February 18-20, 2019 Beatty, Nevada to Shoshone, California

The snow on the mountains above us looked beautiful in the morning. Welcome to Beatty Sign, Gateway to Death Valley.

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We went to the ghost town of Rhyolite in the morning. At one time Rhyolite had 5-8,000 people with 18 grocery stores, 50 saloons, 19 lodging houses, 6 barbers, 4 bakeries, 35 gaming tables, 8 doctors and 3 railroads. There is not much left now. A few crumbling buildings. 

Some of what is left of Rhyolite.  It was so windy and cold we didn't stay long. 

Near Rhyolite is the Goldwell open air museum. In front is Shorty Harris- the prospector who found the gold in Rhyolite and his penguin. No explanation why a penguin. There are plaster casts of the Last Supper, also one of the ghostly figures with a bike, a display of large puppets, which you really should see in a video, the wind was blowing them around, a don't feed the burros sign and skull too. Still to cold to really spend a lot of time viewing these. 

Our last stop was at the Area 51 Alien Center, cafe and Alien cat house brothel. There was a free tour of the brothel, but I couldn't talk John into it. We had our photos taken as aliens too. John's camo raincoat would look good on an alien. 

I took a walk around sunset and was surprised by the full moon rising.  

A bit of virga and a palm tree in sunset. John took this of Judy and Judy leaving on the B2B yesterday morning. Only 170 miles and 2 weeks to go.

John is practicing setting his tent up at home before departing on the B2B for a few days coming up. No clouds so sunset was not as exciting, but here is last light on the Nopahs over Lake Robbie in Shoshone.  

 I made this bread for when we take dinner to Death Valley Junction for the hikers. John will make the rest of dinner. We are all spending the night at the historic Amargosa hotel. Marta Becket painted murals on the walls and she used to perform one woman opera/ballets at the opera house there. 

Rain over the Nopahs. The only sun near sunset lighting up the Kingston Mountains.