A Day Trip to Rhyolite and Death Valley

I’ve visited Rhyolite more times than I can count, but until a few weeks ago I hadn’t been to the popular ghost town in a long time. I never grow tired of exploring the ruins.

On a clear and warm December day, my son and I made the two-hour drive from Las Vegas to Rhyolite.

We stopped first at the Bottle House, which looks kind of antiseptic to me now (I remember when it was open to the public and the grounds were cluttered with all manner of things). 

Many of Rhyolite’s ruins are fenced off, but the place is still amazing. At its peak in the early 1900s, Rhyolite had a population of about 6,000. Today, the desert has reclaimed the townsite almost completely.

We explored the area as thoroughly as we felt was wise, considering the numerous rattlesnake warning signs.

After walking around Rhyolite for about an hour and a half, we got in the car to head toward home, via the scenic route through DeathValley.

The Hell’s Gate entrance to Death Valley is just 10 miles west of Rhyolite. As we pulled into the fee station, a panoramic view of Death Valley welcomed us.

We cruised down toward the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes and Stovepipe Wells. Sadly, the road to Scotty’s Castle and the historic building itself is still closed due to damage from floods in fall of 2015.  

I tried to tempt my son into climbing the sand dunes (“Look, it’s not even a very tall dune!”) , but he insisted he didn’t want to get sand in his boots. I got out and snapped photos while he read the newspaper in the car. The dunes were packed with people.

We made a quick stop in Stovepipe Wells for some water and expensive gas before heading out to catch 190 South.

It was sunset when we came to Zabriskie Point. “You can stay in the car if you want, but I’m getting out to take pictures. This is one of the most famous places in Death Valley,” I informed my teenage traveling companion. (I think it was actually my story about the counter-culture cult classic movie of the same name that piqued his interest enough to get him out of the car.)

We walked up the pathway to the overlook and marveled at the landscape, and at the large number of foreign visitors. We  heard more foreign languages than English. The other striking feature: the photographers. They lined up atop a hill just below the overlook to capture the gorgeous afternoon light, becoming as much a part of the landscape as the formations they were photographing.

Before the sky completely darkened, we headed back. The almost full moon was rising and a brilliant sunset lit up the sky behind us, making me wish I’d brought my tripod and stayed at the point longer.

On the lonely two-lane road that took us from Death Valley Junction back to US95, my son and I talked about skin walkers and chupacabras and the vastness of the desert.

It was the perfect winter day.

Have you been to Death Valley recently?
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To see more photos, visit my flickr album, "Rhyolite and Death Valley"

Chloride, Arizona - An Artistic and Ghostly Town

Chloride, Arizona, asserts that it’s the oldest continuously inhabited mining town in Arizona.  In the early 1900s, it once had 5,000 residents and was the county seat. Today, it has a population of about 350. 

Downtown Chloride

Chloride is primarily known for the Roy Purcell Murals, just outside of town, down a dirt road that was in pretty rough condition the day we drove it. My hubby and I saw sedans on the road, but I was glad we were in a high clearance vehicle.

Roy Purcell Murals

After we took in the murals, we drove through Chloride several times, amazed at the sight of the trailers, RVs, houses, shacks, historical sites, mysterious rock cairns, abandoned buildings, piles of junk, and public folk art, all mixed together. It’s a winning combination of artistic and eccentric.

Once the train depot in Chloride

Over a lunch of French fries and a beer at Digger Dave’s (located on the only corner in town with a stop sign), the bartender told us that recent flooding had made the road to the murals impassable, but Digger Dave himself had fixed the road so people could still get to the canyon.

While we were having lunch, a young woman came into the bar and ordered a veggie burger and a Corona. She smelled of patchouli and had a text book and a notepad with her. We talked about the murals. “It’s amazing energy out there, isn’t it?” she said. She told me she’d come out to help a friend with a homestead for a few weeks and had stayed a few months (and didn’t know when she’d be leaving).

It’s easy to see how you could wind up staying in Chloride far longer than you anticipated. It’s my kind of place, full of the unexplainable draw of the desert.

Have you seen the Purcell Murals  or visited Chloride?

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All pictures by me, Terrisa Meeks

Vegas Girl Photo Friday – Desert Adventures

This week, I climbed the Kelso Sand Dunes, and explored Chloride, Arizona, home to the Roy Purcell murals.

Approaching the Top of the Kelso Sand Dunes, Mojave National Preserve, California

Roy Purcell Murals Outside Chloride, Arizona

How did you spend your Thanksgiving Week? Naturally, in addition to adventures, we had lots of food at my house. 

