Grand Canyon

Do you ever have that one day on vacation? That one day you've been looking forward to more than the others? That one big day that ends up being the most frustrating day of the entire vacation?

For me, it was the day we visited the Grand Canyon.

I know, I know. It's the Grand Canyon. How could it be anything less than spectacular?

The day started well enough. We woke up early to get on the road so we could have as much time as possible there. We had seen signs and publicity everywhere for the skywalk at the west rim, only a couple of hours from Las Vegas.

Brilliant!

The drive there took us through the usual desert flats, and fairly soon we started to see the expected mesas and mountains in the distance.

And the timing was perfect since I was starting to feel a little unwell. There was just one thing... this

did not look like any National Park I'd ever been to. Helicopters were taking off and landing everywhere and a giant white tent at the end of the parking lot seemed to be the entrance.

Now I'm going to give you all the benefit of our experience so you don't make this same mistake.

When in Vegas, ignore ALL signs and promotion for the skywalk at the Grand Canyon. Don't do it. As it happens, this is nothing to do with the National Park. Instead it is on private reservation land and the minimum price to even go out to see part of the Canyon is along the lines of $80 per person, with no photos allowed.

Hugely disappointed but glad that we had started out so early because it was barely 10am, we decided to retrace our steps and drive to the real National Park. Plus side: we'd get to see the Grand Canyon. Down side: hours more on the road driving through the desert. And I do mean hours. We stopped off a few times to get more water and to have lunch at Sonic. And the hours ticked away.

By the time we arrived in Tusayan, at about 2.30, I was snappy, crabby, feeling mean as hell. Just show me the bloody canyon already!

One of the many ravens native to the area.

Rather than drive on up to the park and find somewhere to leave the car there, we used the Park and Ride service available for Tusayan. Simply park your car at one of the four pick up spots in town, buy your entry pass to the park, and hop on the bus. You beat a lot of the traffic into the park, and the pass covers the bus services within the park itself.

We were finally at the Grand Canyon by 3pm. And I was tired and frustrated.

We spent the next four hours enjoying the South Rim, hiking in some areas, and riding the bus to others. Near the Visitors' Center was absolutely heaving with tourists, and so taking the bus to points further out allowed us to enjoy the views much more.

To be fair, it is beautiful... despite my grumpiness. The layers of rich color seem to be constantly evolving with the changing light. Vistas stretched for miles, and sound carried just as far.

Nic admires the view as the Colorado River runs below.

Knowing that we had a long drive back to Vegas, we decided to beat the traffic from the park by leaving a little before the sun set. After dinner at a Mexican restaurant in Tusayan, we made our way back through the desert into Nevada, arriving at our hotel at about 1am. Next day would be a lazy Vegas day.

Will I go back to the Grand Canyon?

Absolutely. I want to be able to enjoy it when I am in a better mood. More importantly, we'd both like to enjoy it without as many tourists and yelling children. (Is it bad that we both wouldn't have felt too much sadness if a particularly rowdy trio of kids, whom we'd already told off for defacing the rocks, had fallen? I know that probably makes us bad people but we've all been there.)

At the furthest point of the bus route, Hermit's Rest offers some
relief from the crowds.

Next time we visit the Grand Canyon, we'll plan on making a week of it, doing the hike down to the bottom and back.

Desert Mining Towns Part 2 - Rhyolite, NV

Yesterday, I wrote about the former mining town of Chloride, AZ, now a quirky community with gunfights for tourists at weekends.

Today I want to look at another former mining town that we visited during our trip to Nevada, this one now a skeleton of its former self, and just a few miles from Death Valley National Park. Just as Chloride was named for the mineral mined there, so Rhyolite was a source of its titular mineral, as well as gold and quartz. But I'm getting ahead of myself... first the drive there.

Long, empty road.

To reach Rhyolite, we followed the directions given on the Death Valley NP site, following the long road to Beatty and then turning toward the park. The drive itself was not particularly remarkable, save for the reminders that we were in Nevada, where brothels are legal. My favorite roadside billboard (which sadly I did not take a picture of) proudly advertised: BROTHEL - Hot Sauce, Pictures, Souvenirs. 

