The Ghost Town Of Reilly, California

Head east out of Trona, California on Highway 178 toward Death Valley National Park and you'll find a signed road on the right leading to the ghost town of Ballarat, California. Because of its location along one of the main entrances to Death Valley, Ballarat receives numerous visitors. Almost none of them know another ghost town-----much more fascinating and much less accessible-----lies almost directly across Highway 178 from Ballarat.

Reilly came into being in 1882 when a New York investor named Edward Reilly formed the Argus Range Silver Mining Company. Mining companies were the dot-com companies of the late nineteenth century; huge amounts of stock were sold backed by little more than wild hunches and blind greed. Reilly's company was typical; he raised over $200,000 (a phenomenal amount in 1882) and used it to create the mining town of Reilly. Before the end of 1882, there was an operating mine, a stamping mill, a general store, a boarding house, stables, a post office, and a saloon at Reilly. Reilly also built himself a fine wooden home. Miners flocked to the site and built themselves homes out of rocks they could find; some had wood roofing while others simply used canvas stretched across the top.

Reilly requires a high clearance 4WD vehicle (like my beloved Toyota 4Runner) to reach. About 4.2 miles from Ballarat, there is a faint but "line straight" dirt road to the left on Highway 178. This is the original "Nadeau Road," a wagon trail dating from 1877 used to haul supplies and materials to and from Death Valley. I exited left and drove this road for a little over a mile, and it was kick to travel a route with such history. After a mile, there is an even fainter road to the left leading uphill. I had to engage the 4WD to negotiate it, and I followed that road for a little over a mile and a half to the site of Reilly. It's a really isolated place!

There's a surprising number of structures at the site. Most, like the one below, are stone walls without any roof. Most seem to have been large enough for a single bed and not much else:

The structure below showed its owner had put some effort into its design and construction. It was built almost as a basement and, as you can see, had a crude fireplace. While Reilly is in the desert, it is at an elevation of about 4000 feet and it gets cold there in winter. This must have been a cozy place on cold January nights:

Many of the surviving dwellings in Reilly are little larger than pup tents, as shown below. This is a stack of rocks larger enough to accommodate one person; canvas or wooden boards would be used to cover the top. by the way, that's the Argus Range in the distance; Death Valley is behind them and Ballarat is at the foot of the range:




















Here's the view from inside one of the remaining structures. Maybe it wasn't very comfortable, but at least the scenery was spectacular:


















Trash collection apparently wasn't good at Reilly, because the residents left a lot of junk behind-----like steel "tin" cans----at the site for us to look at and admire:


















I suppose this must've been the home of one of the more prosperous residents of Reilly, as much of its wooden roof remains after over 120 years. The interior is comparatively spacious, about as a large as a contemporary tent sleeping five persons:



















Here's a view of the front of the structure above. The "doorway" was irregular, so any door must've been primitive and not very tight; perhaps they just used a sheet of canvas across the opening:



















As happened with many 1990s dot-coms, economic reality eventually caught up with Reilly. In 1883, the mine produced only $20,000 in silver and production began to drop by year's end as the vein "played out." By the middle of 1884, the mine and post office closed and Reilly was abandoned before the end of the year. Scavengers eventually stripped away the wood used for the general store, boarding house, saloon, post office, and Edward Reilly's fine home. But the simpler stone structures of Edward Reilly's employees remain. Maybe there's a lesson in that story. . . . . . .

Happy Anniversary To Us!

Tomorrow marks the fourth wedding anniversary for me and Di, and we're off for a few days in Corpus Christi to celebrate and relax. We got married on February 13-----a Friday, no less----at the Little Church of the West in Las Vegas. Students of fine cinema will remember that as the locale where Elvis married Ann-Margaret at the conclusion of Viva Las Vegas.

