.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n *NOT, however, on Surprise Valley Road, though the googlies still insist.<\/p>\n **A somewhat abbreviated if more sophisticated version of the original, currently installed on de desert in sight of Parker\/Wall Spring.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" So David Rumsey, our nearest neighbor when he’s around, had been around since I got back from Alturas with the 2x12s and the subsequent Sunday he and I took a little excursion in his first new vehicle in over a decade, a Toyota Trailhunter, snorkel ‘n’ all. We set off for the spring on his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":42779,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42754","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikesmooreptgs.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikesmooreptgs.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikesmooreptgs.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikesmooreptgs.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikesmooreptgs.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42754"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/mikesmooreptgs.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42754\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42831,"href":"https:\/\/mikesmooreptgs.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42754\/revisions\/42831"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikesmooreptgs.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/42779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikesmooreptgs.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikesmooreptgs.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikesmooreptgs.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n