Hot sauce - who knew!
The gas station where we stopped also sold a variety of Bunny Ranch souvenirs.

We didn't stop in Beatty, although we later learned that it is home to a huge candy store, one of the biggest in the state, thanks to a local entrepreneur with a sweet tooth. 

On the road from Beatty to Hell's Gate, in one of the most desolate places you can imagine, there is a road that turns off to the remains of Rhyolite, paved in spots, gravel in others. Follow that a little way and turn off to the left toward Bullfrog. One more left turn down a gravel road brings you to the Rhyolite/Bullfrog cemetery (Did you think I'd skip it?) 

Cemetery

The cemetery is home to some 280 graves, although the majority of them are unmarked or marked only by a simple pile of rocks.
A monument marks the historical significance of the site, and there are a few more recent graves.

A few older ones have stone markers, which are still legible. They offer a glimpse into the miners who settled the town, people such as Daniel Kennedy, who traveled from Nova Scotia to

Grave of Daniel Kennedy

Bullfrog, presumably to find his fortune. Daniel died at the tender age of 21.

Other graves, even if once marked, were now worn away to - if lucky - a faded wooden slab, the occupants' names and stories lost to the mists of time.

Rocks outline the two graves marked by this more recent stone.

Some old graves have wooden barriers around them...

Details lost to the ravages of the desert air.

Wandering around the burial ground was a profoundly peaceful experience, but one with an enormous sense of isolation. Hot winds blew across the rocky desert. Seeing mounds of gravel that had never settled lay scattered in seeming random positions. If I closed my eyes, I could almost imagine the far off sound of mining tools.

Leaving the cemetery and heading back toward Rhyolite, we could see the ruins of buildings, and something else...very unexpected.

Silhouetted against the starkness of the skyline were figures - tall, white, hooded. 

The Last Supper

The Goldwell Open Air Museum is an unexpected find at the edges of a ghost-town. At the same time, the sculptures add to the eeriness.

The Last Supper and several other ghostly works are by Belgian artist Albert Szukalski. According to the museum brochure, the figures were cast by using models draped in fabric which was then soaked in layers of plaster. As the plaster set, the model slipped out, leaving the shell behind. The sculptures were then coated with fiberglass to protect them from the weather.

Ghost Rider

In addition to those pieces by Szukalski, the museum contains pieces by several other Belgian artists, all of whom made their home in this unlikely location during the 1990s. Now, their work makes up possibly the most unique art museum I've ever visited.

From the Goldwell, it's a short drive to Rhyolite. 

Ryolite was born in 1905 and quickly attracted those determined to find their fortune in gold. At first, Bullfrog was a competing camp, and the two struggled against each other to become the primary settlement. Rhyolite won and by 1906, the last merchant had quit the neighboring camp.

In the frenzied days of the Gold Rush, thousands of claims were made in the area, and growth of the town was rapid. The town boomed, having close to 10,000 residents within a year or two. Railroads, banks, an opera house, a stock exchange, more than a dozen restaurants, churches, 40 saloons - Rhyolite was civilization in the middle of nowhere. Of course, there was also a red light district, with seven brothels available to provide comfort to those lonely miners. 

Rhyolite

Rhyolite's decline was as swift as its rise. After the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, investment slowed. Some investors claimed they had been tricked into buying shares. In 1911, the town newspaper declared that the main mine, the Montgomery-Shoshone, was dead. The newspaper went out of business two weeks later. The editor wasn't the only one to leave town. The population of 7,523 in 1910 had shrunk to a few hundred within a year. In 1920, only 14 people remained. The last person left in the 1960s, moving to nearby Beatty.

Many of the buildings were moved or torn down and strippped for materials. Today, as the pictures below show, just a few shells are all that remain of the once-booming gold town. 

As the sign in the window says - BROTHEL

Remains of the school and a bank. By the time the school was completed, the town was already in decline.

