April 26, 2017 Gold Butte, Nevada

We drove the dirt road to Gold Butte ghost town site.

It is a National Back Country Byway.  Our first stop was Devil’s Throat. In the bottom photo there is our tiny car with the blue boat on top to show you how big this huge sinkhole is. 

Colors along the way over a wash full of greenery and joshua trees. Lots of spring flowers at this altitude. Brittlebush and mojave yuccas.

Green wash with flowers and a joshua tree forest. Pink desert four o’clock flowers with joshua trees. They open up at 4 pm for the night, then close when it gets hot.  It was only 3 pm, so they were only partly open.

Flowers, yuccas and a view back the way we came. Flowers on the ridge.

Brittle bush, orange mallow and desert marigolds. The old corral at the Gold Butte townsite.

This is about all that is left of the townsite and mine. A few cement foundations and a few pieces of equipmet laying around, but lots of flowers.  Orange and yellow flowers with a yucca on the way back.

An outcropping on the way back. Views of red rocks and colorful formations.

Views of red rocks.  Another old corral.

A flowery view of Whitney pocket where more campsites are.  An arch near our campsite.

Vivid evening colors and clouds from our site.  Desert four o’clocks, yellow and orange, rattlesnake weed and vetch.

Blue indigobush,yellow  brittlebush and red range ratany, poppies, paint brush and  orange, pink  and yellow  flowers.  Sunset with joshua trees from camp.

April 25, 2017 Gold Butte National Monument

Out of Valley of Fire and across the Virgin River to Gold Butte.

The Virgin River. After that slow going for 19 miles on very rough road.

Our campsite. We are way out in the boonies here. Of course the car was dead when we arrived.  John found a burnt out fuse, replaced that, fixed a short and charged the car. It is as good as new. 

Purple field of phacelia and a joshua tree. Sunset on joshua trees.

April 24, 2017 Valley of Fire, Nevada

We took the scenic White Domes drive at Valley of Fire, it really is a lovely park, so many colors. Pencil cholla blooms, prickly pear blooms, yellow flowers and red rocks seen through the rest room window.

It was hot- mid 80’s but hotter in the canyons. We went on a short hike on the White Domes Trail. Very scenic. Lots of colors in the rocks.

John on a nice set of stairs on the trail. Cool water worked rock wall.

Amazing colors and John in the narrows.

Nice lines and colors. It is now graffiti to pile up rock cairns, they can fine you for it. They are everywhere now, it is impossible to know where the trails are because people make so many.

Brilliant colors and an arch.

Cobblestones, more cool shapes and colors and a yucca blossom.

This is at the trail head. You can see the picnic tables in the middle left of the photo. Colors, lines and flowers.

Yucca blossom, more rock designs and an uprooted  dried yucca.

April 21-23 2017 Valley of Fire, Nevada

Great Basin whiptail lizard posing for me, tiny yellow flowers, curly blue ones on a fiddlehead. John and I in a cave with two openings.

Sunset last night. This morning we went to a ranger program on Atlatls. They are kind of a dart thrower, a precursor to the bow and arrow the native americans used. There is a petroglyph panel in this campground with atlatls on it. The ranger is demonstrating how to use the atlatl. There is a more modern day one shown on the right of this photo.

John and I trying the atlatls. A fly catcher, dune primroses- the blossoms are over 3 inches in diameter, and a cactus flower.

The current masterpiece I am working on. There is a slice of a pine cone in the middle. I am using some stone beads that look like wood grain and I am making a gold and copper colored bead bezel for them.  John made yummy butter nut bisque tonight. I made some home made multigrain bread. Great dinner.

Sunset tonight. This morning we went on a ranger led petroglyph walk. Here is Chris the ranger in front of petroglyphs lecturing.

We were at Atlatl rock. There are three atlatls on the rock. The top part under the sheep is an atlatl with the leather finger holes and below that is a dart that the atlatl throws, the bottom part is another atlatl behind the rock.  Atlatl’s were mostly replaced with bows and arrows about 1500 years ago so these glyphs are over 1500 years old. The petroglyphs to the right are being reclaimed by the desert varnish. Petroglyphs are  carved or pecked  through the black desert varnish to show the red under neath. They theorized that it takes at least 3000 years for the desert varnish to form again over the petroglyphs, so these are over 3000 years old.

These two panels are about 50 feet above the ground. One theory is that the ones so high up deal with spiritual themes.

The basket is coming along. Still has a long ways to go.