Zabriskie point

Most people enter the park not far from Zabriskei point, so this is often the first stop. I could tell by how many people were here and how many of them weren’t there for real hiking but dressed as tourists in any city. They probably came from Las Vegas – more power to them – see the beauty of this park.

There were plenty of crows here, hadn’t seen to many before this.

I know, more mountains, but so different!

How is that for a vanilla cake being iced with chocolate?

My geology isn’t great. But I’d say, when created, there was a white layer than a black layer, erosion exposed both. In the hills closest to us, the brown completely eroded away. The back hill still has some of it’s chocolate, and the rivulets running down the crevices are the eroded particles following the laws of gravity.

How fun is this, capturing people taking pictures against the beautiful backdrop.

A closer look at that backdrop.

This is the last of the mountains, moving on. btw, look up at the upper left corner, there is a hiker up there. he is tiny, as we all are compared to nature.

Good bye from another crow.

Leah

The mountains, mostly a drive through the Artists Palette

The geology here is breathtaking, this series is on the drive through the Artists Palette. Many of these minerals were deposited here at the same time, but they didn’t mix, which is why there are separate colors. It is erosion that exposed them to us.

This was just a mountain side, so many of the mountains look like this. that incredible combination of rock creation underground and then the affects of erosion.

Here you see a landslide, and underneath, some of the incredible colors.

He climbed up to get a better look, I stayed down and took a picture.

The camera does a good job, the real eye does even better

Luckily, this is a one way drive, so we could stop and take this picture. I love the little bush in the foreground.

These aren’t in order, you are lucky I am only sharing a handful of pictures, it really was overwhelming.

Look up, its not not just the colors.

The colors are amazing, It is different minerals that create them. I think that until synthetic pigments, many came from these kind of rock minerals.

The dark brown, the white, the yellow, all are great foils for the pinks and turquoise.

Yes, I am still interested in the state that can be seen at the top of the mountains. To the right, it is horizontal, to the left, there is more of a slant – I need more geology in my life.

Leah

Salt Flats

This is all in one day, the jeep tour and the next two posts.

We visited two salt flats. This is Devils Golfcourse. The two were very different from one another. The rains of this winter have made the salt much more visible. Apparently over the last few years it sort of shrunk back into the earth.

Although the sign did say that have new water comes into the valley, mostly from melting snow on the mountains – it has minerals in it so as that water either seeps down or evaporates, more salt is exposed, the fields are growing.

The salt creates a solid glass like surface, even though the salt crystals grow in interesting ways. We were advised not to try and walk here – a fall can happen easily and those crystals can cause serious cuts. So we stayed in the parking lot.

Clearly Joel has the better backdrop!

On to the Badwater salt flats. This is the lowest part of the United States.

I have been to the Dead Sea in Israel, also, massive amounts of salt and minerals . The elevation there is -955, so yeah, a little lower and closer to the earths core.

We took a mile walk out, along with a lot of other people to see this. Here I am beginning to see the famous polygons.

These are mud cracks, that form with the change in moisture and in temperature. A lot of the salt will congregate there. I think this is what the RaceTrack looks like, with the ‘moving’ rocks. Nope, didn’t go there, it was too far away and on a bad dirt road. I guess I just need to come back here again.

This really is surreal, I’m sharing a few pictures, I do recommend that if you can – come here yourself! Heck the Germans come in the middle of summer! They want that dry heat.

But just one more!

We took pictures of one another. once again, Joel has a very good background.

My foreground and background aren’t bad! in the background you can see people walking on the mile long salt path towards us.

Turning to take a picture of Joel. Btw, down here it was quite warm, in the high 60s, vs. the mountain tops where it was in the 40s. Yes, this is also later in the day, so it warms up. But the difference was very noticeable.

Leah

Aguereberry Point

From the kilns we drove up a mountain, past a few mines. Turns out that Aguereberry owned some of them and when his men weren’t mining he had them build a road up to the top of the mountain. The mines supported him for 40 years, clearly he paid the miners to make the road. A good use of his money. But its’ not paved, so either take a jeep tour or rent a jeep.

To an area now named after him, Aguereberry Point. I can begin to see the incredible view.

Now that is a view down to the salt flats. At this point I don’t remember what direction I was facing, probably north.

This is looking south towards Badwater flats. The lowest elevation in the continental US. All that whiteness is salt

Looking North-east towards the snow covered Sierras.

Joel always says that nothing can capture the reality. He is right, but I still love taking pictures and sharing them.

