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.

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.

Faded views

In answer to my daughter's question, no, I didn't visit any of the graveyards in Tonopah this trip, although the town itself is haunted and melancholy as any. I didn't have time to do any more than show a friend, new to the place, a bit of the downtown.

Salvadore was still there, and still doing his fine fade
from the world. I kind of spooked her when I pulled his
photo out from between the stones but I had to check in
on him. He's one of my current favorite time lapse windows
on the past.

She had a $5000 dollar camera with a $3000 lens.
As you might imagine, her photo of this room is better than mine.

Sleepy spring in Tonopah.

Tonopah never forgets.

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.

Back breaking labors

I'm at Comma Coffee for the moment, relaxing after a Dr.'s appointment. Seems I've been walking around with a fractured spine for a while. Makes sense. I eat an awful lot of Ibuprofen and Tylenol. Yum. Next I have to see a specialist about possible surgery. Better not interfere with our plans to dog sit this summer while my brother and his wife are in London. Three weeks in Seattle! I won't give that up lightly. So anyway...

More photos from the Tonopah graveyard from our recent trip. A fascinating place, history in the nude. The Great State of Nevada was settled by immigrants from all over the world who came seeking their fortune.

Most lived hard, short lives.

The people who settle in Tonopah were no exception.

Given that Area 51 is next door,
you never know who you'll meet in Tonopah
or even which time frame they're from...
past, present or FUTURE.

So, what the hell? For good measure I'm throwing in a UFO video for your viewing pleasure. The narrator claims it could be the "most important video in the history of mankind." Too bad the dummy mispronounces the word Nevada.


Interview with an Alien

10:00

Tonopah in spring

I just got back from a weekend in Tonopah, my favorite living ghost town and haven't had time to upload my photos yet and see what I got. Tomorrow. Everything tomorrow. But so it must be. Until then, here's one from last fall.

It was good to be in Nevada's outback. There were times along the road when I was the only human in a vast, wonderfully desolate earthscape. And Tonopah? As ever. It continues to be torn apart by the wind and blow away, piece by piece.

Tonopah, NV

I pass through Tonopah on a regular basis and have photographed it a lot. Here's a few pictures I took on my most recent visit.



Tonopah is in the center of the drain. I happen to enjoy the place but then I like lost worlds.



Strange and sad as they may be, they have interesting stories to tell.

Tonopah

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

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.

Optical illusion or pearl of light?

Most of Tonopah is below ground.

Outhouse behind Mizpah Hotel.
Note the TP still on the roll.

On the surface, streets and buildings

Rm. 501
Outdoor spotlights shining into our room
made sleep the first night nearly impossible.

rest precariously on twisting, overlapping,

Keeping out the light.

intersecting mazes of miner's tunnels

"Pearl" or glitch?
That white dot isn't in the other
other photos I took of the curtain.

miles and miles long.

Lady in Red's "pearl" or optical illusion?

They are the real Tonopah.

Roadside distractions

 A couple of photos from my recent trip to Tonopah.


Still standing. Still for sale.

Opening late 2006

Lovely, downtown Tonopah

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.

Tonapah good-bye

We just got back from another lovely weekend convention in Tonopah. I didn't visit the man disappearing from the photo stuck in the wall of the stone miner's shack.




I didn't poke around the Mizpah this time or check to see if the lights are still on at Bobbie's abandoned Buckaroo Bar out on Hwy. 6

"Back Funa and Two Babies"

but here are a few photos from my favorite graveyard down by the Clown. I took them last spring. Don't worry. Nothing has changed. Looks like this will by my last trip to Tonopah for a while.




I'll miss the place, the people, its ghosts but all good things must pass. Luckily, all bad things pass too. Even naked Sarah Palin will eventually blow away.




Anyway, it's late. We're leaving for Guatemala on Wednesday and I'm not ready but then I won't be ready until a week after I walked out the door.