“It’s alive and waiting for you. Ready to kill you if you go too far. The sun will get you, or the cold at night. A thousand ways the desert can kill”
The Mojave is a desert of wind, temperature extremes, Joshua Trees and solitude. When most people hear the word ‘desert,’ images of tumbleweeds, rattlesnakes and bleak desolation typically come to mind. In reality, the Mojave is anything but a wasteland. Amongst the sand and sagebrush lie many places of beauty and wonder, and of historic importance. Some are the result of time and the elements, some are the result of man and his efforts to live in the Mojave, both in recent and prehistoric times. Let’s go see what we can find.
I'd heard about the Petroglyphs at Swansea from several sources and was confident I could locate them. They are located along what was once the bank of the Owens Lake, many years ago. How hard could it be? Advance research almost always pays dividends. Parking Tacoma Red off the side of the road, my Garmin and I set out to see the sights.
Read MoreThe "wells" were originally two shallow pits dug into the sandy floor of the valley basin. With the mining booms of Rhyolite, Nevada and Skidoo, the wells were a natural stopping point between the two camps. Stage and freight service between the two began in 1906 and by the following year, a small settlement had grown on the site. It was also the location of the first telephone office in the valley. J.R. Clark, a superintendent of construction on the Rhyolite-Skidoo road reported that Stovepipe Wells then consisted of a commissary tent, a boarding house, several additional tents, a corral and feeding stable and "accommodations in every respect for pilgrims crossing the hot sands. The spring is now inclosed and the water is consequently much improved."
Read MoreDay Three of my “Goodbye God, I’m going to Texas” road trip turned out to be a great day for seeing new things and exploring old things. For some reason, ancient cliff dwellings have always held a fascination to me, but I had never had the opportunity to visit any. So when I learned that there were cliff dwellings a short distance from Route 66, in Walnut Canyon National Monument, that became a definite stop on my travels to Texas.
Read MoreRandsburg, Red Mountain, Johannesburg….all semi-ghost towns in the Rand Mining District along Hwy 395. And just a few miles northeast, in the Golden Valley Wilderness area, is an area known as Steam Wells. So-called because of the steam wells drilled in the 1930s to power mining activity in the area. Of the mining days there’s not much left to see, other than the ruins of an old stone cabin, a collapsed mine and some bits and pieces from the mining days. And prehistoric petroglyphs.
Read MoreJoshua Tree National Park, the California Gold Country, forgotten places in the Mojave Desert. These are a few of my favorite things.