Perhaps the most difficult aspect of my illness has been the impact it has had on Di. We've spent almost half of our married life with me as a cancer patient, and the toll on her has been tremendous. When we moved to Texas in the fall of 2004, we had dreams about our horse ranch, the places we were going to see, the things we were going to do, etc. It was such a blast in 2005 to have little impromptu races on our horses around the riding trails out here; in early 2006, we enrolled in a refresher conversational Spanish class at a local community college in preparation for some travels we were going to do in Central America. And in April, 2006 the bottom abruptly fell out of my world.

Like many cancer patients, I am often filled with guilt over having the disease. I feel like I'm doing something wrong by being sick, like I'm letting Di and others down because I'm sometimes in a state where I can barely function. I find myself wishing I had never met her so she wouldn't have to go through all of this. Even though I now know such feelings are normal when you have cancer, I still sometimes feel them with great intensity. Thankfully, Di has taken things with remarkable grace and courage and not a trace of complaint or regret. There have been times when I've felt like saying to hell with everything and discontinuing all treatments (especially the chemo), but I then realize Di is hoping desperately that I'll get better and live, and I know I have to do everything I can to fight on, not for me but for her. When someone loves you that much, you must show you love them in return by trying your damnedest to hold out against the disease.

I have been extraordinarily lucky in my life, and having Di in my life is the biggest lucky break I've had in a long while. The photo below is one I took of her one morning at our house in Las Vegas shortly after our wedding; it captures her in her natural state and is one of my favorite photos of her. At any rate, I'm going to try my best to be around for our fifth anniversary; in the meantime, we're off to the beach!

The Ghost Town Of Mineral Park, Arizona

Mineral Park, Arizona is located about 25 miles north of Kingman, Arizona on Highway 93, the road connecting Las Vegas and Kingman. A signed dirt road leads about five miles to the town site.

Mineral Park was founded in 1871 with discoveries of silver, lead, and gold in its surrounding hills. It quickly became the county seat of Mohave County and boasted of a newspaper, stores, saloons, an assay office, a hotel, and a stagecoach station. But the railroad bypassed Mineral Park in favor of Kingman, and by 1887 the Arizona legislature vote to transfer the county seat to Kingman. The outraged citizens of Mineral Park refused to accept the change. A few days later, a posse arrived from Kingman and, literally, took all country records and documents with them back to Kingman.

Worse news for Mineral Park came soon thereafter when the mines started to play out and eventually closed. The post office closed in 1906 and the town was totally deserted months later.

Unlike many other ghost towns, the structures of Mineral Park used plenty of wood and adobe. Unfortunately, most are in a state of collapse like the one below:

















The building below is the best-preserved one still standing in Mineral Park; the walls are adobe over a wood frame with a tar paper roof. I guess this one dates from toward the end of Mineral Park's life.


















There is supposedly a well-preserved cemetery in Mineral Park, although I was unable to find it on my visit. There is renewed open-pit mining in the area, and I suspect it won't be much longer before the remains of Mineral Park vanish back into the Mojave desert.

A Visit To Nevada's Area 51

Since I seem to be writing a lot lately about my visits to odd places in the desert, I guess I might as well recount my trips to Nevada's Area 51. It was one of my favorite day trips when I lived in Las Vegas. There is so much to love about the place: the stark beauty of the area, the surreal feeling of stopping at the heavily guarded boundary of a place that officially doesn't even exist, and the parade of the simply curious and somewhat deranged to it is a circus in and of itself. Area 51 is as American as apple pie.

Area 51 is not so much a specific place as it is a region. It is located northeast of Las Vegas and is reached by taking Interstate 15 east to U.S. Highway93. You then follow 93 north to the small town of Crystal Springs, where you then take Highway 375. The sign for Highway 375 lets you know what you're in for over the next several miles:
















Highway 375 is an "open range" road, meaning cattle can (and do) wander around freely in the middle of the road. Cattle mutilations are a frequent occurrence here, although SUVs and trucks do the mutilating instead of UFOs. The open range warning signs have a UFO theme:


















Ground zero for the Area 51 phenomenon is the small town of Rachel, located about 40 miles north of the intersection of Highways 93 and 375. The permanent population of Rachel seems to be about 100 people, and almost all structures are mobile homes. Signs like those below give you a clue what the main "industry" of Rachel is:

















































