GOLDWELL OPEN AIR MUSEUM

April 14, 2018

One of the reasons I wanted to go to Rhyolite was to see the Goldwell Museum, located on the outskirts of the ghost town. I like going to these quirky places. This museum certainly qualifies. All of the statues are outside on the grounds. Artists come from Belgium to create these works from 1984 to 2000. Amazing they came all the way out to the desert to do this.  

The earliest (1984) is by Albert Szukalski  tittled The Last Supper. It was made by wrapping live models in fabric soaked in wet plaster and posing them like the painting by Leonardo Di Vinci. When the plaster was set, the model was slipped out, leaving the rigid shroud. he artist then coated the figures with fiberglass to make them impervious to weather.

Other Belgium artists added to it later

Lady of the Desert. Done in 1992 by Dr Hugh Heyrman.  Made with painted  cement blocks. Reminds me of Lego's, but represents a pixilated presence in the high tech world of the 21st century.

Sit here was done in 2000 by Sofie Siegmann. Originally created for an artist in residence program for kids  at the Discovery Children's Museum in Vegas. It was moved here in 2007

Shorty Harris was a prospector in Rhyolite. The penguin was the mascot of Rhyolite. No idea why they picked  a penguin as a mascot. Penguin is the complete opposite of what you find in the desert

Icara, done in 1992 by Dre Peeters. It represents a female counterpart to the Greek myth of Icarus, the boy who tried to fly to the sun with wings bound with wax. This was carved at the sight

This last one reminds me of Waiting for the Interurban  statue in the Fremont district in Seattle. I don't have any additional information on it

This isn't part of the museum, but is at the entrance.  Clever use of shoes!

RHYOLITE, NEVADA

April 14, 2018

We found out about another MUST SEE thing in Nevada, so off we went.  Rhyolite is an historic gold mining ghost town about 75 miles from here.  It was very interesting. In 1904, gold was found here.  The downfall of Rhyolite started with the San Francisco earthquake in 1906. Funding for the mines was put on the back burner. At it's height, there were 5,000 to 8,000 people here. It was thought at one time to be The Chicago of the West.  It was a booming town while Las Vegas was still considered a "little hole in the wall".  How times have changed!  Besides discovering gold, rhyolite was found. It is used in man made marble.

This is a restoration of the Bottle House.  It was built  in 1906 using over 5000 bottles to be raffled off. The winning family lived here for many years. 

This was the  3 story Cook Bank building,  built in 1908, costing $90,000.  Seems like alot for those days.  It  housed the post office in the basement, bank on the 1st floor and business offices on the 2nd and 3rd floors. It had electric lights, steam heating and marble floors, all luxuries for those days

This was the Las Vegas & Tonopah Railroad Depot, built in 1909. It was only 1 of 3 railroads in town.  That shows you how important this town was, to have 3 railroads coming to town. 

This was the Porter Brothers store.

This was the local brothel!

VALLEY OF FIRE STATE PARK

April 9, 2018

Another one of the MUST SEE places that we were told about it  is Valley of Fire State Park, NE of Las Vegas.  It has beautiful red  rock formations formed by the shifting sands dunes during the  age of the dinosaurs, 150 million years ago.  Makes you really think how small and short our time is here, just a speck in the time of things. 

This house was built using the red rocks by the CCC in the 1930's as a shelter for hikers. There are 3 rooms inside, each with a fireplace. 

As you can probably tell, I took a picture of the picture. To see this formation, it was only a mile walk, but I only had on flip flops and it was very loose sand, so I didn't go

In an area of the same park, there were white sand formations. Interesting to have such different colors  all in the same park

I know I'm probably  boring you with so many pictures, but it is so hard to choose which ones. These are only a few of what I took. Places like this and also Death Valley are amazing to  me. 

DEATH VALLEY NATIONAL PARK

APRIL 2, 2018

In our travels all over the United States, we have seen many National Parks. Now we have another one that  we checked off our list, Death Valley National Park.  It is about an hour away.   It certainly wasn't at all what we expected. I thought all we would see is flat, dry land, but that wasn't the case.