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All pictures by me, Terrisa Meeks.

Las Vegas Day Trips – Eldorado Canyon and Nelson, Nevada

Eldorado Canyon, about an hour’s drive outside Las Vegas, is a rugged desert canyon bursting with history and a wildly picturesque ghost town/museum.

If you’re a photographer, be prepared to almost faint when you see the restored ghost town of Nelson in Eldorado Canyon. It’s a popular backdrop for photogs in the know, so much so that a Google search results in several pages of wedding and portrait photography websites before you get to any actual history about the place.

Eldorado Canyon’s heyday was in the mid-1800s, when the canyon held many mines, most notably the Techatticup Mine (no longer producing gold, but now open for tours).

At the mouth of the canyon, Nelson’s Landing was once a port for steamships that traveled up and down the navigable portions of the Colorado River to the Gulf of California, then onward to the Pacific.

Many years after the miners and steamboats were gone, Nelson’s Landing was the site of one of Nevada’s worst disasters. In 1974 a massive flash flood destroyed a settlement at the mouth of the canyon. A 40-foot wall of water obliterated everything in its path, killing at least nine people and washing away trailers, cars, a restaurant, boats, and part of a dock.

Today, the wash bears no evidence of its former life. It looks as wild as it can be, except for the prevalence of trash and broken glass. It’s a popular place for jumping off cliffs and launching kayak tours upriver toward Hoover Dam.

We did not jump off any cliffs or do any kayaking, although we got a flat tire (quickly fixed by David, my hubby) and I took a lot of pictures. Actually, more than a lot… way, way more than a lot.

I briefly thought I was going to have to jump in the murky, weedy, nasty-looking water at the Lake Mojave shoreline when Gigi was apparently struck with the thought that it might be a good idea to jump in the water. 

She loves to play in shallow water, and when she saw the lake, she ran to its edge. Then she stopped her dainty splashing, gazed out at the lake and wiggled in her middle as though she planned on leaping in. “Don’t you even think about it,” I told her (with my “I mean business” voice), and she dutifully came back.

In Nelson, I took over a hundred pictures, while Gigi dragged David into shaded areas. I read later that Nelson has a terrible rattlesnake problem, which explained the pictures of the huge (dead) rattlesnakes I saw in the museum.

I was just glad I didn’t disturb any living ones while I was in a kind of photographic delirium, what with the old cars and the teddy bear cactus and the scattered, eclectic collection of old tools and memorabilia.

At the end of our wonderful day, we walked up to our car just in time to catch the first of the professional photo shoot crews arriving. Their model, who was dressed in an orange and yellow snakeskin body suit and stripper heels, was checking her make-up in the reflection of my Jeep’s back windows.

It was the perfect ending to the day.

Nelson makes a perfect Sunday outing. Be sure to gas up and bring food; there’s no restaurant or store. (And make sure you have a spare.)

Other great ghost towns not far from Las Vegas include Grafton, Utah, outside of Zion & Rhyolite, outside of Death Valley.

Do you have a favorite ghost town?

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All pictures by me,Terrisa Meeks. You can see more pictures of my day in Nelson at flickr.

One Day in Balboa Park

San Diego, one of my favorite cities, is about an hour’s plane ride from Las Vegas. Once you land in San Diego, the beautiful and historic Balboa Park is only a 15-minute cab ride from the airport.

San Diego is a great place for a day trip. It’s full of fun things to do, and if you’re a museum geek like myself, Balboa Park offers a mouth-watering array of museums in a small area. 

Here’s how my daycation in Balboa Park worked out:

0615: Breeze through McCarran security. No bags, baby!

0900: Taxi drops us off outside the Museum of Man. (“Us” = my son and me.)

0901: Discover that no museums open until 10:00.

0902: Gleefully drag complaining teenager all over Balboa Park to take pictures before museums open and crowds arrive.

0930:     [Outside San Diego Zoo entrance]

Me: "Are you sure you don’t want to go to the zoo?"

Son: "Positive. I want to see museums." 

       [My heart swells with pride.]

1000: Botanical Building. Orchids and ferns. Feels like Hawaii.

1030: Museum of Man. “Would you like two tickets to the Torture Exhibit also?” Why, of course!

1032:     [Inside Italian Torture Exhibit]

Me: Ewwwwww.

Son: Yawn

1100: [Inside Museum of Man] Real Egyptian mummies.

1129: Son: “I’M STARVING.”

1130: Lunch at The Prado!

1215: Museum of Photographic Arts. MOPA’s International Pictures of the Year on display. I am moved to tears.