Now for some interesting framing. The rock formations are incredible and there are different types of rock, I don’t know the names. Lets just say – dark…

…and light. I’d love to know the forces that pushed these rocks in so many different directions.

This shorts vertically towards the sky, while the mountain behind it seems to have its layers in a very horizontal manner.

Sometimes it’s just rocks

With both mineral markings as well as lichen.

A very hardly little bush, I hope its’ just dormant until spring. To me it looks like natures version of Bonzai trees, see, we humans think we came up with something – and nature just laughs.

Back to Cashier mine. The remnants of the working area – where the ore is first separated. I saw the hole of the actual mineshaft. Hal recommended not going there. Sure the sign said it is the wintering spot for some special bat, and not to go in because of it being their sanctuary. Hal basically said don’t go in, the bats have rabies. Not covid, that came from a lab in wuhan. Sure, they may have extracted it from bats, but it wasn’t bats that spread it – that would be the Chicoms. Or is it Pfizer? They haven’t denied doing ‘gain of function’ or what us simpletons call biological warfare.

The dryness of the desert is why this wood survives and it won’t lost long.

It was still cold, not freezing, but cold. Later in the day we’d be somewhere much warmer.

This was possibly a hut for the miners, the stone stands and even the wood is OK.

Leah

The Charcoal kilns

Doing Travel right, spend money on good quality experiences. In this case a jeep tour.

Here is Hal, our fascinating guide. Yes, that hat is a Vietnam Vet Purple Heart hat. Turns out, he has 5 Purple Hearts, 4 for gunshots, 1 for bayonet wound – although he won that fight. His stories were fascinating, what a life. Anyway, I’d like to concentrate on the tour. Hal says he’s writing books, who knows, listening to his stories was incredible.

The charcoal kilns. Not many people get here because one needs a solid 4 wheel drive. Up a steep canyon. So here is the story. In the mid 19th. century, mining of all types was the rage. In order to extract ore from the slag, one needed charcoal because it will burn at a higher temperature. To make charcoal, one must burn wood slowly without much oxygen so it doesn’t just burn, but becomes charcoal.

The kilns are up in the mountains, and snow was plentiful. I asked Hal if this technology was from the natives. I knew the answer, but waited for him – no, they never knew about charcoal – let’s be honest – they were basically stone-age people. The miners brought in a Swedish expert who built these over 170 years ago, and look how beautiful they are, its’ not just the shape. In creating things, humans try and include beauty – well, not our moderns – they are anti- beauty.

Building an arch needs a keystone, on the other side there is another opening higher up, another way to load in the wood. The inside is completely blackened, from the smoldering smoke.

Remains of the old ‘office’. Once production stopped, they removed all the wood that had been used in the building and just the stone foundation remains.

Not a clear picture, Joel is holding a piece of snow.

Thank goodness this picture came out much better. You can see how thick the walls are, buy looking in at the doorway. Yes, it’s cold up here.

Interesting protrusions. I’m wondering if they are there to keep birds and animals off.

A plant has taken root. These are so well built, that this is rare, you’d think that much more erosion would be happening.

I took a lot of pictures, couldn’t help myself.

We parked right before this ice. I was very careful where I walked, falling down wasn’t an option.

We were high enough that looking down the canyon I could see over one mountain range to the high Sierras. That is the part of the range with Mt. Whitney. The highest point in continental US, later that day I’d be standing at the lowest point.

Up here we have trees, higher up, they will disappear, lower down they will as well. This was just the first part of the jeep trip, more to come.

Leah

Death Valley

This is be the first of many posts. A drive up from LA turned out to be easier than I thought. Initially the maps sent us up the 15, past Las Vegas. But finally, one of the apps recommended a faster and easier drive, up the 14, then spilt off towards Ridgecrest. We never went through Ridgecrest, we went through Trona instead.

Someone quipped that Trona is like Mars, but much worse. As you can see, mineral mining is what goes on here – Borax, Trona potash and other minerals extracted from the saline dry Searles lake bed. Reminds me of working in Beer Sheva for The Bromine company – that extracted the same kind of minerals near the Dead Sea.

The drive was easy, no traffic at all, the map initially sent up up through Wild rose – didn’t go that way, it was a dirt road so we kept on the main highway until Panamint Springs.

