Further on down the road

Here are a few more photos from our recent camp trip. For awhile we were on the Extraterrestrial Highway and I insisted we stop at the Little A'le'in in Rachel, Nevada. It's pure alien kitsch and yes I'm a sucker. I bought a carnival grade Fischer space pen; you know the ones developed for astronauts so they could write in zero gravity. I've had two other better ones but what the heck? Good to keep by the bed. When a midnight inspiration strikes it won't stop working if you jot it down while laying on your back.



We had a long way to go before camp the first night but a few miles down the road we made another stop, this time so I could (again) photograph the world famous Black Mailbox (recently replaced by a bulletproof White Mailbox). Medlin has the distinction of living off of Groom Road which is the way into Groom Lake and Area 51. Lee tolerates my obsession and I his lack of, oh shall we say, enlightenment. Poor fellow. It's not his fault. He's never seen a UFO. Notice that Medlin included a collection slot with his new box. Smart. People from all over the world visit it.

Taken through the jeep's dirty windshield.

Lee wanted to hike in the next drainage over from
this very lazy wild fire but, chicken that I am, I refused.

Defunct apartment building in Caliente. Since I
was a kid I have been fascinated with abandoned buildings

and, when I discovered them, abandoned charcoal kilns.

View of all three kilns and an abandoned windmill
from inside an abandoned stone house.

I am also fascinated by prickly pears,

I think they are amazingly lovely,

petroglyphs in tuff,

and desert rigs.

Still life in the desert.

Tonopah time out of time

Update: Sal at Views from the Hill has a brilliant idea for the Mizpah, (find someone to) buy it and turn it into a writers' collective/retreat (parentheses mine). Thanks Sal. Lovely plan. She kindly provided the link to the Realtor's PDF pitch on the place. $1.5m. A steal! Most places in the country, $1.5m will only get you a cheesy McMansion.

Sal:
Sounds perfect for a writers' retreat, doesn't it? Out in the middle of nowhere, halfway between Las Vegas and Reno. Two bars. (for those convivial evenings) Two restaurants. (soze you don't have to go far to find eats). No gaming license. (fewer distractions for you) Gutted and rebuilt in 1976.

56 rooms, including 6 parlor suites, all with private baths and thermostatically controlled heating and air conditioning. Fine Brussels carpeting was laid throughout, new stained glass windows were hand-crafted for the first floor and the finest of wall paper was hung on all of the walls. The exterior was given a face lift and park benches and iron lighting fixtures installed along the sidewalk. The old bowling alley and other buildings were also incorporated into the expansion.

On the National Registry of Historic Places. Resident ghosts! Wyatt Earp tended bar here! Dempsey worked as a bouncer!

Only in Nevada, babeeee! As our new state motto says, WIDE OPEN.

Here are a few photos from our recent camp trip. Tonight, Tonopah, yes again if you're keeping track. The town prefers being known as the Home of the Stealth or #1 Stargazing Destination in America.

I like the ruins.

Half the town, including Main St. is boarded up. The Mizpah hotel/casino, the grand old relic from Tonopah's glory days, has been closed and on the market for years.

Shop on Burro Avenue, behind Main.

I found the polaroid of this man in one of the dirt and stone shanties on Burro and have been watching its disintegration ever since. This trip it was outside on the ground but for all the years, weather and neglect he still stares proudly and stubbornly back at the world.

The watch was up here, two tiers above where I found the photo this time.

I slid the photo between a couple of stones in the front wall. The watch I left out, a proper resting place for each.

The whole town is built on tailings.

Miner's burrow on Burro Avenue. Home sweet home.

Another window on Burro.

Main St. from Burro Ave.

Tonopah night life.

I finally got around to peeking into the Mizpah. A few lights are always on at night. The hotel is for sale and I'm guessing that the owners don't want the place to look like a tomb. I wish someone would restore it. I would love to stay there for a while. It's a wreck but I'm a romantic. The town is quiet and even in autumn Tonopah's nights are warm.

Saturday night

We're back.

Signals and shards

Tonopah, oh Tonopah!

We're leaving in the morning for Tonopah, one of my favorite Nevada (nearly) ghost towns. It's getting harder and harder to find things there I haven't already photographed but I'll try. On Sunday we are going on to revisit an area where, a couple of years ago, I found scattered remnants from what appears to have been the Fremont culture, namely their distinctive gray painted pottery shards accompanied by lots of arrowheads and a couple of chipping stations. Pieces of a mystery. According to the Utah History Encyclopedia,

"Fremont pottery first occurs as early as 1,500 years ago in several caves and rock shelters associated with mobile hunting and gathering groups and is not found in what we think of as settled villages until several hundred years later ... Whether or not Fremont peoples died out, were forced to move, or were integrated into Numic-speaking groups is unclear."

Otherwise, here's the photo I took of The City from where we stopped. We'd already passed it crossing the valley on our way back to camp.

