Little Trip, Day Two

I will start by saying that I am sorry for how long this is.

On the second day of our little trip, we saw lots of very  small flowers starting to bloom.  The little rain we had a week before our trip may have helped a little.  Of course, it is getting to be that time of year.

 

 

Some of the bushes were just starting to  blossom.

 You may have noticed that there was mostly rocks and sand on the ground.  You might also have noticed the varied colors of the rocks.  We also came across a small lake.

Do you have any ideas yet where we went on the second day?

As we started entering the area, we couldn't help but notice how the ground seemed to flow downward.

We also noticed the varied colors on the surrounding hills.

This might give you a clue as to where we were.  Note the Elevation.

 

Yes, we were in Death Valley.  Yes, the plants were blooming there and yes, there was some water in the lake bed.

This is while we are driving along the shore of the old lake.  Towards the southern end and looking across at a hillside,  we could see the shore line marks left as the water lowered.

Before we got down to the bottom, we stopped at what had been a stamp mill for a gold mine located in the hills behind the building.  This was one of the buildings that was left standing.  The walls appeared to have been made out of the local materials; probably  adobe.  The rocks in the walls were about like what was lying on the ground.

 

This rock, composed of many layers and colors, is an example of the hills.  The geology is very interesting.

This is what most of the lake looked like.  That is salt/borax.

Just another one of the old lake.

 

 
This is another area that we came across while driving along the bottom shore line.  The different layers of minerals, etc., makes it very pretty.

Bob hiked up a ways so that it can be seen how the washes form.  It would be something to see when the water is running, but I wouldn't want to be below.  Do you see him, white, in about the middle of the picture?

 
Here is a close up.

We saw the sign for Natural Bridge and decided to drive up to it.  Then we hiked.

This is from above looking back down.

 This is where mud started to run down the side but then evaporated.

This is looking back up the canyon we hiked up.

Our next detour was Artist Drive which goes to Artist Palette.  It isn't hard to see why it got this name.

We stopped at the old site of the Harmony Borax Works.  They scooped the borax off the surface of the ground and then processed it here before hauling it out of the valley by mule team to the rail head, over one hundred miles away.  They only operated for about five years.  They used two wagons for the borax and the tank for water.

 Our last stop was at the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes.  They are only in this one area.

 As the sand dunes approach, they eventually cut off the water supply to the mesquite trees and they die.

 Some people hike out onto the dunes.  I found some other hikers, or their tracks.  I think maybe kangaroo rat or mouse and lizard, but I'm not sure about either.  Because of the light, the tracks look raised but they were indented.

 

This is where both sets of tracks lead to.

It was a long but special day, seeing all the wonderful things the Lord has given us.  This was as we were leaving the Furnace Creek entrance.

Little Trip, Day One

A week ago we decided to take a little trip.  We had been told about a date farm close to Tecopa, CA, and we decided to go see it.  It is an oasis in the dessert, with water and date palm trees.  Getting into it means going down a canyon on a dirt road.

I didn't take any pictures of the date palms, don't know why.  The first trees were planted from seeds in 1920.  They are still there, along with many others, some of which are hybrids and others from other parts of the world.

This is a working date farm that also has an interesting history.  This place, at one time, was one of the places along the Santa Fe trail where there was water.  Other things were also grown here and it was also a mining area.

Even thought it is a working farm, there are trails around the property that you can hike on.  We took one to the area that is called "The Bad Lands."  It goes up a wash that also reveals how some of the area was formed.

We went up a draw and beside this wall where different layers were exposed.

Between some of the layers were cracks with white crystal formations of Calcite.  Most are in horizontal layers, but this one was vertical.

If you look close at the above picture you can see the penny.  The lower picture is a close up.  It looks like soft fibers, but it is stone.

This is some of the horizontal formations.

Most of the calcite is in larger pieces.  One hill side had lots of larger pieces or slabs just lying there.  There are also all kind of rocks that have been washed down into the dry stream beds.  We had fun looking at all the different kinds and colors.

That evening, we stayed at a very interesting place, The Amargosa Opera House and Motel.  To learn more click here.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amargosa_Opera_House_and_Hotel

The lady that turned it into an opera house also did paintings inside the motel and some rooms.  These were inside our room, the Jezebel room.

The headboard, closet, coat rack, phonograph, and chair are painted.  The chair/lamp by the bed are real.

We thought the tile floor was a reminder of past times.

After checking in we drove to the state line and into Nevada to a casino, the Longstreet, to get something to eat.  There was a pond there with several wild ducks and these birds also.  They are water fowl, but I don't know what kind.  I thought that their feet were interesting.

Part 2 Lost City Museum, Valley of Fire

The week after our first trip though the Valley of Fire, we returned.