1315: Point out to son that the Model Railroad Museum is downstairs from MOPA… “Two tickets, please.”

1316: Regret not buying all-day, multi-museum pass.

1330: Can’t stop talking about the amazing attention to detail at the Model Train Museum. Buy tee-shirt for hubby.

1345: Discover Sculpture Garden is under construction.

1350: Have impromptu talk with teenager about First Amendment rights after watching protesters on the Prado.

1400: San Diego Museum of Art. Antiquities. Arnold Newman display. A smattering of Impressionists. Teenager fading quickly.

1505: Drink coffee while listening to saxophone street musician and watching people splash around Bea Evenson Fountain.

1520: Son: “Are we going? Are we going now? Is it this way?”

1530: Taxi to airport.

1730: Teenage son asleep on my shoulder as we fly home. Best part of day.


Have you visited Balboa Park or San Diego?
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All photos by Terrisa Meeks

Weekend Adventures In & Around Las Vegas

At the end of July, my family and I had no vacation plans. And no plans to make vacation plans.

Instead, we focused on maximizing our August weekends.

We rode Lee Canyon's scenic skilift ride. 

Oh yes, there's a story about the ski lift ride.

We checked out the Vegas StrEATS food truck festival in Downtown Las Vegas.

Vegas StrEATS is fun, but why can't we have tables at a food truck festival?

My son and I took a daycation to Balboa Park, the historic, beautiful, museum-filled San Diego park.

California Tower and Alcazar Garden 

We've been off-roading, to the movies, and out to eat (I love restaurants), and my son and I even snuck in an afternoon at the bookstore.

There's only one thing I miss about taking a traditional vacation: room service. If we could work that out, I'd be very happy. 

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Have you taken a vacation or a daycation this summer? 

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All pictures by Terrisa Meeks. (You can see more of my San Diego, Mt. Charleston, and Vegas StrEATS pictures on my flickr page.)

Las Vegas Day Trips & Staycations

Despite the ridiculously cold weather here in Las Vegas (38 degrees at 10:30 a.m.… seriously?), I was out and about today. I gave a talk at the Summerlin Library about Las Vegas Day Trips and Staycations—one of my favorite topics.

Luckily, I had my husband with me, because later on—on the drive to lunch at Due Forni—I got to ask him, “Did I mention that Death Valley is the largest National Park in the Lower 48?”

“No,” he said, "You missed that," which opened the door for us to talk about all those little details that I had intended to share, but had missed during my talk. What can I say? So many fabulous places to describe, so little time.

If you were at the talk today, here are some extra details, along with links to the official sites for all the places I talked about. And if you weren’t at the talk, well, just imagine a slightly out-of-breath woman is reading the text to you, and it will be kind of like you were there.

Red Rock Canyon  National Conservation Area

In the late 1970s, the BLM issued permits for oil drilling in Red Rock, but fortunately that idea was squashed.

Spring Mountain Ranch State Park

The Park hosts Civil War reenactments every year for Nevada Day, and throughout the year they regularly hold living history and pioneer events. (Interesting side note: Since our State Day is October 31, I grew up thinking Halloween was a holiday. One of the many oddities of being raised in Las Vegas.)

Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge 

Twenty-four of Ash Meadows’ plants and animals can be found nowhere else on earth, giving Ash Meadows the highest concentration of endemic life in any local area in the United States.

St.Thomas Ruins at Lake Mead 

Experts now say that St. Thomas, the town that was under Lake Mead for over 60 years, is not expected to ever be underwater again.

Grafton Ghost Town

Grafton was part of what was known as the Mormon Cotton Mission, an unsuccessful attempt at cotton farming along the Virgin River. 

Death Valley

Okay, you already know that it’s the largest national park outside of Alaska. But did you know that the famous Harmony Borax Works were only open for 5 years?

Zzyzx, in the Mojave National Preserve 

Curtis Howe Springer named his spa Zzyzx because he wanted it to be “the last word” in health (which might have been really catchy, except that he was a fraud.)

Links to information about the other places I talked about today:

Bonnie Springs

Pahrump Valley Winery

Valley of Fire

Hoover Dam

Oatman, Arizona

Grand Canyon National Park

Grand Canyon West

Zion National Park

Cedar Breaks National Monument

Lake Las Vegas hotels: Ravella, Westin, Aston MonteLago

Mt. Charleston lodges:  Mt. Charleston Lodge, The Resort on Mt. Charleston

How many of these places have you visited?

Many thanks to the library and everyone who came to my presentation!

All pictures by Terrisa Meeks