nature

Nevada Road Trip: Around Caliente (Day 7)

tuplesandattributesLeave a comment

This day started with another trip to the Side Track restaurant, which, fortunately for me, was open for breakfast on Friday (as well as Saturday and Sunday). It did not disappoint, and I headed out for my morning with a nice protein fix.

First stop: Cathedral Gorge State Park. There is a nice visitor center here where I was finally able to buy my annual senior pass to Nevada State Parks. Better late than never. Of all the state parks I visited, this was the only one where I saw an actual park employee. The other parks all had fee stations, but you can’t buy annual passes at those. In the parks I was in earlier, I resorted to leaving a note in the windshield giving my phone number and saying I wanted an annual pass. It never came to that, however.

Here’s the blurb from the park’s site:

Cathedral Gorge State Park is located in a long, narrow valley in southeastern Nevada, where erosion has carved dramatic and unique patterns in the soft bentonite clay. The park’s beauty began with explosive volcanic activity that, with each eruption, deposited layers of ash hundreds of feet thick. Great walking trails abound for exploring the cave-like formations and cathedral-like spires that are the result of geologic processes from tens of millions of years ago. A photographer’s dream, the park offers stunning views of the scenic canyon and visitors can enjoy hiking, picnicking, camping and nature study. https://parks.nv.gov/parks/cathedral-gorge

If you have kids, you most definitely should go here with them. It is full of “slot” canyons for them to explore with little risk of them getting lost or hurt (same for us grown-ups). The “canyons” are all short, but you can go from one to another to another to another . . .

The view from Miller Point is supposed to be very nice, but unfortunately the road to it has been closed for months. I thought maybe I would hike up to it instead, but the trail was closed too. Once I saw the number of steps that would have been involved, I figured that was just as well. You can just make out some of the steps in this photo:

I very much enjoyed my brief visit here and would definitely go back, especially when they get the road to Miller Point open.

Beaver Dam State Park was the last of my planned sites to visit. It is 28 miles down a dirt road from US 93, eastward, almost to the Utah border. The park did not have much in the way of signage and I did not find many of the places that were listed on the map. An example of the type of problem: the map lists campgrounds “A” and “B” but the signs at the site itself only lists the campgrounds by names.

So, although I never did find any of the listed hikes, I did find one of the main sights I was hoping for on this trip: autumn foliage:

I got back from Beaver Dam State Park in the early afternoon. I had booked my motel room for two nights, but I realized I was only 2-1/2 or 3 hours from home. I called the kennel, and they could have Brindy bathed and ready for me by six, so I took off for Henderson.

Naturally, after all the hours on empty roads, I hit a major accident the minute I got into North Las Vegas. Turned the radio back on and rejoined civilization. Picked up the dog and was home before seven.

I had planned this trip to coincide with the “anniversary” of my little stroke last year which happened just before I was supposed to go on a long trip by myself. Although I had been on a cruise in June with a friend, I just felt the need to do something on my own and (with my doctor’s blessing) I am so glad I did it; I had a wonderful time and got a lot of confidence back. I want to explore more of Nevada soon: after all, I don’t want to let that annual state park pass go to waste!

Nevada Road Trip: Tonopah to Ely (Day 4)

tuplesandattributes1 Comment

It’s 170 miles from Tonopah to Ely, all on US 6. US 6 used to run from Long Beach, CA to Provincetown, MA; at that time, it was the longest US highway in the country. Now it officially starts in Bishop, CA and is only the 2nd longest (after US 20).

US 6 does not serve a major transcontinental corridor, unlike other highways. George R. Stewart, author of U.S. 40: Cross Section of the United States of America, initially considered US 6, but realized that “Route 6 runs uncertainly from nowhere to nowhere, scarcely to be followed from one end to the other, except by some devoted eccentric”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Route_6

I think it would be fun to be the “eccentric” referred to!

