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. 

February 16-17, 2019 Shoshone, California to Beatty, Nevada

58 degrees and sunny. Very nice in the sun.

My sister Judy came in today. Robbie came by with the dogs. Judy, Willie, Lilly and Robbie. Sunset was pretty again. 

There is a shark in the sunset, complete with flaming teeth. Sunset over the high school. 

I was looking around for things to put in the the sunset and found these. A flaming log and a big dog The silhouette of some rusty things. . Didn't see the dog when I took it, only in the computer later. 

Dinner at Judy D's place. Judy, John and I cooked. Judy D, John, Susan and Judy P (my sister). They are pictured here with desert, a chocolate valentine shark. The next day we all drove up to Beatty for the start of the Beatty to Badwater hike- 170 miles/ 2 weeks. On the way we buried caches of water and food. It was cold, then this storm blew in and it snowed! Brrrr.

Here is the storm that blew in. Beatty is famous for it's wild burros. Here they are surrounding the car, looking for food.

Our hotel rooms were not ready when we arrived. So we went to the Beatty museum. It was a very interesting collection of artifacts from the area. I saw this detail painted on a drum, 40 miles to wood, 50 miles to Watr, 10 feet from Hell, God Bless our desert. Back at the hotel it was still snowing. We had to wait in the lobby for part of the rooms to be done.  

A small space near the sun cleared at sunset so we got sunset on the snow and palm trees. 

February 14-15, 2019 Shoshone, California

Rainy day in the 60's with wind. Toni and John our wonderful, knowledgeable  Shoshone museum personnel. John is even wearing a red bow tie for Valentines day. Meanwhile John Moran is donating labor in the back storeroom building shelves.  

The Elvis experience truck is in town. But I did not see Elvis. Raindrops on a mesquite bush. A rain dappled phacilia blossom, the first I've seen this year. Rain on the pupfish pond. I had a enjoyable afternoon having tea and conversation with my friend Robin in Tecopa. It is good to see her.  

On the way back to Shoshone the sky put on a light show for me.  Took me forever to get home, I had to keep pulling over to take pictures. 

Sunset peeping out under the clouds over Grimshaw Lake. Panorama of the sunset farther down the road.  

More rain coming in with the sunset. Today we hiked in Green water Valley. Judy and John are both carrying full backpacks. They are training for the Beatty to Badwater hike that starts this Monday.

I walked up the wash, a lot of rain left over from the big storm yesterday. Everyone else, including Judy here walked on the trail above the wash. 

Nice view of Eagle Mountain on the way back. John, Henry and Judy across the wash from me. 

Big rock and blue sky. Not sure whether this looks like a skull or Cheshire cat, spine found on the trail, weirdo cloud, spiral in a rock, rocks sticking out of the rocks, convenient hand holds and a spiral tree trunk. When we were in Sedona they said that the energy vortexes there caused the trees to grow spiral trunks. Wonder if we were in a vortex here? 

Last light on the Nopahs in sunset tonight. Sunset from Shoshone tonight.  

Moon in the sunset tonight. 

We had dinner at the BBQ and brewery tonight. Liz, Susan and Alan joined us. We are not really green. . .