The City, a work in progress by Michael Heizer, The New York Times called Heizer art's last, lonely cowboy. Don't miss the article's slide show. If you want to see The City in Google Earth, the coordinates are 38°01'48" N, 115°26'10" W

No, we didn't go back in hopes of cashing Heizer's exhibit. He won't allow the public to view his work until after his death. However, here are photos of some people who did try.

Area 51 buffs searching for Michael Heizer and the Complex City

The dark of the moon is on the 11th so we should have a wonderful view of the night sky this trip, elbow to elbow stars. We should be back by the end of next week.


Here's what James Gandolfini has been up to since the Sopranos.

Atomictruth

Atomictruth dedicates this video to his/her son. It is really worth watching. I hope you do.

Atomictruth

03:14

Bison on the road

Here are some videos I took at the National Bison Range when we were in Montana recently.

One-eyed Jack

Lesson of the Day



NEW, EXPANDED VERSION
Home on the range
A certain person commented that this last video "lacks intrigue"
so I cobbled this longer version together to include more
moments of ramped-up passion. (forgive the bad editing)
So ... slow down ...
... waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay down ...
and enjoy a little time on the range with the buffalo. Capiche?

Birthday boojum

Lucky Pierre,
official host of the
Language Barrier's
4th Anniversary Celebration


I am feeling a bit melancholy this evening and after reading Roy's comment about "something in the air", I decided it's probably because humankind has finally made eye contact with the Great Void. Not to worry. As everybody knows, the void does not have eyes so ... and anyway ...

Happy end of August from
the place that does not yet exist.

Lewis Carroll, The Hunting of the Snark:

...
"It's a Snark!" was the sound that first came to their ears,
And seemed almost too good to be true.
Then followed a torrent of laughter and cheers:
Then the ominous words "It's a Boo-"

Then, silence. Some fancied they heard in the air
A weary and wandering sigh
That sounded like "-jum!" but the others declare
It was only a breeze that went by.

They hunted till darkness came on, but they found
Not a button, or feather, or mark,
By which they could tell that they stood on the ground
Where the Baker had met with the Snark.

In the midst of the word he was trying to say,
In the midst of his laughter and glee,
He had softly and suddenly vanished away---
For the Snark was a Boojum, you see.

For he is a jolly good fellow

My first introduction to Edison & Crew

I was at the park when my daughter called. Sometime this sunny perfect August afternoon, in the same beautiful yard where he enjoyed so many good days, Edison ... sweet sweet Edison ... the jolly fair-haired pooch ... will leave his body. I think of him as rising like a lovely butterfly out of a now dusty and decrepit cocoon. If you don't believe in the spirit then dust to dust baby, but I bet you even then Edison dust would have a twinkling golden glimmer to it with pink glittering sparkles flashing here and there.

He will be at home, surrounded by loving family. Understandably, he hates going to the vet so she will come to him. I am grateful for that. After we hung up I sat quietly for a while watching the ducks glide by. Finally I threw two stones in the creek as a way of saying, where you go, so in time go I, then walked away feeling the heart breaking tug of letting go.

Karma snapback?

Senator Craig & arresting officer

Perhaps I am merely and maliciously participating in the smearing of an outstanding, selfless public servant. After all, one of my nicknames in college was The Shark. I'm not proud of that. I'd chalk it up to teenage angst but some would argue that I still have tinges of, mmm ... shall I say ... a razor tongue. I'm workin' on it. In any case, I can't help but comment on the huge karma snapback certain sexually hypocritical Republicans are enjoying after crucifying Clinton for his hypocritical sex and lies; sort of a "first stone" kind of thing. Oops, now I'm making karma for myself. I'm traaaapped.

Anyway, check out this dramatic reading of the police report on the arrest of Senator Larry Craig in that airport men's room. Paul Hipp posted it at Huffpo. It's verbatim so what's the harm? And it's hilarious. I'll say one thing. If Larry is a two-faced liar using his senatorial power to crush his fellow homosexuals to garner votes from conservative Idaho voters, he has got good taste. That undercover agent is a cutie.

(scroll down to the audio link)

Idahomosexual Public Service

Looking up and back

I am lying on the floor of my office looking up at the small, square ceiling wondering if the room is ten by ten or twelve by twelve. It is afternoon and the window is open. The shade is half down and outside pigeons are arriving and departing like small, squeaky airplanes. They come to graze, bathe, to nap in the dirt. When they suddenly all take off together it is in a nerve racking rickety flap. They are too big for the space but I need them. Otherwise, this room is too small.

Last night I did a search on one of my former names and found a couple of articles I wrote back in '78 when I was in ISKCON. This was during the height of my fanatic phase and I was a staff writer and assistant editor for a fledgling, mostly in-house journal. To my great surprise, the articles were posted by a former acquaintance who, in those days, was more proud that he could spit through his teeth and temporarily blind a foe than read or write. In my own way, I wasn't doing any better. The articles are stiff and embarrassing and ribbed by a boilerplate philosophy through which I barely squinted at the world.