Death Valley is the largest national Park in the United States  3.4 million acres, covering two states, California and Nevada.  The lowest point is  282 ft BELOW sea level. The highest mountain  peak is 11,049 above sea level. At the lowest, Badwater Basin, you can actually see the highest peak in the distance. Quite a contrast.    It is  the hottest place in the United States, with summer temps frequently above 120 degrees.  We thought we had never been below sea level before, but that is wrong. We have been to the Salon Sea many times. It is SE of Palm Springs and is 227 ft below sea level. 

Below are pictures at Badwater basin, the lowest point. You can actually walk out onto the salt flats.

In the picture below, notice the  small white sign on the hill above the cars. That is sea level.

Notice the snow on top of  Telescope Peak, the highest point in the valley. It is in the distance  to the left of Denny

 Below is actually  BADWATER Basin. It got it's name long ago from horses that  wouldn't drink out of it because it was so salty.

Temp at the visitor center, luckily we were in an air-conditioned truck most of the time.

More pics of the area to show that it isn't all flat. Nice all the different colors from all the minerals 

 The Borax company built a plant here in 1881, but it only lasted 5 years.  It proved to be too expensive to move it to the town of Mojave to transport. it was 165 miles away and took 30 days by the  20 mule teams that you always hear about. They paid the Chinese $1.30 per day, but room and board came out of that. 

I took alot more pictures, but don't want to bore you with them all. It was very interesting to see Death Valley, glad we went

PAHRUMP, NEVADA

February 28, 2018

I am a little behind on my blog because we traveled to a new city. Always lots to see and do when we go to a different area.  Now that we have been here awhile, I'll catch  you all up on what we have been doing. 

We have always stayed in Palm Springs til the end of April or 2nd week of May. Decided to shake things up a little and go somewhere we have never been.  Last year, we took a day trip to Vegas and Pahrump, NV. to check out the campgrounds. We decided Vegas campgrounds had way too tight of sites and it felt like we were camped right in the middle of a big city. NOT FOR US.  Pahrump is about 60 miles SW of Vegas.  It is a  beautiful campground, a 10-10-10 in campground lingo. That is the top rating.  It also shares the parking lot with a winery, so we couldn't go wrong since we like wine!   In the winery  there is a restaurant voted the best in Nevada.  It has the best hot tub we have ever been in. They also pick up your garbage every morning. Have only ran into one other one that has done that.  We will definitely be here again next year. 

 We got here February 28th. We plan to stay a month, then SLOWLY make our way home.  Seemed strange to leave Palm Springs so early, but we always like to go somewhere different each year.  Luckily we left Palm Springs when we did because it turned very hot a few days after we left. They have been having temps of high 90's to 101 degrees. WAY TOO HOT FOR US!!  We have been about 10-15 degrees cooler here, which is fine with us.   We are now getting hotter ourselves. Yesterday we were 90, by the time we went to bed at 11:00 pm, it had only cooled to 80.  When we got up this morning at 6:30, it was 73, by 10:00 am, it was 83. Whew!! Thank heavens for air conditioning.  

Pictures of the campground

                          Unfortunately the shadow in the right hand corner is my finger, OOPS

 Another unusual RV,  we have seen the triangle shaped RV before, but never with the extra pullout on the right. A little small for us, even for a weekend.

The nice thing about being in a new area that there are lots of caches for us to find. Geocaching takes us to a lot of places we would have never seen. In the short time we have been here, we have seen this town from one end to the other.  In our wandering, we found this house. Can't imagine why they built it,  or who would buy it. Seemed a little strange to us

You never know what you'll see in the desert. Will have to say, we never expected to see this. Went here because there was a cache in it. I was totally shocked when I rounded the corner. The cache was called Ship Ahoy, I expected something to do with a boat, but not the whole boat. Unfortunately, people have been using this area as a dumping ground. So much trash and garbage here. Saw lots of couches and chairs besides the usual.  Being out in the desert, you see alot of trash that people leave, but this was a surprise.