I have one more post from the trip to Death Valley, but before that, some more cross-stitch. I don’t take cross stitch while traveling, I took knitting, and finished a shawl, that will be another post.
I want to make more decorations for the 4th of July, cuz to be honest, I have only one or two. I found this free pattern on the Krinik website, Krinik makes sparkly threads, as you will see, I only used one – they of course recommend quite a few. I like the simplicity, Uncle Sam and Lady Liberty, of course I love the message. So out came a fabric remnant and whatever floss I have on hand.
32 count Wiechlt – and no, I don’t like this fabric. I bought it in Vermont, that is all the shop had. I was excited to actually buy fabric in a shop. It is very hard, almost like cardboard, which is why I started with a hoop.
I don’t like hoops, so I went back to working in hand. It worked out fine. The Lady’ crown is the only part with the Krinik, left over from my Mirabilia. This was an easy small project
Work all done, back stitch helps with the fireworks and my initials in the bottom of the L.
I found this item at Big Lots, probably for about $5. So lets see if this will work for my project!
I did my usual lacing on an acid free board – and glued it on top of the frame. So far so good, of course I want to add a little more bling.
From Lady Dot, over at Etsy I bought the tiny pompom fringe. I feel that it gives a very nice finishing touch.
with a nice long shadow.
A close up of the lady…
And good old Uncle Sam.
One more, just because. And now, it is put away until summer.
We left Death Valley and drove into Nevada, our first stop, the former mining town of Rhyolite, where yes, they did mine that ore as well as many others. The town was boom and bust, from 1902 -1910. The Tonopah area was a major mining region and Rhyolite was just one such town.
In its short existence, there were three rail lines the serviced this town. In 1907 the Las Vegas-Tonopah rail company built this large mission revival train station. remember, in those days, Las Vegas was a tiny LDS and mining supporting town. A number of years ago, someone bought it and opened a restaurant, of course the building was built for seismic safety – so the restaurant shut down. And of course the bureaucrats demanded so much more than is feasible for an owner – so it will disintegrate as well.
The Union Pacific didn’t service this town, but someone must have decided that this is a good location for a derelict train car.
After all this time, its’ still hit and miss with my camera settings. Didn’t mean for Joel to be fuzzy.
Looking at the remains of the Cook bad building. It only lasted three years from 1907-1910. Along with us were a group of motorcycists traveling from SoCal not sure their end point. A few were American, others, from Europe, I overheard a Frenchman saying, you call this old? We have ruins from the Roman period. I didn’t say anything, but no – we don’t call old. America is the one country were the concept of ghost town exists – and yes, most are mining related. People come, mine, build a town and when the ore is no long accessible – they abandon and move on.
Seen from another angle with the translation in the back ground. It was a very large building
The building was made of stone, but in order for it to be taller than the other bank building, they added some brick. Always – mine is bigger than yours. Yes, the sky is that blue
Looking from the railway station towards the rest of the town. It is so clear, I can see the snow capped mountains on the other side of Death Valley.
A mining company has bought the town, they have discovered some very good mining opportunities that can be extracted with modern technologies. But no, they aren’t allowed to do so. The Greens was to kill us all – they are Malthusians – humans bad, kill off humans. They couch it in the language of saving the planet – but what they really mean is rid the planet of humans- do not use any resources for human life. What they don’t understand – is that they too will perish. Wouldn’t bother me if all of them committed suicide en-mass – as a sacrifice to Gaia, but they want their lovely life while demanding that the rest of us pay the price and suffer.
Just another point of view.
another bank building with its’ vault.
If this is the extent of the graffiti – Dienyu – this is enough. It is so sad to see how graffiti is everywhere. Yes, I blame all the elites who celebrated it as art – for a while there, our cities were pretty clean, not they are back with a vengeance. Yes, I report everything in my neighborhood and thankfully it gets cleaned up – but in general, our cities and even our nature is covered with that garbage. I even had someone on IG tell me it’s like cave paintings – well I don’t live in a cave and in the modern world, this isn’t art – this is destruction of property and a blight. Something the malthusians must love.
The Porter brothers store, built in 1908. Btw, this main road of the town was called Golden Road. The Porter brother started in a tent and then built the general store.
They remained in business until 1919, by 1924, the whole town was completely abandoned. Looks like a small home still standing. if so, it was one of the few built of stone.
Love the sign that still remains.
I thought this bottle house was newer, but no, a Tom Kelly built it in 1906. With no real building materials around, that Joshua Tree in the yard is not good building material. He used his old beer bottles to build this. seeing that most of the town was taverns, collecting bottles wasn’t a problem. Inside (which I couldn’t see) he plastered the walls like a normal house. He many not have known this, but those class bottles offer great insulation.
Different color bottles at different stages of the build – sort of like the layers of a mountain. He was 80 years old at the time, so raffled the house off for $5. The Bennet family lived there until 1920. Then Paramount pictures used it in a film in 1925 and replaced the roof.
A caretaker lived there for a while, and then a family with 8 children? How did they all fit?? The children built small houses in the yard, you can see one in the first picture – not to live in, just for something to do.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