The Little Ale Inn is a must-see in Rachel; in fact, it's about the only thing to see in Rachel (the "Area 51 Research Center" pictured above is now closed). It offers the only food and drink in town, sells UFO-related souvenirs and other merchandise, and has plenty of right-wing paranoia on display over the bar (I took the third photo below on a visit back in 1999). What's not to love about the Little Ale Inn??






















































The "real" action concerning Area 51 actually takes place north and south of Rachel. A favorite spot for UFO watchers is the White (formerly "Black") Mailbox located about 11.5 miles south on Highway 375. This area is supposedly the best place to see UFOs as they rise, hover, and materialize/dematerialize over the mountains in the background; you haven't lived until you've encountered a busload of Japanese tourists waiting here around midnight! In truth, there are some spectacular and unusual lights to be seen here many nights----I've seen them myself-----but I think I was watching tests of the next generation of military aircraft and weapons systems instead of UFOs. But hey, believe whatever you want to believe. . . . .


















No visit to Area 51 is complete without a trip to the border of the base that doesn't exist. The turn-off for the base is located five miles south of the White Mailbox----in other words, about 24.5 miles south of Rachel----and while the road is unmarked, it's unmistakable. It's well-graded and arrow-straight:



















The Area 51 boundary lies almost 14 miles away. When you drive to it, you see only the warning signs below at the boundary. You don't even get to see the guardhouse, as it lies around a bend in the road and is out of sight, as is the rest of the base behind the hills you see in the distance. However, it's always fun to take a photo of a "Photography Of This Area Is Prohibited" sign, and there always seems to be a few German or Italian tourists around who are Deeply Serious about the meaning of it all and are just begging to have their chains jerked ("Excuse me, sir, but do you think George Bush is watching our movements right now?" "Oh, you bet your ass he is, Gunther!!").



















Kidding aside, they are damn serious about security at the border. Anyone and everyone who crosses over the border is arrested and fined----currently about $600----when they are turned over to the local sheriff's department. While at the border, you're under continuous surveillance by the Area 51 security forces-----the so-called "Cammo Dudes"----who watch from hilltops from just inside the border, as shown in the photo below. I've checked these guys out with binoculars, and have noted them looking back through their binoculars. (I once waved at them, and they waved back----for real!) I've also observed them using a video camera on border visitors.



















There's another approach to the Area 51 boundary that's far less known and visited even though it's closer to Rachel. This so-called "north gate" is reached by traveling about a mile and a half south of Rachel and then turning right on to the unmarked road below:



















This road is wider than the other entrance road to Area 51, and is used by trucks carrying supplies into the site. After about 10 miles, you come to the boundary and the guardhouse below. Like the other Area 51 entrance, the guardhouse is actually inside the border and you have to stop short of it. As I related in my book Top Secret Tourism, this entrance seems to be more "sensitive" and the guards----and official traffic, judging from the "brushback" I got from a truck with U.S. government plates----seem a lot more "touchy" here than at the other entrance:



















Area 51 is a place everyone should make time for on a visit to Las Vegas. It's a combination of the New Age goofiness of a place like Sedona, Arizona, the earnest, high-tech seriousness of NASA headquarters in Houston, and a pervasive feeling of bewilderment and alienation (no pun intended).

Memories Of Red Mountain, California's "Desert Museum"

California highway 395 runs from Interstate 15, paralleling the eastern face of the Sierra Nevada range, until it finally crosses into Nevada somewhere north of Bridgeport. I've driven that road dozens and dozens of times on my visits to the Sierras and Death Valley, and it's probably my favorite highway in the United States. Not only do you get spectacular scenery, you also see interesting man-made sights, like the late, great "Desert Museum" in the semi-ghost town of Red Mountain, California.