US 50, which meets up with US 6 in Ely, was called “The Loneliest Road in America” by Life magazine in 1986 for the section running through Nevada. Let me tell you, US 6 feels even lonelier as it seems to have even less traffic than I remember from the times I’ve driven US 50. I was passed by two cars shortly after leaving Tonopah and then didn’t see another car on my side of the road until I hit the junction with NV 318 not far from Ely. As for cars coming the other way, they were scarce: at one point it was 17 minutes between vehicles.

One of the things Ely is known for is a great number of outdoor murals. I had planned on walking around town following the map I had downloaded, but the entire main street of town was torn up, making it very difficult to get around. And my next day there was my only day of wet, drizzly, and/or rainy weather. I’ll just have to hit the murals next time, because I enjoyed Ely enough to go back.

My first stop, then, was the Northern Nevada Railway Museum:

There’s not much to the museum exhibits; the fun is in seeing all the actual locomotives and rail cars. The two women in the gift shop were really nice and after chatting for a bit I asked them where I should have dinner. They both suggested “Margaritas”. Turns out that restaurant was in the hotel I was staying at and it was very good. Before leaving, I bought a ticket for a train ride the next day.

My hotel was the Prospector Hotel and Casino for the two nights I was in Ely and I loved it. Besides a good restaurant and friendly staff, they also gave out bags of popcorn at 4 pm every evening! The room was large and had all the amenities. It also had two bottles of Wolfgang Puck wine (one red and one white) to purchase with part of the proceeds going to charity. I had the white.

I had the afternoon to go exploring and the woman at the front desk suggested that Cave Lake State Park might have some fall colors to enjoy. The area around Ely is mostly sagebrush, pinyon pine, and juniper, so not much color there, but all the creek beds were full of bright yellow willows.

Next up was Ward Charcoal Ovens. I have been to some other charcoal ovens, but these were in really fine shape. They were built in the 1870s to produce charcoal for a nearby smelter. This means the area is just beginning to recover from being deforested. Fortunately for the rest of the trees in the area, the newly built railroads started bringing in coal for the smelter to use.

A note about the color of the sky in most of these photos. The pictures were all taken with my iPhone 13 mini. The only adjustments I made to them was cropping and maybe lightening up some shadows. I don’t adjust the color or tint at all. The sky really is that intense blue that I associate with my visits to the Southwest in my childhood and that I so rarely see any more.

Tomorrow will be trains and a short-faced bear fossil.

Nevada Road Trip: From Home to Beatty (Day 1)

tuplesandattributesLeave a comment

I hadn’t been on a road trip in years and wanted to take one to celebrate the one-year anniversary of my little stroke. Decided to visit a number of small Nevada towns and avoid any national restaurant or hotel chains.

I left home on the morning of the 18th of October. My first stop was actually just over the state border in California: China Ranch Date Farm (https://www.chinaranch.com/).

This place is less than 100 miles from Vegas and south of Death Valley. You have to want to go there just for its own sake, though, because it’s not really on the way to or from anywhere. It is not going to visited by hordes of tourists

I didn’t snap any pictures of the road on my way in, but here’s a few I took on my way out:

You would not want to be on this road in one of the areas infrequent rainstorms.

Here’s the gift shop:

They had a dozen or so different types of dates, date baked goods, souvenirs, rocks, and, of course, date shakes. One bathroom, a picnic table or two, and some hiking trails. It made for an interesting stop for an hour or so.

From there, I drove into Pahrump, which is pretty much an exurb of Las Vegas. Although it has around 45,000 residents now, it didn’t even have telephone service until the 1960s.

The main road through town has all the usual businesses and chains, but I was looking for somewhere local for lunch and settled on Mom’s Diner, which you can check out here https://www.facebook.com/people/Moms-Diner/100048743390385/# if you have Facebook (which I don’t).

The place was full of vintage items on the walls and had a great vibe. It was quite busy when I arrived for lunch on Saturday, but I only had to wait a few minutes for a table. They didn’t have any small tables and I felt a bit guilty taking up a table for four, but that soon sorted itself out: The family at the table next to me had 6 people and were having trouble fitting everyone in. I suggested we share my table, so rather than lunching by myself, I spent my time chatting with the grandfather about Pahrump and his history there. Made for an unexpected but interesting time. And the food was good, too!

