Dublin Gulch

Good morning, my friends. For as many times as we've been to Death Valley, I didn't think there were any more surprises there for us. Yesterday, we visited Dublin Gulch, which isn't technically inside Death Valley. Instead, it's in the tiny town of Shoshone, California just to the south of the park. What an interesting place! As usual, I took too many pictures. I'll tell you what I know about it, but if you're interested, you can read more about it and see more pictures right here.

Within just a few minutes of leaving Pahrump, we left Nevada...

And crossed the state line into California.

There was almost no traffic on the road. It was a fast and straight drive to get to Shoshone.

We think the "DV" carved into the hillside here probably marks the boundary of the national park.

We parked in a large lot just to the south of this market. We went to the market when we finished our hike. I was hoping to find refrigerator magnets or a shot glass, but no dice.

Just beside the parking area is Historical Shoshone Cemetery.

I zoomed in to get a better look at what it says on the sign.

Sniff about young Ralph Modine. There's a picture of him.

Walking through, it looks like this just beyond the sign.

There were some more primitive graves to the left. Check out the sewing machine on the grave to the right.

This grave appeared to have been marked somehow with the tripod you see there. Whatever is supposed to be there is gone now.

Nevertheless, there were some coins left where the headstone might have been. I've seen this practice of leaving coins at a gravesite before, and so I inquired of The Google to see what I could learn. The Google tells me that leaving coins on military graves is a respectful tradition signaling a visitor has paid respects, with the denomination indicating their relationship to the deceased. A penny means a visit, a nickel indicates training together, a dime signifies serving together, and a quarter shows the visitor was present when the soldier died. And since there's no indication whose grave this is, I'm not sure about the coins. Maybe it's just a tradition.

Some of the graves had modern engraved headstones. This gentleman was a WWI vet.

These two...born and died the same year.

Some of the graves were marked with just a small marker like this one. I've also seen them marked with large stones. Some of the graves here had no headstones at all, but the sites were marked with stones that encircled the grave.

Okay, so having gratified my morbid fascination with old cemeteries, we walked on to where the dwellings were located. The sign has seen better days.

Here's a close-up so you can read it.

Also, we saw Joe Vollmer's grave in the cemetery, where he is buried with his wife. He outlived her by many years.

We could see the dwellings as we walked up the hill.

Here's a closer look.

This is the one with the garage.

Most were locked to prevent theft and vandalism. It was hard to see anything in the darkness inside.

My camera lens peered into the opening here.

At the far end of the bluff was this...not much room for anything. Maybe it was for storage???

There was just one outhouse...

But, take heart. It was a two-holer, for those of you who enjoy a team pee or a group poop.

We might have been able to go inside here, if we moved that board away from the door, but we did not.

Here was one we could go inside.

We walked through this tunnel.

Inside, it was barely high enough for Mike (at 6'1") to stand up straight. There were little dugout cubbies inside.

Turning directly around, there were more cubbies on the other side.

Across the way, we could see this dwelling with the fancy rock wall.

A man was there with a group who seemed to know all about this place. He told us two English brothers lived here, and they didn't believe in bathing. Their family in England sent them money to keep them from returning home. Their neighbors built their dwellings a good distance away. LOL. (I don't know if that's true, but the man told the story with conviction.) Approaching, we could see an opening to the left.

Looking inside, I had a feeling I could turn the corner at the end there and get inside the main part of the dwelling. It was a little creepier than I was willing to do, though. I took this picture and then walked on. It seemed the kind of place where you could get caught in a cave-in.

Okay, so we'd seen all we wanted to there, and we walked on up the road. 

We saw a few blooming things. This is desert chicory.

These are desert sunflowers.

They were growing in abundance.

These are creosote bushes ready to burst into bloom. If memory serves, they have a yellow flower.

This is desert holly. You can see the leaves are shaped like the holly we see at Christmas. At other times of the year, this will have red berries.

Not sure what this is. It was growing low to the ground. It might be some more of the desert poppies we've seen in other areas, but those were all growing on taller stems.