Red Mountain is in the high desert at about 3500 feet, and is named for Red Mountain----an oxidized volcanic cone-----which looms another couple of thousand feet above it. It has scattered mobile homes for miners and a couple of abandoned stores and gas stations. And, until 2002, it was the home of the "Desert Museum."



















I drove by this place for years until I finally stopped in 2001. There was no hint from the road that visitors were wanted, but I quickly learned I was welcome as long as I made a "donation" to help with expenses. I tossed $5 into the "tip jar" and was admitted to the wonders within.



















The "docent" for the museum was a guy who looked to be in his late thirties; I was introduced to an elderly gentleman who was his father. I learned this "museum" was actually stuff his father and a friend had found abandoned/dumped in the desert regions of southern California. They had started taking the stuff back to their homes in Riverside (or was it San Bernardino??) but their wives eventually insisted they store it somewhere else. They found some land cheap in Red Mountain, and that land was actually in the desert. In short order, the "Desert Museum" was born!



















Okay, so all the stuff there was junk------it suggested a yard sale in the post-apocalyptic world of those Mad Max movies-----but it was carefully and even lovingly arranged for display. And these photos are misleading, because it all started to make an odd sort of sense after a while. It was like looking at grains of salt through a microscope; the seeming chaos resolved itself into order and even beauty.



















I was told that a couple of music groups had asked about shooting videos at the museum, and they got far more European and Asian visitors than American ones. I couldn't figure out whether all this was serious or a big put-on; were those European and Asian visitors possessed of superior aesthetic sensibilities or just suckers----a bunch of cultured rubes with exotic accents----for a con job pulled by a pair of grizzled desert coots? It didn't matter, because I got a kick out of two guys following their own demented passion to its (il)logical conclusion.

Driving by a couple of times in the fall of 2002, I noticed the "Desert Museum" sign had been replaced by a "No Trespassing" one and the gate was padlocked; many of the items seemed to be gone. In January, 2003, I drove by the site again and noticed a big new sign reading "Okie Ray's Desert Museum" out front. However, even more stuff seemed to be missing. My guess is that one or both of the elderly proprietors had either called it quits (or died), and the place was under new ownership/management. But it didn't seem the same. I haven't been back in the last five years, and I can't find any reference to it on Google. Maybe it still exists; maybe it doesn't. Sic transit gloria, which is Latin for "Gloria has motion sickness."

The Petroglyphs Of Kelbaker Road, California

Baker, California is a godforsaken spot along Interstate 15 midway between Los Angeles and Las Vegas. Its raison d'etre is to serve as a place to grab some food, use a restroom, and pump a tank of gasoline while traveling from the City of the Angels to Sin City. (It was also the setting for the movie The Big Empty, but that's another story.) Baker happens to be the northern terminus of Kelbaker Road, which runs south through the Mojave National Preserve and the "town" of Kelso. And along Kelbaker Road are some nice petroglyphs and a couple of caves where the petroglyph makersonce lived.

This site is not listed in guidebooks, and I'm grateful to the rangers at the Barstow, California office of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) for cluing me in about it. The site is a little over thirteen miles south of Baker in the Mojave National Preserve. The basaltic rock outcropping below will be visible on your left when you're near the starting point for the hike to the site; a dry stream bed will also be obvious:



















When you get to this location, you hike east-----that is, toward Las Vegas-----for about a mile. On your right will be dark basaltic cliffs like the ones below. The petroglyphs and caves are very obvious when you finally get to them.




















You have to climb up the rocks to reach the petroglyphs and caves, but they should pose no problems; I did it without any climbing gear. When you do, you'll find two shallow caves with petroglyphs as well as separate petroglyph panels. Here are the two cave entrances:





































The cave walls and rock panels have petroglyphs like these:




































This is the view north from one of the caves. Interstate 15 runs parallel to those mountains in the distance. I wonder what the petroglyph makers would think if they could see this view at night; what would they think of those small moving lights in the distance? If they indeed possessed some special wisdom lost to modern man, does this mean they would not have been seduced by Mitt Romney's oily disingenuousness? Would they wish for a CB radio so they could talk to the long haul truckers zooming by on Interstate 15??

