Death Valley

We just returned from Death Valley  -  alive!  We stayed three nights; the first two nights in the Stovepipe Wells Motel.  The third night we camped out in the desert.

Death Valley National Park is the largest in the National Park System.  Our first location to explore was the borax mines in Twenty Mule Canyon.  Borax was mined here from 1883 until 1889.

 This is one old mine that we stumbled upon. It has been barred off.

 Traveling a few more miles, we came to the very attractive The Inn at Furnace Creek.  We stopped to snoop around and see how the other half live.

 Oooh, a pool!

 Driving a few miles south from the inn, we came to the lowest point in North America - Badwater Basin at 282 feet below sea level.

Next stop was a hike up a narrow canyon to see Natural Bridge.

There are two people standing in that patch of sun to give you reference to the immensity of these vertical walls. We left the tourists (mostly Japanese) behind and explored further as the canyon narrowed and steepened.

 Gail took this looking straight up.  See below.

Coming back down to Natural Bridge from the other direction.

 A most amazing British couple have been traveling the world on their 1979 Moto Guzzi.  They set out in 2010 and headed across Europe, Asia, Japan, New Zealand (both islands), Australia, Alaska, down to California, and are headed for South America.  If you are curious, go to their website at http://www.guzzioverland.co.uk/

 Golden Canyon.

After dinner we took a virtually moonless night hike up Mosaic Canyon.  The night sky in Death Valley is reported to have about the most vivid viewing in the country.  (16 minute long exposure)

 Sunday, we explored an unmarked canyon which involved some rock scrambling.

 Everywhere you looked up, there were boulders and earth ready to fall.

Notice that big chunk of cliff ready to calve off directly above Gail.

 The obligatory silly photo.

 This area is called Artist's Palette.  I thought it should be called Neapolitan Ice Cream.

 Since we hadn't been hiking for 20 minutes, we decided to climb the mountain for a ways past and above the Artist's Palette.

We climbed about 1,200 feet and got a nice view out over the valley.  In the background is snow covered Telescope Peak at 11,000 feet.

Later in the afternoon, we drove to Zabriski Point, hoping for sunset colors on the land.

It was too cloudy, but still impressive.

Monday morning and close to Stovepipe Wells is The Devil's Cornfield.  There must be 30 locations in the park with the word devil, Dante, or death in their names!

 We took a 30 mile drive up through the mountains and just into Nevada.  That's Corkscrew Peak in the back.

 We paused to watch a group of Bighorn Sheep not far from the road.

 The camera through the binocular trick, again.

 Our goal was the ghost town of Rhyolite.  Gold was discovered in 1904, and within a couple years the town grew to 10,000.  By 1908, most left, making this the biggest ghost town in Nevada.

 In 1906, a man built this house out of 50,000 beer and wine bottles.  It was restored in 1924 by Paramount Pictures.

 There were two banks, one was three stories and built at a cost of $90,000.

There are mines still all over the place, between  buildings and all over the hills.

There was a school with 240 children.  Most of  the wooden structures are gone.  Thousands of tin cans are still rusting away all over of  the ground.

This was the railroad depot.  There were two railroads at the time.

 A lone survivor.  We saw no tracks.

 Women came from as far away as San Francisco to service the miners.

 Next to the brothel above was the jail.

 Isabella Haskins was 21 when murdered by her pimp.  The women of the town insisted that she not be buried with the good folks in the cemetery, so she was buried  next to the brothel and jail.

 One of the many hillside mines.

 Next to the town is the quirky Goldwell Open Air Museum.  We never saw anyone overseeing the ghost town or museum.  Occasionally, a tourist would drive in and usually drive right out of the town.  It is very quiet in these parts.

A group of Belgian artists came here decades ago to create in a new and free environment.  This and other ghost sculptures were created by Charles Albert Szukalski.

Chillin'.

The Last Supper.

Kind of eerie.

Artists in residence live at the museum.  We didn't see any.

We drove 5 miles to the town of Beatty, Nevada, for lunch.  We then drove back to Death Valley to begin our little overnight backpack into the desert.

We passed a group of 10 wild burros.  Burros escaped or were let loose from Rhyolite when the town was abandoned.  Their numbers swelled to about 3,000, which hurt the native Bighorn Sheep population.  They are currently "managed" and about 100 remain.

Our goal was to hike around to the other side of those distant sand dunes at Mesquite Flats.  Our neighbors, Jerry and Wanda, had shared pictures of the trip they took here a few weeks ago.

We had to carry all the water we would need.

Hardened mud was evidence that little lakes can form when there is a rare rainy period.

The patterns were quite interesting.

The sun was starting to set when we finally settled on a campsite about a quarter mile beyond the dunes.

Home for the night.  We did a night hike in the dunes.  It was a blast to run down them taking giant steps.

The days reached around 60 degrees, but night was chilly in the thirties.

We got up around 5:30, had coffee and cold breakfast, and headed into the dunes for sunrise.

Coyote tracks were going in all directions.

We finally figured out that these were insect tracks.  They looked like a bike track!

Unblemished dunes marching into the desert.

Gail scale.

At the base of the dunes and out on the flats, were numerous burrows and tracks.

We hiked out to several large mounds about a mile out into the flats.  Mounds form around mesquite trees and trap sand.  The trees and mounds grow together, and house burrows under and between the roots.  That rock in the picture, the only rock of any size in the whole area, must be a metate that Native Americans used to grind seeds, possibly mesquite beans.

You can see how the center area has been ground smooth from grinding.

Gail found this fox hole at the base of the mound.  There was ample fox sized scat around the opening.

Around noon, we headed home by way of the Panamint Mountains and eventually passing by Owens Lake, here in the picture.  In the background are the Sierras, with Mt. Whitney visible as a slender dark ridge in the very center and in back.  Five hours later we were home again, tired but invigorated.