There is a general store, a motel and a gas station. Someone has a little plane to get in and out. Are you seeing the dust blowing in the background? Yeah, it was very windy. We are already in the national Park. Unlike other parks, there isn’t an entrance booth. We ended up buying our passes in Furnace Creek. We had wanted to hike the two mile round trip to Darwin falls, but the recent rains made this difficult, too much mud. So we went to Father Crowley Point instead.

this is the view, one of the many different types of geology we would see in the Park. I had a very hard time taking the picture. The winds up here reminded me of the winds on Cape Horn. I was being blown around, literally.

It is only 8 seconds long, but just listen to the wind! I couldn’t stand there longer, also, good thing that fence was there, I may be been blown down otherwise.

from there, it was on the road into the main valley of the park.

Down in Furnace Creek, the temperature was much warmer and the winds were not as strong.

On the first day, we visited the Inn at Furnace creek although we stayed at the Ranch.

The National Parks are now partnering with a private company to run the lodges and hotels. Recently they updated the ranch and added new cottages which is where we stayed – absolutely lovely.

One of the things that Death Valley is known for is the Borax and the 20 mule teams that brought it out to either Mojave or Bishop. This lasted only about 10 years until a railroad was built.

Although Borax may have made the valley famous, it was really gold, silver and other ores that brought the miner to this area.

The Ranch has created a lovely little ‘town’, with store, restaurant and yes, an old fashioned ice-cream parlor. The national parks hire seasonal workers. The gal working in the parlor is part of a Christian group that offers services every Sunday. This group has been around since the 50s. She was also reading John Steinbeck – who may not be my favorite but is so much more impressive than most writers today. I complimented her on her Christian work, never saying that I’m Jewish, just commending her for doing the lords work. One of her comments was that most of the people who come and need the Sunday prayer are the fellow workers, not so much visitors. I hope they take this with them when they move on.

Sunrise the next morning.

the early morning wash of gold.

Leah

teaching grandkids

Shira has really taken to crocheting, so she needs a tool box. Her favorite colors right now are red, black and purple. If I had any Anime fabric, she really would have loved it, but I don’t.

Here is the purple inside.

On FB someone was advertising for a pattern to make this simple box. I looked online, downloaded the pattern, and no, it wasn’t simple. One big mistake I made was use By Annies Soft and stable, I think that if I had just used a very sturdy interfacing it would have been easier. Yes, Shira loves the zipper pocket.

I was supposed to put two tabs, and I broke a needle doing so, ugh.

It is really nice that this opens up to become a flat tray with sides. I then found another tutorial on Missouri Star Quilts – instructions were a little better, but still complicated.

I forgot to take a picture with her hooks and other items in it.

This really does hole a lot of items, I’ll probably make it again, and next time, it will be easier.

There it is! We moved on from basic crochet to the project that stated it all. A Woobly Fox. there is a good tutorial online. Of course it makes all the difference in the world that I actually sat with Shira and taught her the basics of crochet. She still has a ways to go, but definitely made a lot of progress. If this works out, I’ll be happy to download all kinds of Amigarumi patterns.

Then, on to the boys. Last week Cam asked me to teach him to embroider. He had needles and floss but no fabric. Like a good grandma I went and bought fabric, a book, needles, needle threaders. Also, thread on a spool, so he doesn’t have to separated the threads, or have them get tangled. At first West wasn’t interested, until of course he was

Those scissors are a gift from one of my cross stitch friends, Kendra. They really love the mouse fob. If this sticks, I’ll teach them cross stitch, for now, it’s basic embroidery stitches. Both of them are very good with their hands so it went very well.

Yes, we started and stopped with knots. That is how I learned, with time I’ve gotten neater, but start where you start! I didn’t make a case, but I did buy a basket for all of this. The hoops are ones I had and never use, so pass them on. I have some lovely embroidery hoops. these are very nice for them to work with.

Will update progress soon.

Leah

What to do with all these finished works

Do I just keep on framing and putting them up on the wall? Of course the one I just finished is my favorite, until I make a new one. This one is lovely, I changed all the colors I even changed some of the design

Here I was, getting close. I didn’t put the E,N,W in the three corners where there was room for them. This is called cardinal points. It’s nice to have the bird itself, but the points is about the four main directions on a compass. There was no room for S, so let’s just skip them all and stick with the birds.

I get it, why people have so many projects going at once. That way they are always working but rarely finishing and they don’t have to wonder what to do with the finished object

If one decides to start a floss tube ie a channel on YouTube about their stitching, then of course you need a lot of projects, because showing the same one over and over again every other week would be boring. Sure, I do it here, but my blog has other topics as well. I’m not following some formula.

One of the worse things about Floss-tube is the haul – it’s not just 50 or more projects going at the same time – it’s buying all the new stuff. People should do as they please, but when people buy! Buy! And BUY! then lecture me about being green – no thank you.

