Not to far into our trip we ran across an old windmill setup

I guess the KendallVille name goes back a long time in America's Windmill history

Looks like the windmill pumped water over to a trough that had a sophisticated float shutoff valve assembly


This must be the towering metal base for the water collection

Here is a great view into Storm Canyon

Vallecito Valley has many water troughs left over from early cattle ranching days and we found several of them. Here is another dried up trough out in the middle of nowhere

Unfortunately Mylar Balloons do not seem to escape our remote wilderness trek

The Sawtooth Mountains at sunset

Are you a Yoni "believer"?

Gary and I had some plans but as we headed out they seemed to slowly fade and we ended up just drifting thru the valley and exploring the landscape and boulder outcrops as the sun slowly began to set. The moon was shining bright enough to allow us to hike during the early evening without lights so we took advantage of that moonlight and hiked several more miles under the moonlit desert skies until we reached a good place to camp near the base of the Laguna Mountains.
Here is our moonlit camp on day 1, this is a long 5 minute exposure. Beautiful weather and campsite

Early morning sunrise with Monument Peak towering in the background

Even though we both brought 9 liters of water for the trip we had counted on getting some water from an old piped spring out in the valley. I knew the last time I was there it had plenty of water and we were counting on it being wet this trip also. Turns out the pipe had a hole in it a few hundred yards up from the collection trough. The spigot was only dripping when we got there and the trough was only inches full, just enough to support pond scum life

Gary found the hole and with some old left over repair debris we found and an old beer can we managed to get it back flowing at full capacity.
Here is the hole pre-repair

Here is the hole post-repair

Now the water flow is good and we get a few liters of water to start the day with

Damn, boulders everywhere!!

Here is an old water trough that has dried up

And the valley seems to have miles of water lines that have dried up and broken over the years but have largely been forgotten by now

The tranquil day is coming to an end and we look for a place to camp out for the second night of our trip. The middle of the valley is as good of a place as any and Gary schools me on how to "rough" up a soft spot for the night. With the moon still bright we took a short hike up a small finger towards Moument Peak looking for a spring we did not find but it was like the first night, a very restful and enjoyable evening out in the wilderness. The coyotes serenaded us in the early morning hours.
On our 3rd day out we stumbled across what we called "chair cave", gotta love those old timers....

We decided a shade break was needed

Well since we were exploring we found a few cultural artifacts and some rock art along the way
A small arrowhead point

A metate fragment

Pictogaphs





And some historic artifacts, maybe this is a hand forged knife blade??

A Good 'ol boy horseshoe with square nails and all

Oh wait, almost forgot the most significant artifact

I guess even Dora Explores the Desert
Total Mylar Balloon Count - 11 (Not all pictured)