The former railroad depot

Main(e) Street 

The Tom Kelly house. Seventy-six year old Tom Kelly spent five months building this house between 1905 and 1906. More than 30,000 bottles were used to construct the walls. Once completed, he raffled off the house.

All that's left of Rhyolite

Desert Mining Towns Part 1 - Chloride, AZ

Originally, I was going to write one piece about the mining towns we encountered during our recent trip to Nevada, but I soon realised there was one problem. I have too many photos that I want to share. The desert light was just so perfect.
And so this is going to be a two-part post, both parts rather photo heavy.

I don't recall where I first saw Chloride, AZ mentioned, probably one of those tourist magazines that are in the hotel rooms. Whatever the source, I was intrigued by its description as a "living ghost town". That sounded like a place I needed to visit.

The railroad station now lies abandoned, the tracks dismantled.

Chloride dates back to the 1860s when the mining camp first formed. Although the camp was named for the silver chloride mined there, a number of other minerals were also dug out of the nearby rock, including gold, lead, copper, and zinc. By the turn of the 20th century, railroads came through the town and business was booming. At its peak, the town's population was 2000. By the time World War II rolled around, the area's mining had already declined significantly, in part due to a lack of a workforce and the increasing costs of extracting ore.

Yet somehow Chloride has kept going, no longer as a mining town, but now as a small community of 250 or thereabouts. And the town definitely has a funky vibe that gave me the impression: if you're going to live in a place like Chloride, you need to have a certain degree of eccentricity.

As we turned off the main highway down to the isolated community, the first thing I saw was a coyote dashing across the dusty road to disappear behind a mass of cacti. Yep - this was not Kentucky.

Chloride Cemetery

Our first stop was the Chloride cemetery, in keeping with my tradition of visiting out of the way burial grounds. This was unlike any burial ground I have ever seen.

Although a section was marked off as the original historic cemetery, there was little to be seen, the harsh, dry desert air having worn away most of the headstones. Instead, we browsed rows of more recent graves, decorated with flags and all sorts of monuments, from a simple bunch of flowers to a cornucopia of nic-nacs, as if they had simply moved the contents of Great Aunt Marge's curiosity case from her house to her tomb. It had personality, to say the least.

From the cemetery, we headed into town, unsure what to expect. At weekends the locals put on fake gunfights and reenactments for tourists, but we were visiting on a sleepy Monday afternoon. We circled the two or three small blocks of houses, trailers, and yard art before deciding that the heat was leaving us quite parched. There was a small grocery store/market/tourist office but Digger Dave's clearly looked like the place to go.

Digger Dave's

The titular Dave was not around but the lady sitting on the porch told us to go on in and feel free to browse and take photos.

We had walked into a treasure trove! Every square inch of wall and ceiling was covered - album covers, concert programs, random rusted implements - why throw something out when it could be used for decoration. In the corner of the main bar, AC-DC blasted from the jukebox. Next to the bar was a sign requesting that only girls under 4ft 7inches dance on the bar - it was a low ceiling after all.

Behind Digger Dave's Bar

After giving us a chance to wander and explore, the lady from the porch came in. As she got us each a beer, she introduced herself as Maria. She had come to live in Chloride some 13 years ago. She pointed out the story of Digger available for us to read, and then left us to return to her spot on the porch.

Dave, it seems, had come to Chloride via New York and Washington states. He still hired out his backhoe services to local construction projects. I marveled at how most people we chatted to in these small towns had moved from elsewhere.

If we're ever back in the area, we'll be sure to stop back by Digger Dave's.

Following Maria's advice, we stopped by the visitor's office to pick up a map of the town. Outside of town is a series of murals by artist Roy Purcell. However, we were advised that our SuperBug may not be up to the off-trail drive and so we had to content ourselves with admiring photos.

With map in hand, we explored on foot, stopping by the old jailhouse, the former rail depot, and the other sites of town.

I wish I'd had a chance to stop by Digger Dave's in the evening to chat to some locals. I'd love to know who lives in Chloride, what they do, and how they came to be there. Those would be some stories indeed.