I do not have the answers to such questions.

Dodging Bullets, One At A Time

The news was relatively good from my surgery last week. Yes, I did have a new cancerous lymph node-----one as large as a walnut-----but there was no trace of cancer in the adjacent lymph nodes which were also removed. In fact, my doctors are now trying to decide whether there's any point in doing follow-up radiation treatments given how localized this new cancer was.

My doctors are now admitting what I've suspected: my cancer is really anomalous (as my surgeon said yesterday in my post-op visit, "your cancer isn't acting like it should"). All three of the tumors I've had removed have grown at an explosive rate------for example, the latest one I had removed didn't show up at all on the CT scan I had in late July of last year-----but have not invaded nearby tissues and organs. In fact, what had previously looked like a clear case of metastatic colorectal cancer may instead be a case of three separate, independent cancers (colorectal, liver, and lymphatic) breaking out within a few months of each other.

My liver tumor also has my doctors stumped. There was no trace of it in the full-body PET scan done in July, 2006 before my first surgery for the colorectal tumor. It then appeared in a September, 2006 CT scan, and was removed with RF ablation treatment in December, 2006. I underwent chemo from February to July, 2007 intended to prevent its recurrence. But in August, 2007 another CT scan showed the liver tumor had returned and was back to its original size (about as big as a golf ball). And since chemotherapy was ended last July, my liver tumor has. . . . . . . done nothing. It hasn't grown, and it has not metastasized to other organs. It's just sitting there, and it's not supposed to be doing that----it's supposed to be growing rapidly. And no one has a clue why it's behaving that way.

I've never been "typical" in my life, so it's no surprise my cancer isn't "typical" either.

Oh well, I've feel like a car that just received its 30,000 mile major service-----I'm good to go for a lot more miles. The open road beckons! We now return you to our scheduled programming. . . . .

The Trona Pinnacles: Like A Visit To Another Planet

You have probably seen the Trona Pinnacles in several science fiction movies, like the 2001 remake of Planet of the Apes and numerous episodes of the old Twilight Zone TV series. It is a truly surreal landscape and one I always tried to visit on my trips to Death Valley. They are reached from California route 178, which connects California Highway 395 (the Eastern Sierra highway) with the Panamint Springs entrance to Death Valley National Park.

The "town" of Trona is the very definition of the adjective bleak. It consists of a huge dry lake bed----that of old Searles Lake----which is now mined (or maybe "scooped" is a better word) for minerals, mainly potash. A mineral processing plant in Trona belches out a foul smell that fills the entire town. Other than the processing plant, the only surviving businesses appear to be a couple of gas stations, a small grocery store, two small short-order restaurants, and a hardware store. Several homes and businesses are abandoned, while most others are in serious disrepair. Trona seems to be a ghost town in the making; it is difficult to describe what a grim, depressing place it is.

But just before arriving in Trona, there is a clearly marked dirt road to the right which leads to the Trona Pinnacles. Until a little over 10,000 years ago, the Trona area was underwater----the old Lake Searles-----and the area was geothermally active; the bottom of Lake Searles had many hot, mineral-rich springs. As the hot spring water cooled after being released, the minerals (mainly calcium carbonate) precipitated and collected around the vents, accumulating in some cases to heights over 100 feet. When the climate changed and Lake Searles evaporated, the Trona Pinnacles were left behind.

