Thursday, March 6, 2008

Glug Glug Splash! Cherry Creek Road

3/6/08
Another glorious day, our dusty house will just have to wait, we can't rationalize staying home and cleaning when the great outdoors beckons us. We headed for Cherry Creek Road, it's been a while since we made the trip.
The road was in super condition, we even passed the road grader as he made another pass over the dirt road making it even smoother. The desert is very green and lush right now. We've had unusual amounts of rainfall this year, so everything that could turn green is wearing a full coat of emerald coloring.
Cherry Creek is usually not much more than a gently flowing stream, but with the snow melting in the mountains of the high country, Cherry Creek is a raging river in places.
We stopped along the way to take pictures of an old homestead. It's slowly being reclaimed by the desert. The mud bricks are melting away with each rain and soon, all will be returned to the sand and dirt of the desert floor. We haven't been able to find any history about the place, but we'll keep asking some of the old timers here about it.
When we came to the crossing at Ellison Ranch, we found the crossing had been moved a few yards downstream. We hadn't intended to run Cherry Creek Road in its entirety, but Ralph wanted to check out the water crossing. Holy smoke! It was much deeper than it looked. It begain easy enough but then the front end of the Jeep dropped into a hole which had probably been created by the last four-wheeler to cross here. Glug, glug, splash and hold on tight...he made it through all in one piece! Ralph turned the Jeep around on the other side of the crossing and headed back. Wheee! Another glug and a splash, he made it! I don't think we'll try that stunt again any time soon. We were lucky this time.
Anyway, it was another beautiful jaunt with fabulous scenery and I guess the Jeep has a clean underbelly now.