The Chloride Jailhouse

Main Street

Cactus

This yard art captures the quirkiness of Chloride

More from Digger Dave's

Hoover Dam

Hoover Dam Complex

Hoover Dam.

My knowledge of dams is strictly African in focus - we learned about the Aswan High Dam years ago in school. But it seems that Hoover Dam is something that you should see if you're in the Vegas area so off we went in SuperBug.

A work colleague had warned me before going not to wear rubber-soled shoes. Apparently when she had gone several years before, her mother's flip-flops melted in the heat. As if I would wear flip-flops anyway! But while we're on the subject of heat, this was the first real day that I was out in the full sun (much of the drive to Area 51 being just that - a drive in a comfy air-conditioned car). I had not yet adjusted and so was not on my A-game at dam. Big dam. Water. Damn it's hot! Definite kudos to Bullfrog Sunscreen though. My pale English skin burns very, very easily. A trip to the beach in Hilton Head several years ago resulted in second-degree burns, despite layers of SPF 50. We picked up some Bullfrog spray to try for this trip, since Nic had heard it was used by soldiers in the desert. Not one burn. I've finally found a sunscreen that works!

Back to the dam.

How about a few nice historical facts for non-US readers:

Originally called Boulder Dam, it was constructed between 1931 and 1935, and straddles the Arizona-Nevada border. It was officially dedicated as Hoover Dam by FDR in 1935.

Cost some $49 million to build and more than one hundred workers died during its construction. Despite what you may hear, there are no bodies in it. The concrete was poured one foot at a time so chances are they'd have been noticed!

Very nice monument to the construction workers.

That beautiful azur-colored water you see is Lake Mead. And it truly was the most stunning color. The water level was also VERY low, a reminder of the drought conditions facing much of the Southwest and California.

When at maximum capacity, Lake Mead is the largest reservoir in the US; that hasn't happened since 1983.

In fact, just yesterday, a story ran on CBS about how the decreasing water levels are revealing some interesting historical sites.

Note the low water levels on Lake Mead.

Kentucky Kicks Ass shirt at the Hoover Dam.

We spent some time walking around atop the dam, taking plenty of pics, making sure we didn't lose our ballcaps in the wind, and Nic making a good show of representing his home state. He also took a few shots over the edge, gingerly leaning with his iPhone.

View Over the Edge

Eventually though, the strong sun was a touch too much. (Oh how I miss it now!) So it was back to the car and off into Boulder for a very nice (but huge) lunch at the Southwest Diner, followed by exploration into Arizona. But you'll have to wait to read about what we found there until later in the week.

Until then, I leave you with a few more pics of the Hoover Dam and Lake Mead.

Driving to Lake Mead

Atomic Aliens Part 2 - Area 51

Panoramic Shot of Rachel, NV. Photo by Nic Brown.

After whetting our appetites with the Area 51 exhibit at the National Atomic Testing Museum, what better way to spend our first full day in Nevada than a trip to Area 51 itself.

We got off to a rather late start due to an unscheduled trip to the emergency room (expect a future blog post about what to do when you forget your meds on a trip). But, we soon set off with some handy directions from Vagabond3, a full tank of gas, sunscreen, and plenty of water.

The aforementioned items should all be considered essential before you go off driving in the deserts of the Southwest. You don't know how far it might be until your next gas station, and so take lots of water with you. Since the temps were north of 100F, sunscreen and water were key.

Long Road Ahead

First stop was the Pilot at exit 64 off I-15. The place was heaving, clearly a last potential stop for many travelers. For some reason, our radio was tuned to a Chinese-language station and I listened to the incoherent chatter, watching people come and go. As it happened most of those stopping were continuing on I-15 and so we drove off along US-93N leaving the hustle and bustle behind.

This was my and Nic's first time in the Nevada desert, and one thing that struck us over the next few days was just how different the landscape was, depending which direction we drove from Las Vegas. The desert north of the city looked very different from what we would see in Arizona and in Death Valley. All were similar for their sense of space. As we drove, we discussed if we would rather live in the open like this, where you could see for miles, or in the forest, where you could remain hidden but you'd have no idea who was watching you. I found myself preferring the space.