There are three separate regions of the Pinnacles, based on their age. The newest ones----some only 10,000 years old----are also the biggest and highest:

Depending on the lighting and time of the day, the views of the Pinnacles can be especially dramatic:



















While most of the Pinnacles occur in groups, there are some "lone wolves" like the one below. The dirt road at its base gives you some idea of how large it is:



















The Middle Pinnacles were formed about 50,000 years ago. Because of erosion, they are not as high or spectacular as the younger ones:





































The Old Pinnacles were formed as much as 100,000 years ago and are heavily eroded as a result, as you can see in the two photos below:




































The road through the Pinnacles is kept well-graded and shouldn't pose a problem for most 2WD vehicles, except in wet weather. The view below represents my vision of paradise; a road leading to places I've never been and plenty of gas in my 4Runner to get me there! Some of my happiest times have been spent on roads like the one below, consulting my USGS maps and GPS receiver to find the hidden treasures-----not buried gold, but historical and geological sites----in the deserts of the American southwest:

Slice And Dice Time Again

At 8:00 am tomorrow, I'm scheduled to undergo surgery in Austin to remove a new cancerous lymph node and surrounding tissue. Depending on how much of me is sliced away, I could be home tomorrow night or hospitalized until Sunday. (Ah, the joys of having your fate entirely out of your hands!) At least I'll come home with some painkillers that would make Elvis green with envy, so my posts next week should be more entertaining than usual.

This new operation is actually routine as far as cancers go. Once cancer gets into the lymphatic system-----as mine has----you're going to be putting out "brush fires" like this for as long as you live. At least that golf ball-sized tumor on my liver is sleeping peacefully for the moment, so things could be a lot worse. . . . . . a lot worse. I'm feeling no pain, my weight has stabilized, and I'm again able to do things like stack bales of hay five-high in our horse barn. And Di is being a rock for me; I don't know what I'd do if I didn't have her in my life.

And this is for all my relatives back in South Carolina: if you really love me, you won't let Hillary beat Obama. I'm depending on all of you.

The Ghost Town Of Candelaria, Nevada

Candelaria, Nevada is a terrific ghost town. It's very isolated----meaning it gets few visitors----and there are some great buildings and ruins scattered about the site. Candelaria is located in Nye county near the border with California, almost due east of Mono Lake in California. It is located along a dirt road between Nevada highways 95 and 360 south of Mina; when I drove it, the dirt road definitely required a high clearance 4WD vehicle like my 4Runner. The elevation is a little over 5000 feet, meaning summer days are often cool here and heavy snows are common in the winter.

Candelaria roared into being with a silver strike in 1879. Water had to be transported by wagon from a spring located nine miles away and sold for $1 a gallon-----whiskey was a cheaper (and more popular) drink. The "waterless mining" techniques produced fine dust which eventually killed many miners and other residents of Candelaria. Despite the water shortages, by 1893 Candelaria had a population of approximately 3000 and boasted two hotels, three doctors, several stores, and numerous saloons. But 1893 also marked the peak of silver production, which went into rapid decline. By 1900, the mines had closed, so had the post office, and most of the population had moved on. By the end of World War I, Candelaria was abandoned. However, there has been a revival of mining activity in the area. When I visited in 2002, there was a mining camp along the road, but this time miners are living in mobile homes. When that mine plays out, I expect those trailers will just move on to the next strike.

This is the first building you see when you arrive in Candelaria from the west. There's even some glass remaining in those front doors:



















A surprising number of wood structures remain at Candelaria, although most are slowly collapsing like this one:


















Many of the commercial structures at Candelaria had a stone foundation and walls and a wooden roof, like this one:




















I wonder what this substantial looking structure was. It looks like it may have been a bank, but I could find no evidence of a reinforced vault area like those in other ghost town banks. Maybe it was the mining office or something of comparable importance:

This was the Main Street of Candelaria. I have no idea what the crumbling stone foundation once was, but the sagging wood structure seems to have been some sort of stable or barn for horses or other livestock:


















I wonder how a realtor would've described this cabin if it was for sale: cozy little house with big backyard and view of mountains. . . . .



















My visit to Candelaria was a marvelous experience. I dropped by on a glorious late August day when there was not a cloud in the sky, the wind was still, and the humidity seemed to be zero. It was so quiet I was aware of my own breathing and heartbeats. It was as if I could feel the history of those buildings, hear the voices of its former residents, and for a few moments grasp the past in my hands. It's sad to think the desert will one day reclaim Candelaria and this wonderful outdoor historical museum will be lost forever. I'm glad I got to experience it.