Feburary 16, 2016 South Western Nevada

My friend Mary Drawbert painted this photo John took of me in the flowers in Death Valley. Way cool. After I dropped off Judy and John in Beatty for the B2B hike I went sight seeing. Here is the Amargosa river that John and Judy are hiking from source near Beatty  to the end in Death Valley. Most of the year it kind of runs underground. The recent rainfall has given it a boost and it is above ground much the way.

My first sight seeing stop was Goldfield, Nevada. It is one of the boom to bust gold mining towns. From 1906-10 it had 20,000 people living there, then the mines ran out and it now viturally a ghost town. It had restaurants, hotels, athletic clubs, churches, theatres, casinos, red light district etc. Here is main street with one of the historical houses in the foreground. It is also home of the Santa Fe saloon  which has the meanest bartender in town and the Goldfield hotel which is haunted. A ghost TV program was filming an installment there and filmed a ghost throwing a brick at them.  This ‘sign’ house is also there. A few people live in Goldfield, but it is mostly a ghost town.

Outside of town is the Worlds largest International Car Forest and ATV play ground. It consists of  painted cars planted vertically in the ground.

More views of the Car Forest. It is reminiscent of the Cadillac Ranch in Texas and the Air Stream Henge in Florida we stopped along our way and saw. The creator of the forest is now dead and the man who took over is in jail. So I guess no one is taking care of it, it had a few trash dumps in it. But all and all it is pretty unique.

 

The Car Forest even had a couple buses planted.  After the forest I went to Ryyolite, Nev. It is another large gold ghost town with all the same amenities at Goldfield, this one has no one living in it and all that is left is some ruins.  There were 8-10,000 people living there during it’s heyday. It is now a state park. The moon is rising over the cool rock formations around Ryolite.

Ryolite and the famous bottle house. It has been restored and has three french boys peering in the window. It even had three trains running through it.

All that remains of a few  buildings.

Right before Ryolite is the Goldwell Open Air Museum. It began in 1984 with the creation and installation of a major sculpture by Belgian artist Albert Szukalski titled ‘The Last Supper’. To make the life sized ghosts he wrapped live models in fabric soaked in wet plaster and posed them as the painting.  When the plaster dried the models slipped out leaving a rigid shroud. It was then coated with  fiberglass.  Additional pieces have been added by three other Belgian artist. The ghostly bike rider was donated along with the bike by a local Beatty resident.  Shorty Harris was a legendary prospecter in Rhyolite. His hopeful companion, a penguin, reflects the optimisim of the miner’s endeavor.  The Lady Desert, The venus of Nevada, or also known as the the Pink Pixilated Lady refers back to classical Greek sculpture while maintaining a pixilated prescence in the  high tech world of the 21st century.

Top, Icara represent a female counterpoint to the Greek myth of Icarus, the boy who tried to fly to the sun with wings bound with wax. It is on top of a pole as tall as a phone pole.  Middle is a side view of the Last Supper and the Serving Ghost which was commissioned and later donated to the museum from the estate of the commisioner. On the bottom is the Last Supper from the front.  Sit Here the mosaic couch was orginally created for an artist in residence project facilitating kids at the Lied Discovery Childrens Museum in Las Vegas.The couch was rescued and relocated here. The white couch was at the Car Forest.

I could not pass up stopping at this place. It is a diner, gas station curio shop and brothel. You can buy cat house soveniers in the shop. The insert was the sign on the acutal Alien Cathouse Brothel.  It is located by Area 51 a secret neuclear test site and home of the alien remains from the Roswell incident. The center was a  cheesy  shop selling alien paraphenailia  and brothel t shirts.  My last stop was at the giant fiberglass cow in the middle of the desert. It was once in front of a casino in Vegas wearing sunglasses. It was rescued by Longstreets casino when they were going to discard it and placed in the desert by Longstreets.