Next stop was Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge (https://www.fws.gov/refuge/ash-meadows). Thanks to our dysfunctional government, the visitor center was closed, but the trails (and bathrooms) were still open. Ash Meadows is the largest remining oasis in the Mojave Desert, but it’s hard to realize that because there is not a lot of open water. Here are typical landscapes:

The water is almost completely grown over by bushes like this:

When you do glimpse the water, though, it’s stunning:

After a fairly warm afternoon of hiking the boardwalks, I headed for Beatty, NV, “Gateway to Death Valley” and home to 1,000 inhabitants (not counting the burros). After my big lunch, I just picked up a few snacks and a bottle of Diet Coke for the evening. I haven’t been drinking sodas much at all lately, but the day’s walking just seemed to call for it.

My room for the next two nights was in the Atomic Inn. I’ll let their website (https://atomicinnbeatty.com/about.cfm) speak for them:

Completed in 1980, the Atomic Inn (originally the Lori Motel) was built to accommodate defense contractor and military personnel working with the Ford Aerospace Corporation who worked at military installations at nearby Nellis Air Force Base – home to top secret installations like the world famous Area 51 (Groom Lake), the Nevada Nuclear Test Site (where over 500 above-ground nuclear bomb tests were tested, and the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository.

No wonder we call it the ATOMIC Inn! The Atomic Inn/Phoenix Inn is a retro-themed motel establishment dedicated to great value and great service reminescent of the good ‘ol days when Eastern Europe was the Warsaw Pact and the United States was ready to “duck and cover”! Now a popular Death Valley motel choice, the Atomic Inn / Phoenix Inn has survived the Cold War and has been remodeled into the 21st Century yet is still a classic. Rated as #1 in Beatty out of 6 motels on TripAdvisor!!!

Here’s the Inn and the steps up to my room:

Day two will be a ghost town, outdoor art installations, and Death Valley.

Gifting Flowers

tuplesandattributesLeave a comment

Growing up, I was taught that it was important for me to use my talents and smarts to do something big to make the world a better place. I have realized several things over the years regarding this goal:

  • 1. I’m smart, but not brilliant; I was never going to come up with paradigm-changing, world-shaking ideas,
  • 2. Even if I had the talent, I don’t have the desire to put in the hours it would take to be world-class at something, and
  • 3. Improving the world does not mean having to do something that will go down in the history books.

More and more, I think that the whole idea of just being kind to others, of actually practicing the Golden Rule, has more of a chance to better the world than most anything else. Which leads me to flower gifting.

I have been making paper flowers since 2017. I never made them with the goal of selling them, I just enjoyed the process. This means that over the years, I have given many flowers away and never more so than in the last few months.

Since August, my physical therapist’s office got several bouquets of tulips. One of the receptionists there took a bouquet of various wildflowers with her when she moved to Texas; the other receptionist got a bouquet of daisies and roses. My physical therapist got a pink rose for her birthday last month. My landscaper took several roses home to his wife. My home-health nurse admired my water lilies and now has one sitting on his desk at work.

If you are around me long enough, I will probably ask you what your favorite flower is and try to foist one off on you, for example:

  • A friend I gave poinsettias to in 2018, just told me this year that she still brings them out each Christmas
  • My housekeeper’s mother got blue and white anemones for her birthday
  • A rather reclusive neighbor got red, white, and blue gladiolas for 4th of July
  • A good friend got hydrangeas to match those in her yard
  • A neighbor who lost her mother got gardenias because those were her mother’s favorite flower
  • Another neighbor got some of my first self-designed flowers: Alstroemeria

When I look at all the flowers I have made and given away over the years (which you can see if you look under the Paper Flowers heading here on my blog), I like to think that I am, after all, doing my little bit to brighten up the world.

An example of the flowers I often have sitting about

(Many of the flowers I make are thanks to the designs and techniques found at https://liagriffith.com/craft/all-paper-flowers/. If you’re interested in making flowers or many other things, her site is hard to beat.)