Newport Beach Bike Ride

We drove up to Newport Beach this morning and biked around the very tidy and upscale beach community of Balboa Island.

 This is the famous Newport Wedge - famous for huge summer swell waves that practically pound body surfers, body boarders, and crazy board surfers into "dry" sand.

There were some kids out, but the waves were small.  It was fun for me to at least see this spot in person.

This is The Wedge on a big day (photo: Jeff Divine).

 We rode around checking out the island homes and then took the ferry across to Little Balboa Island.

 Uh oh! We became terribly seasick on the 3 minute ride.

I spotted this VW stretch limo - someone's metalwork creation.  Then we came home.

Weekend Shenanigans

Thursday, raucous good fun with Andria and kids - check.
Friday, bike ride to San Onofre State Beach for sunset happy hour - check.
Friday and Saturday nights, camp out under the full moon in our backyard - check.
Saturday, eleven mile hike in wilderness area and dinner in Temecula - check.
Sunday, a day at the San Diego Zoo - check.

The following are a few snapshots of the past few days.

 We rode our bikes through a part of Camp Pendleton and into the state beach park at San Onofre.  In the winter this 6 mile stretch is fairly deserted.

 A selfie of us getting ready for the sunset.

 It was another unusually warm January day.  We had our little picnic as the sun went down.

 When we got home, Yummy D gave us that, "And where have you been?" look.

 Saturday, we returned to the Cleaveland National Forest to hike the Tenaja Trail down into San Mateo Canyon.  It is a wilderness area that offers a fair degree of solitude.  The streams are unusually dry for January due to our three years of drought.

 San Mateo Canyon  going downstream.

 San Mateo Canyon going upstream.

 On the way home, we stopped in Temecula for some food, music, and a beer.

 Sunday at the zoo, and a most magnificent rear end of an okapi.

The chimps were a real crowd pleaser!  Caution, may not be suitable for children.  Go to the following link:    http://youtu.be/T0KdlK8jpqc    I couldn't upload video through Blogger, so I have to try YouTube.  Sorry for the hassle, but I think you will find it worthwhile.

 There is underwater viewing of hippos through long windows.  Notice the cloud of feces, which is food for fish and worms.  Hippos are so graceful moving around underwater!

 They can stay submerged for about 5 minutes.

 We got a chuckle out of this exhibit because there were only about three zoo birds.  The rest were local great egrets, and great blue herons just hanging out for a free meal.

 Polar bear feet are about the size of dinner plates!

 If you are an elephant, this is where you come for a manicure or other health needs.  I noticed plenty of escape holes for humans!

This secretary bird likes to go to the office wearing sneakers.  And so ends an action packed weekend.

New Year Trip to Palm Springs

We spent January 1st, 2nd, and 3rd in Palm Springs.  We opted to go to an early movie (American Hustle) on New Year's Eve, get up early, and drive to Palm Springs.  We had reserved a little apartment which was once part of the Gloria Swanson compound for a time.  There are six bungalows, each preserved in it's 1930's style.  Our hosts, Steve and Kass, maintain the beautiful gardens.  They were exceptionally warm and friendly folks.

This was the view from our front door.  We were treated to Costa's Hummingbirds bathing and drinking from the fountain.

We swam numerous times and found it hard to pry ourselves away from our lodging at Arenas Gardens.  The location was perfect - about three blocks from the stores and restaurants of Palm Drive, but quietly nestled up against the steep slope of the Santa Rosa Mountains.

At first we felt like we were staying at "Grandma's" house, but soon were captivated by the charm and feel of it all.

Our kitchen had a beautiful old Wedgewood oven.

We brought our bikes, shown here in our back patio.

We took a ride around our end of town, and saw many amazing homes and this rather tame roadrunner.

Bighorn sheep are found in the nearby hills and mountains.This one was some one's yard art.

We prepared for the trip by watching Sunset Boulevard, starring Gloria Swanson.  Gail also dug out color coordinated items of the period, including drinks, dishes, cigarette holder, robe, clothes, and more!  Fun!!!

We brought along this puzzle that Gail had from the "Rhode Island House".  This puzzle was hand sawed in 1934.  The pieces not only follow the outline of the picture, but they form separate figures themselves.  They were very popular in the early 1900's and then again in the Great Depression years.  Made by Parker Brothers, each puzzle was sawed by a woman, who developed her own figures and style.

 Looking back at our apartment behind the umbrella on the left.

 There were quiet sitting and barbecue areas around each little home.

 OK, we finally got out of the compound again and went for a hike up nearby Tahquitz Canyon on Indian lands.  A tribal park ranger pointed out a bighorn sheep that was at the top of a ridge.  They are very hard to spot unless they are on a ridge with the sky behind them, otherwise, they look just like the boulders around them.

 Our tribal ranger, Robert Hepburn, explains the medicinal use of some plant, I think.

 The trail ends at 60 foot Tahquitz Falls, site of the 1937 Frank Capra movie Lost Horizon.

Hiking back by ourselves, Gail and I were excited to spot more bighorn sheep.  I took this photo through my binoculars.

 We saw about five or six in this area.

 On our last day, we stopped at The Living Desert, a desert botanical garden and wildlife park.  They have rescued desert animals from North American deserts and African deserts.  There is also a state of the art wildlife hospital that the public can go into and even watch surgeries.  We liked the park's educational mission, lack of  "Disneyland" b.s., and the reasonable admission fees.

We were in awe of  two Mexican wolves that had a very large and interesting enclosure.  They seemed suspiciously like German shepherds, though.
Well, that's about it.  We had a very relaxing, pleasurable vacation and have vowed to "see in" 2015 in a similar manner.