Much further down the road, we made a brief stop at the Pahranagat National Wildlife Refuge Visitors Center, long enough to stretch our legs and refill our water bottles. Then it was back on the road through the isolation. Finally, we passed through the small towns of Alamo and Ash Springs, which alerted us to our drawing close to Area 51 and the Extraterrestrial Highway.

Nic's New Friend

One mile further and we came to the impressive-sounding Alien Research Center. Sadly, although we had heard it was open at weekends, there was no sign of life, except for one other car of equally-disappointed tourists. We did, however, make sure to pose for the obligatory photos with our new friend.

Back to more miles of lonely road. It is easy enough to see why this part of the desert is still used by the military for testing new aircraft. The flats stretch for miles and miles, providing excellent opportunities for low-flight without attracting too much attention. Since sound and light no doubt extend for miles here at night, I'm sure the area's few residents have many stories to tell.

And speaking of stories to tell, we heard a few once we made it to Rachel, Nevada, home to some 98 humans.

I admit I did find myself wondering what 98 people could possibly find to do in and around Rachel. My best guess is farming cattle and dodging abduction.

Once in Rachel, there is one obvious place to go....

The Little A'Le'Inn is Rachel's bar, hotel, restaurant, souvenir store, community meeting spot, and source for chatting to locals about their mysterious nearby neighbors.

The walls are covered with alien and movie memorabilia, including signed photos from the cast and crew of Paul. Other displays shared photos of strange, unexplained lights, sent from around the world. Plenty here to keep you entertained.

As we enjoyed our late lunch of - what else- the World Famous Alien Burger with a side of potato salad, one of the staff shared tales of the unexplained lights she had seen at night, far too high in the sky to be riders rounding up the cattle. Some new aircraft? Or visitors from another galaxy stopping by for a beer?

Little A'Le'Inn - the Alien Burger is delicious!

Inside the Little A'Le'Inn

What lies beyond those gates?

Recharged with food, a bathroom break, and souvenir t-shirts for friends, we hit the road again. This time our destination was the back gate of Area 51. We knew that we would be stopped before we could reach the gate, and so we respectfully stopped at a reasonable distance, took photos and turned around to make our way back to Vegas. On the way, I stopped to take pics of a cow skeleton we had passed as we drove from Rachel to the gates. I was having a Georgia O'Keeffe moment so I snapped dozens of pics of bones, while Nic snapped pics of me taking pics of bones.

Stopping for my Georgia O'Keeffe moment

One for the conspiracy theorists: hit by car at night or something more unworldly?

If you're up on your Area 51 knowledge, you may have noticed that I haven't mentioned the Black Mailbox, mistakenly believed by many to have been the mailbox for the secret military base. I had kept an eye open for it on our way to Rachel, but having no luck, we asked at the diner. Sadly, it is no more, and this is where I have to go on a little rant. The mailbox belonged to a local resident. For more than 40 years, he had collected his mail there... until some idiots decided to break into it and open his mail. This happened several times, at one point private tax documentation being destroyed. Eventually the post office said that they would no longer deliver there. So now, thanks to the selfishness of a few jackasses who somehow thought they might find secret alien documents (?! because we all know the Government would use USPS for that!), this poor local now has to drive to the Post Office at Alamo, a good 45 minutes away, to collect his mail.

Meanwhile, a rather odd but touching little memorial has popped up where the mailbox used to be - a few rocks piled atop each other with messages scrawled on them. Paper notes are also wedged beneath the rocks, offering consolation to the man for the loss of his mailbox.

The drive back to Las Vegas was rather uneventful, save for the unmarked (not even a license plate) white vans that occasionally passed us, transporting Area 51 workers back home after their shifts. Not exactly inconspicuous but better than unmarked black vehicles, I guess.

Did we see signs of alien life? No. Did we have fun? Yes. And when you think about, the aliens probably found ways to disguise themselves anyway. :-)