Pools in the Desert

Sheldon Wildlife Refuge—Pools in the desert  mid-August

I am staying tonight at one of my favorite places on the trip, Sheldon Wildlife Refuge and their little warm water pool. The pool, Warner Pool I think it's called, is just one of Sheldon's many pools for the tired traveler. The other travelers are birds, who swim among tall reeds—tule? They are a bluer green than cattails (which are also here) and taller and more tubular.

It's Sunday night here and quieter than some times I've come. I went swimming in the pool with a grandmother and aunt and a young boy, maybe six years old. There was a lot of discussion—and some hurt feelings—about whether it was okay to spray each other with the water gun. The grandmother entered into the spirit of the game and advanced on the boy and sprayed him back. The aunt threatened dire consequences if she were sprayed. The boy got mopey and announced he had swum enough. I thought it was because of the aunt's threat, but then it seemed he had gotten a face full of water and lost his zest for the game. The gun was put away, and they swam on more happily.

The water is warm to get into and then just mild. I lay on my back and floated. With my ample figure and my water sandals I can float perfectly flat. A wind came up and filled the cottonwoods around the pool.

When I came back to the Vanagon I reoriented it to funnel the wind into the interior through the popup window, one of my desert tricks. The hard part was to keep the bus in deep shade but not have the tree and its brushy trunk block the wind.

Another trick is a tiny fan about the size of my hand that my daughter got me. It plugs into the portable charger that I use for things like a lamp or recharging the computer. I have another charger that I reserve for emergencies, like the Vanagon not restarting because I've forgotten to turn the headlights off or used the interior lighting too long. This old bus (1991) doesn't have some of the safeguards that newer vehicles have, like switching the lights off when the vehicle is turned off.

I've rigged up a screen for the front side window out of a dog barrier that I thought I was going to use to keep Rex out of the front at night (I decided that if I wanted more than a fraction of the bed I'd better keep him in the front even though the cat box was up there). One of the nice things about a Vanagon is that it has two middle windows with screens for a crossbreeze and when the popup is raised it has a big screened window above. The hot air goes up and out the popup window. If I am parking in a hot place like a grocery store parking lot, I open all the screened windows and raise the poptop, so the interior doesn't heat up on the animals.

I was going to wet down a towel and hang it in the front driver's side window, but my feet felt crawly and I looked and big red ants were climbing up my legs. When I'd moved the bus, I'd gotten close to an ant hill. By the time I got them all off me and the driver's area and found a new spot for the Vanagon, the sun was going down behind a hill and the air was cooling. So I didn't bother with the towel.

Of course, swimming is great for hot places. Not much help for Rex and Murphy, though. Murphy positioned herself in front of the fan, which was blowing air in from the deepest part of the shade. Some of the air reached Rex, though, unfortunately, it was previously-owned-by-a-cat air.

Besides Sheldon Refuge another fantastic place to camp is Sunset Bay by Cape Arago and tidal pools that stretch maybe half a mile out to an island. Sea lions and seals congregate on the reef there and you can watch them from an overlook. And the campground itself is on a sheltered little cove, almost a perfect circle of protected water. It's the only place I know of on the coast where you can actually swim in the water (as opposed to jumping up and down in the waves. Sunset Bay has everything—a sand beach in the cove with protected water, sculptured cliffs and rocks there and nearby, tidal pool, and a beach by the tidal pools that is some places cobbled rocks and one place (this is an old memory and there have been many storms in the thirty years that have passed) a beach area that is not sand but many many tiny shells, so fine you lift a sprinkle in your hand to see them, delicate little snails and corkscrews and winglets and the smallest of mussels.

 I was going to tell you about some other great places, but maybe later. I'm getting tired. Every once in a while I hear a big bullfrog groan from the bird pool just past the campground. I'll walk Rex there in the morning before we leave. And maybe take another swim. When you travel like this, you need to take whatever chance you get to bathe.