This interesting article did little more than solidify my belief in how people (myself included) are becoming increasingly spoiled and self-important. I’m not in the mood to discuss my views about this right now, but if you have a few minutes, take the time to read the article.
This entry is a little sore from hiking yesterday.
Death Valley is known for its highs and lows: the highest temperature recorded on the planet and the lowest elevation in North America. It’s also known for its once bustling mining towns and strange geology. We felt it was worth checking out.
Christine, Sam, Rece, and I — we really should make up a name for our group, since we travel all over the place together — set out on a 3-day, 2-night journey to view Death Valley National Park. With a rented 4WD SUV, and a few bags and cameras in hand, we made our trek across the desert.
As usual we brought along our GPS receivers, loaded with geocache coordinates along the way. The first of them was at the oddly named Zzyzx exit, followed by Baker and its oh-so-many sights.
The last 3 trips we’ve made out to the desert have given Christine reason to get excited about the prospect of visiting (and eating at) the Mad Greek in Baker, CA. Unfortunately for her, it has always been too far out of the way to justify the long detour. This time our route took us right to Baker, home of the Worlds Tallest Thermometer and also the Mad Greek restaurant (one of their many locations – but she had to go to THIS one).
Having filled our bellies with decent enough Greek-style food, I pointed the 4runner north, towards Death Valley. We stopped quite a few times along the way, either after spotting a point of interest (we stop for almost all historical markers on all of our trips) or to hunt for a geocache.
We’ve come to learn from our past trips that travel time is usually at least double of what it would be if the distance was covered without stopping. So it was already a known variable in our plans that we probably wouldn’t be entering Death Valley on the first day. This proved to be true and drove on to our first night’s stay in Pahrump, NV. I’ll admit that this was probably due a good part to the name of the town, but it was also the closest lodging that probably didn’t have a Norman Bates type of person running it.
Our hopes for word-play were dashed after discovering that we could not stay at Terrible’s Casino (they didn’t have a hotel at this one). Here’s a short list of some possible fun phrases we were unable to use:
Then another catastrophe: the Nugget Hotel & Casino was more expensive than other places in town and had no more non-smoking rooms available. So we couldn’t say we stayed in “Pa’s rump nugget” or anything silly like that. We had to settle for the Saddle West Hotel & Casino, which wasn’t a bad place to stay — it just had a boring name, comparatively.
Day 2 began about as planned and we filled up at the buffet breakfast at our hotel. After backtracking to Shoshone, CA, then turning north we reached the southern most entrance to Death Valley. We thought areas of California state highway 395 were remote and desolate, but they seemed pretty crowded compared to Death Valley. Sparse desert hills for miles and miles — the only living creatures were a few crows.
We arrived at Badwater Basin, one of the lowest points in Death Valley (there are a few other points a few feet lower, but they’re difficult to get to) and found one of the largest groups of people we’d see for the rest of the trip. (As introverts, Christine & I enjoyed the lack of people.)
Continuing on our northern route through the park, we stopped at the Devil’s Golf Course, Artist’s Palette, and Furnace Creek Visitor Center (central hub for the park).
Our primary destination for Day 2 was the Devil’s Racetrack (also known as Racetrack Playa) , which is located in a remote part of the park far up in the northern area. The Racetrack is a natural oddity that I just couldn’t miss. You can read more about it here. The road was 27-miles long and washboard gravel/dirt which added to the adventure. I think I took about as many pictures here as I did all at the other areas we visited in Death Valley combined.
With sunlight soon to be gone, we departed the Racetrack and made much better time on the way out than we did on the way in, having discovered that the bumps smoothed out more the faster I drove. How fun is that?
Driving into the night, we again had to modify our very flexible plans and change the town where we’d be sleeping. Beatty, NV turned out to be the closest option. Apparently it was better that we arrived at night when we drove through and decided to stay at the local Motel 6 — daylight revealed a different mood. The town seems to be in a slow, but steady decline. It had obviously seen better days when tourism brought more people through. But now it seems a little sad — or at least I felt a little sad for the town.
A nice fellow in the motel parking lot pointed out that our back tire looked a bit low on air and he told us where we could get it fixed in town. Coincidentally, the tire shop was next door to the hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurant we had decided to patronize the night before. Some yummy food and a $20 tire patch later we were headed back towards Death Valley.
A sign along the highway pointed to Rhyolite, NV, a ghost town we had read about while planning for the trip. This was another of our impromptu stops and an interesting discovery. Not only had the town been occupied and thriving a mere 100 years ago, but we also found an open air museum with some bizarre sculptures.
Just a few miles after getting back on the highway we detoured onto Titus Canyon Road. Another 27-mile washboard dirt/gravel road, but this time one-way and through, well, a canyon. Aside from one pickup truck and a mountain biker, we were completely alone. The road brought us by some mines and another old mining (ghost) town called Leadfield. Beyond the ghost town the canyon drive became quite narrow, which made us feel as though we were in an old Western film or an Indiana Jones flick.
With the canyon drive behind us, we made it back to California highway 190 and westward through the park. A few minor points of interest later and we again found ourselves on another dirt road in a desolate area on our way to see the Wildrose Charcoal Kilns. These beehive-looking structures were quite remarkable.