My initial project is moving along nicely. My stitchy friends recommended that I turn this into a pillow, which I will probably do, because why not, I don’t need another framed object. I still have a way to go, more Ls’ to add in. Meanwhile, I’m making another quilt. And teaching my granddaughter to crochet.

Leah

Like a museum

My friend Bunny and her husband Tom have been collectors forever. Tom started traveling to Tibet in the 70s with his first wife and has been collecting rugs, textiles and other artifacts ever since.

I didn’t take a lot of pictures, its’ a home, and just snapping a few was enough. He has a great eye for color, just look at this Kilim weave bag. the kind that would be on the back of a pack animal. I’m pretty sure the fibers are some wool, since it is probably from one of central Asian Stans. But the colors! Be-still my heart, they are still bright and of course, are so harmonious.

Same piece from another angle. Btw, the art world is dead. Have you seen the new sculpture in Boston – meant to honor MLK? What an ugly piece of garbage. so they tear down old statues and put up dreck. Which is why for years, I have called myself a crafter. Because the craft world has always been full of beauty and although many are infected by the woke religion – many crafts are still beautiful.

Like all collectors, once bitten by the bug of collecting, it moves beyond the original object. So here we have mask, most are Japanese, but other cultures snuck in as well. Below the mask you see other items, and yes, to my eye, there were some small sculptures that are better than what museums own.

More of the mask wall, really a lot of fun.

A very large mask from Australia. The dot patterns are common there as they are in New Zealand. Btw, it is up against a photograph that Tom took many years ago upon a return from Tibet, and they photographed all of their purchases on their driveway. Meanwhile of course Tom has collected much more. It isn’t clear what will happen with this collection when they are gone. Tom is now 90. Who knows, museums don’t want this, it will probably be dispersed and sold. They are enjoying it now, what happens latter will be someone else’s problem. I feel the same way, I’m enjoying what I make. If my kids don’t want them – so be it. For all I know some pieces might end up in a goodwill store.

Top of same mask. Look at that lizard! I’d hate to actually meet him in the wild.

A didjeridoo from Australia – same kind of decorations. As I said, I didn’t want to just take pictures. For me it is a pleasure having their friendship and enjoying their collection. It is so interesting to see what people have in their homes.

Leah

A short winter walk at the beach

West will go and do anything, Cam is much more reluctant and always starts out with no! So we struck a compromise, we’d go to the beach and then the park.

You can’t really see from this picture, but they moved the lifeguard stations up the beach because the waves have been so high. Notice the seagull on top. It looks like there may be another one down by the ramp. I don’t know, it actually looks like a platypus – I didn’t notice it when taking the picture, so who knows.

Plenty of seagulls. Cam is so funny, he wears sweats and a sweatshirt in the summer, in the winter, it’s shorts, at least he put on a long sleeve shirt and long socks. I brought a sweatshirt for him – but he never wore it.

Westley on the other hand is dressed appropriately – he always wants to bring the metal detector. When he is with me, he finds nothing, when he goes with Mama he finds interesting things – this is because of Mama – I think she is related to Santa. He told me that they have closed the gates on all the piers in the area, which I believe.

Then it was on to the park, on the walk home, this showed up right over head. I think that every so often they take it out for a spin. It is really weird when this silent large blimp glides right over my head.

These are not my Meyer lemons, although I do have some. My friend has a 90 year old tree and boy is it full! Recently a friend on FB shared a recipe for grapefruit and vermouth marmalade. One citrus is as good as another. I found a new recipe for Meyer lemon marmalade.

Aside from, make your own pectin, which I didn’t do, I like the chunks of fruit. Also, I only used 4 cups of chopped lemon. I adjusted water and sugar along the way. Yes, I did add some of the low sugar pectin that I have.

This is what I got, 3.5 jars. so no, there was no boiling bath. I simply put on the caps and that is it. Of course I added the vermouth – and yes, it adds a wonderful richness! I’m keeping a full jar and the half. The other two are going to friends, one who gave me the lemons and the other to the friend that was with us.

I like this idea of making small batches and not canning them. I will either use my own lemons or simply ask my friend for more. Today, when I went to use my half jar, the top had sealed itself, because I had put it on while hot. I understand canning when it is supposed to last a long time. But if I make small batches and then give them away, there is no need for that rigamarole.

Oh yes, it is delicious, I probably used more sugar than I usually do and yes, the vermouth does add real depth.

Leah