The Mizpah at last

I'm just back from my spring trip to the lovely semi-ghost town of Tonopah Nevada. 

The desk clerk told us they sometimes hear
children talking who are not there. That made
the strange miniature furniture look really eerie.

The big news this year is that the Mizpah Hotel has finally re-opened.

Last year...outside in.

I've been photographing the place through the windows for years.

Now I finally got in.

This year...inside out.

There have been other changes around town as well.

That photo I found a few years ago of the guy posing with a beer is gone.

Gone....

It was in the cave/cabin on the floor with all the junk so, for safekeeping, I stashed it between some stones in the rock face of the "cabin". However, this spring it was gone so another face disappears into Tonopah's fading past. Also, the abandoned tailor's shack up the street that still housed some wonderful antique equipment is gone.

Little remained of tailor's
shop from days gone by.

I'm hoping the museum folks rescued the equipment. I don't think it was in the rubble but then I didn't dig around.

Tailor shop today, collapsed and gone.

And, as I mentioned before, the little store Hippies of Tonopah is gone, not the building itself, but Hippy. Graffiti inside reads "Ur Gay". So much for love in diversity. 

But no time to mourn to past.

The ghosts of Tonopah Present haunt us even now...

Goblin of the Fifth Floor

...not only the goblin that accosted us as we explored the hotel...

The Lady in Red

...but the ghost the Lady in Red herself. Legend has it that she was stabbed to death by a jealous lover in the hallway outside of her room, 502, and haunts the hotel to this day. Naturally, we tried reserving her room for our stay next fall but it was already booked. But we will be in room 501. Close enough. I'm already spooked. The building itself is morose and vaguely threatening. I was happy to get back down to the lobby and glad to re-emerge back out under the blue desert sky.

I posted more photos of the Mizpah here.

Touch down and take off

Tonapah's legendary ghost,
the Lady in Red

I just got back from my bi-annual weekend in lovely Tonopah, semi-ghost town and still and always, Queen of the Silver Camps. Once again, the guy ahead of me in the hotel check-in line won the Tonopah Station lucky roll of the dice free room. I did not, again. But the Big News from Tonopah is that somebody finally bought the Mizpah Hotel, probably for pennies on the dollar, and the place is scheduled to reopen in a couple of weeks. I hope they do better making their deadline than the Belvedere Hotel across the street. The sign announcing the Belvedere's 2008 reopening still hangs on the front of the building above the broken windows, fading into oblivion. This trip, I counted more broken windows at the ol' Belvedere but was puzzled by the lack of pigeons who normally reside there. I am not going to say foul play? No. I will not even think it.

Anyway, the Mizpah wins my Tonopah Zombie Hotels Back from the Dead Award (for the day) so my hat is off to them. I hope I get a chance to tour the place before it closes again. I have been photographing it through the windows for years. I really want to meet the Mizpah's legendary Lady in Red who tragically, in a crime of passion, was murdered on the fifth floor back in the 1920s. It's not because the new owners claim she leaves pearls under people's pillows. I dig ghosts.

Tomorrow we leave again, this time for points north. Got to have tea with Ms. Thea Bella and Baby Leo. I realize I'm pushing the limit still calling Leo a baby now that he's turned one, but come on... I've hardly spent any time with him. Once he starts walking I'll stop. It won't be long. These days it's all he wants to do. So, our odyssey Cross Country American Road Trip (Florida and back again to Washington and back again) won't be officially over until mid-October when Kimberlee, Mr. Reid (he's two) and I do our Portland meet-up.

So, what the hell am I doing fiddling around with my blog? Must. Pack. Now. See you on the road.

More from Tonopah

The strange hills of Tonopah

The road goes straight to town

Convention Center (L) Belvedere Hotel (R) home to many pigeons

Ramada casino display.

Old Roma Cafe on the outskirts of town.

Tonopah in the spring

Lovely Tonopah. It's like coming home.
The baby bunny in the road

had no interest in moving for
the jeep even when I honked. 

When we finally

got to the Ramada

I rolled for the free room.

It takes three of a kind to win.

The guy checking in ahead of us won.

I did not.

Super Mega Moon in Minden

It isn't much but it's the best of the cell phone photos I got last night as the super mega moon was rising over Minden, Nevada. It's not a good photo. It's blurry and taken through the windshield. The streetlights are bigger than the lovely moon and it was lovely. In case you've never heard of Minden Nevada, now you have. This is the one of two blocks that make up what is basically downtown.