Finally, after leaving Death Valley, our last stop was at yet another ghost town named Ballarat. The caretaker was an interesting fellow with a friendly and playful dog. He pointed out a rusty old truck on display and told us it used to be owned by Charles Manson. We didn’t really believe him until we looked it up for ourselves.
The drive home was uneventful, aside from learning that Carl Kartcher had passed away a month earlier when we went into Carl’s Jr. for a potty break and ended up buying a Captain Crunch Shake – it was the first day they started selling them (and they’re actually quite tasty).
As usual we took pictures. Lots of pictures. You can view them at:
This entry still feels a little dehydrated.
“That’s how it starts: one of the little metal parts moves out of the way for the other.” He seemed quite serious, but inside he knew it was all bullshit.
“You’re fucking crazy,” she said, “if I had time to explain it to you better, I would. Right now I just need to get through the last of these.” Her hand moved almost mechanically, as though she’d done it a thousand times before. Her face was one of blank focus as she worked.
“We’ve been through this before. Why don’t you put them down for now and we’ll fix something for dinner. You should just relax for the rest of the evening.” His hand came to rest on her shoulder. Thinking the better of it, he removed it again. “Besides, you like Italian,” he added with a smile.
With a sigh of mock defeat, she pushed aside the contraption and turned to look at him. “You’re right. I am getting hungry.” She stood and walked towards the kitchen. “You are going to help, aren’t you?”
“Absolutely. What would you like to drink?” He followed her into the small kitchen, reaching above the counter that also served as their dinner table to get a couple of wine glasses.
“Sangria, if I still have a bottle left, otherwise something else red. I feel as though I could drink the whole bottle.” She filled the large boiling pot with water and salted it well. She turned on the stove and hummed a dissonant tune.
“Here you go, ” he handed her the glass of wine, taking a sip of his at the same time. “I’ll start the salad.”
“Thanks for coming over. I didn’t want to be alone tonight.”
This entry just felt like writing.
It’s a slow day at the office today; a welcome break if you ask me. Right now I’m scanning an old computer for malware and viruses. It’s an old Windows 2000 computer with 128 MB of RAM. (that means it’s horribly slow, for you non-techies)
While the scan runs I’ve checked and replied to all my email, read all my RSS feeds, chatted with the office manager, and now I’m writing this post. Bored might be a word for it, but I’m not really. Relaxed might be a better fit.
Yesterday I installed a second video card in my computer. It’s configured in SLi mode, which means that it’s got a helluva lot of graphics power. While I was at it, I also installed a second hard drive. It’s not configured yet, but I plan on using it to mirror my existing hard drive for redundancy. The computer is turning out to be a real powerhouse. I might even go so far as to install another operating system or two on the unused partition just for fun.
Right now custody of Rece is settled. He lives with me, but visits his mom every other weekend and also has a mid-week visit. It isn’t exactly what I had hoped for, but maybe it’ll work. I’ll be going back to court in March for a hearing to decide on the amount I’ll pay for child support, if any. Right now I pay my ex $230 a month. It doesn’t seem fair, since I pay for everything regarding Rece. Hopefully the judge agrees with this.
One relief for me was that the judge rejected her request for spousal support (alimony). She’s more than capable of working: she has a college education (BA in psychology) and plenty of work experience. She can no longer threaten me with it.
Hmm … that’s all I feel like babbling about for now. Back to work!
This entry feels detached today.
[flash http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQERRbU23bU]
This entry was very impressed.
I’m proud of the new title and tag line on my blog. I even came up with the snarky quote all on my own.
This entry just couldn’t let it go.
Maybe it’s because I’m spoiled. Maybe it’s because for the past 9 years I’ve worked at a place where we had 11 paid holidays off per year and now I don’t have very many holidays off. Maybe it’s because my son has been lying to me about school. Maybe it’s because I have to go to court in a couple of weeks to work out custody and child support. Maybe it’s because I’m paying a boatload of money every month towards back taxes because the filing was botched by a tax guy that disappeared off the face of the earth.
Whatever the reason is, I’m frustrated. The weekend can’t get here soon enough.
No blogging has been done in some time because I’m feeling rather private. This is because of many reasons and once some of them have been resolved, I’ll probably be back to blogging and taking pictures more often. Inspiration isn’t flowing lately, anyhow.
This entry just wants to relax for a bit.
It occurred to me that the title of my blog was a bit redundant. I mean, this is a blog, right? That’s obvious, so to have it also named “BuzzKill Blog” was silly. So I’ve slightly altered the title for better reading.
This entry waves you by, saying, “move along, there’s nothing to see here!”
This video series is incredible. It never occurred to me that this was even possible. I’m linking to all the videos here, in order, so you can watch them. They’re each about 11 minutes long, but well worth watching them all.
Part 1:
[flash http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cy-fD78zyvI]
Part 2:
[flash http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfXavRTM4Fg]
Part 3:
[flash http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yvRZoM-2r8]
Part 4:
[flash http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0p8LepIuVM]
Part 5:
[flash http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzXZ_Hs1g6U]
This entry strives to live debt-free.