First we went to the Lost City Museum.  I had thought that maybe it was about the town of St. Thomas, which had been flooded when the dam was built forming Lake Mead.  As the sign says, on January 8, 1865, having been asked to come by Brigham Young, eleven men and three woman came to the Muddy Valley, now called Moapa Valley.  Others also came and established other settlements.  It was found that they were in Arizona territory rather than Utah.  Thus they had to pay high taxes.  Then in 1871, because of the taxes, Indian depredations, distance to markets, and other adverse conditions, around 600 people left this area.  After 1880 other families came and settled the entire valley and stayed.  There must be underground water close to the surface.  As we drove through this upper end of the valley, the fields were actually green.  You don't see that in this country.  I actually took the below picture because of the sand stone patterns.

 Instead of the museum being about the white man's town, it is about Indian towns, actually the foundations of stones and also artifacts from them.  Some were pit houses and others were houses that were partly above ground.  Those were sunk down about two to three feet, such as the pictures below.  The museum was built on a small ridge that had ruins on it, which they have reconstructed. 

Inside there are lots of pot, baskets, information about what they have learned about the area and the people who have lived here over time.

From there we headed to the Valley of Fire.  The sandstone throughout this area is very weathered, as you see in this picture and other pictures in this blog.

 

The above picture was taken during our first trip in the area and shows the low sunlight coming through from a hole in the back.  Some of the other pictures were also taken at that time.

We stopped by the visitors center where there is a very good explanation of the geology of the area.  As the California area plates pushed east they went down under the adjacent plates, lifting and buckling the areas to the east.  The Muddy Mountains were actually a lower, softer layer than the red and white sandstone that is seen in this area.  Since they were also soft, they have eroded and flowed into the area filling in some of the valley that was formed.  The center was able to point out the fault line that runs along the mountain.  The Muddies are the gray hills.

 

Just a road through some of the area.

As the oceans and then water receded from this area, it was not desert, but had forests and many animals.  There are fossils from when it was part of the ocean and also tree fossils.  This is one of the trees.

One of the side roads that we took was back to Mouse's tank.  Mouse was a holdout Indian who holed up in a canyon with a natural water tank.  He raided the people living in the area and couldn't be found.  They think that the other Indians knew where he was but they wouldn't give him up.  He was finally apprehended while he was raiding a woman's garden.

Walking back to the tank is like walking on the beach, in the dry sand.  It is a very narrow area with many, did I say many, petroglyphs.  One area looks like it was a newpaper.  They guess at what they mean but not even the Indians who lived in the area knew what they meant.  (Note B in the corner.)

There is also a skull in this area.  If you look close you can see the eyes, nose, and mouth.

 

This is the tank.  There was water in it but I don't think I would want to drink it as there was lots of trash, etc. in it.

 

Continuing on the road past Mouse's Tank is Rainbow View Point.  When the light is right you can see the colors of the rainbow in the different layers of the rocks. 

This is looking north in this area.  You can see the road to the left and center.

The CCC worked in Park area and built these to stay in while they were working.  It is back in another small canyon.

These are pictures in the area.

In the following area, they called the sandstone formations, bee hives.

I found this area beautiful and very interesting; fossils, different layers of rock and at different tilts, etc.  I just wish I knew more about geology.

Part 1 North Shore Drive

This will be the first of a two part posting.  It covers two different days, but parts of the same area.

We decided to take a drive up the north shore of Lake Mead.  One follows the lake for a long ways, but then the road goes further west.  Eventually, the road is on the other side of the "Muddy Mountains."  In looking at the area it can be seen that a lot has eroded off the mountains and ended up in the valley.  Also there are lots of jagged red rocks jutting up.

This picture is looking south with the Muddy Mountains to the left.  We had stopped at a pass.  I thought that the erosion in the foreground was interesting.

 There was a trail going up the hill from the parking lot that we took.  This picture was looking west from higher up the hill and looking to the west.  You can see some of the red rock layer.

 This next one is looking north from up on the hill.  I find it interesting, in this part of the country, the way the rocks are tipped or sometimes just stacked, and maybe both in the same area.

 This is some of the red sand stone, which is stacked.  Someone left some sweet rolls on the plate for us. 

 

To the left of the 'rolls' and in the layer below them you will notice lots of rocks imbedded in the layer.  I knew that this area had been sea bed but it wasn't until later, when we went to the Valley of Fire, that we learned more.

We continued on to the town of Overton which is up past the northern end of the lake.  We wanted to go to the Lost City Museum, but it was closed.  So we drove back through the Valley of Fire and then home. 

More Red Rock Canyon Sites

We went on another hike, different trail, in the Red Rock Canyon.  I found the different directions of the rock layers interesting.

 An over look of part of the area.

There are lots of sand stone rocks in the area.  Some are really pretty.  These are just a few.

There were also pictographs in this area.

 We took a short side trail into a falls.  There was just a trickle coming down which disappeared at the bottom.  B. is standing at the foot of the falls.  The air was really cool here.

This is part of the Mojave Dessert, but there is water in a few places.  We came across this stream in a large wash.  There is a marshy area a ways below the above falls and this may come from there.  However, it soon disappears, close to the tree, as seen in the lower picture.