 

I want this to be all there is of Minden Nevada but it's not but the way the downtown is is still kind of the way it was, which I like. By the time I got home and to a good camera and tripod, minutes later, the moon had nearly vanished behind black clouds so this is it.

Oh, and Happy Spring Equinox. I would have preferred cherry blossoms to snow but snow it is. 

Nevada demonstration supporting Wisconsin protest

Photos from yesterday's demonstration in Carson City at the Nevada State Legislature in support of the Wisconsin protesters.

For more fun watch Jon Stewart's commentary Revenge of the Curds.

Outtakes

Okay, time to change the top post. As Judybluesky commented here recently, we American's suffer a shrinking social attention span so enough for now about the fact that Wall St. bankers are ass raping us in front of our own children then eating our lunch. Here are a few outtakes from recent things we've been dong here in the great state of Nevada, a world of harsh beauty and insane hopes.

View from the Peppermill casino buffet.
Casinos frown on photographers but I snuck this shot for you.

Cycling by the Sierra

My street at twilight

Tesla

This is not an ad for Tesla. I just happened to see one yesterday and thought it was pretty cool. Look ma. No tailpipe! The one true all-electric car. I am not a car nut but I do appreciate when beauty and function come together in an eco-friendly manner. There are less than 1500 on the road worldwide so that makes this an Official Sighting and the first in a new category here at the language barrier. I know who he is but I scrubbed the license plate because otherwise I would feel creepy posting the photo. That said, he was one of the first software engineers at Google when it was a start-up. These days he does his own thing which includes helping develop eco-friendly projects, education and the arts. Oh and don't miss the fuzzy dice. Pure cool.

Base price for a Tesla $109,000(US), £86,950(UK) and €84,000 in continental Europe. 

Baby Watch 9 or Tumbleweeds to Black Rock

It's that time again so...

Full size here for details.

my G'ville expat friends now living in Mexico showed up the other day. They are like human tumbleweeds...


that blow in from the Sonora Desert enroute to the Black Rock Desert where they do the Hokey Pokey Consortium


then blow back to Mexico. As usual, I'm not attending. I have no interest in hanging out on a wind ravaged desert playa for a week even with The Spectacle. Is that so wrong?


Anyway, September 1 we leave for Florida then Costa Rica, in all for a month and a half. And yes. We are still waiting for Baby.

Reno, Spoken Views

I am staying in Reno tonight after reading at Spoken Views monthly open mic. I heard some really good work. It was better than Berkeley and more energetic. I'm glad I finally went.

Transitions

I'm in Concord tonight helping with a quasi-emergency kind of thing, nothing too serious (probably) but urgent. We have the weekend to close out the apartment of an incapacitated family member. I have to say, it puts things in a very peculiar light.

Anyway, here are a few photos from last week in Tonopah.









Karaoke goodness is pretty rich but if you're up for more, I posted the second video here.

Tonopah

Behind on everything but this morning I'm off to Tonopah for the weekend. See ya from there.

Coffee with oracles

The neighbor's roof line, dark against a lightening sky, high streak cloud catching pink. I am on my second cup of coffee. The magpies are early this morning, accompanied by a noisy crow.

Blue Moon New Year

The photo is from Beaver Dam Wash. We don't go there anymore. The one road in washed out. Only the moon goes there now.

Through the looking glass

Bugsy in the backroom

By the end of the day my bag will be packed. That is my promise to myself. In the meantime, for your entertainment, I posted a few more photos from our recent trip to the Great Basin at flickr ... if you're interested. I'll post more here later, after my bag is packed.

Defunct Currant Cafe
Currant, Nevada

Currant is a ghost town along Nevada's Hwy 6, a road that makes Route 50, the so-called "Loneliest Highway in America", look like a traffic jam. The Currant Cafe and Motel are currently one of Mother Nature's little reclamation projects. It's my kind of place.

Currant Cafe, on Nevada Hwy. 6 

Currant Cafe, a once friendly stop along Nevada Hwy 6, the real "loneliest highway".

Currant Cafe, caught in the looking glass

Currant Cafe, a lost world

Currant Cafe interior

Currant Cafe through the looking glass

Currant Cafe, another dead Nevada roadside attraction