From up the hill, we had some pretty views of the colorful landscape across the valley.

In this next image, I'm hoping you can see the alluvial plain in the middle of the picture. There's a lot of green there, indicative of the amount of rain this area has seen this season.

Before heading back, we visited the market to look for a refrigerator magnet or a shot glass. I liked this sign on the side of the structure. I see a quilt here.

The highway between Pahrump and Shoshone is designated the "Charles Brown Memorial Highway," and so, of course, I inquired of The Google who he was. As it turns out, Charles "Charlie" Brown (1883–1963) was a prominent California State Senator (1938–1962), miner, and pioneering town-builder who established Shoshone as the "Gateway to Death Valley." After serving as a young sheriff in the 1900’s Greenwater Copper Boom, he partnered with his father-in-law, Ralph "Dad" Fairbanks, developing Shoshone into a key desert hub and tourist stop. (Calling it a "key desert hub" might be wishful thinking.)

When I couldn't find any refrigerator magnets or shot glasses at the market, I walked across the street to the Visitor Center and Museum. There were none there either, but I knew you'd want to see this treadle sewing machine.

Okay...time to go home to the RV. 

Heading back toward Pahrump, we had a good view of Charleston Peak. This is the mountain behind our RV.

Eventually, we left California, and returned to Nevada.

It was nice to get out and do some sight-seeing. It was sunny, but not particularly warm, which made it good hiking weather.

Today we’ll be doing some grocery shopping. We’re out of ice cream, and so you can see that it’s something of an emergency. The only thing worse than running out of ice cream is running out of cat food. Thank goodness, we have plenty of that. So…our list isn’t too long, but we’ve run out of leftovers (finally), and so I’m doing more cooking these days. When that’s finished, I’ll probably take the first stitches on Block 6 for the Snowmen & Reindeer project. I’m thinking of baking a cobbler too, which is just one more reason we need ice cream…immediately. 

Right now…pancakes. Surely pancakes will take the sting out of our impending trip to the grocery store.

Yard Art

Good morning, my friends. The weather is still chilly here in Pahrump, but things are looking up. Each day grows warmer in the coming week. We were treated to a pretty sunset yesterday evening. Of course, the sun sets in the west, but to the east, it lights up the hills behind us.

To the south, it turned those snow-covered peaks a pretty shade of coral.

The kitties are still optimistic they'll get the morning sunshine on their window hammocks one of these days. They spent their morning like this:

We'll try to face the right direction when we get to Death Valley next week.

It's still cold here. Yesterday there was a cold wind blowing. Still, I was determined to get out for a walk, and so I bundled up and headed out. Once I found the shelter of the surrounding neighborhood homes, the wind was less troublesome. So here's what I saw.

This first home was in the process of adding old rusty things to its landscape decor. I love this stuff. First, I saw this wagon with a barrel/keg on the back. Hard to tell what this might have been used for at one time.

As I've mentioned, these hubs and spoked wheels always capture my photographer's eye. I'm not sure why. 

They also had this old woodstove.

There was a door on the other side for loading wood. Sorry about cutting off the bottom. It was hard to see my camera screen in the bright sunshine.

I like these lanterns too. There were several of these hanging in various places. This one had Christmas lights strung out to it, and I expect they light this place up at night.

This was at the next house over. I thought it was a sort of a mill, but it's hard to tell in this picture.

There were bird houses attached to this mailbox post.

This one was around the other side.

And then, there were these two.

Of course, I took pictures of every blooming and fruiting thing. This prickly pear was loaded with pears. (They serve prickly pear margaritas at a restaurant in Death Valley. I'm already looking forward to those.)

This is a blooming cholla.

I almost walked past this next one, but then noticed the little bloom at the top.

This is a pencil cholla. It looks like the cholla above, but the "branches" are no wider than the width of a #1 pencil.

I couldn't tell if these were flowers or just new growth, but I liked the color change from the darker green to the nearly chartreuse at the ends.

Here is a nearly-spent rose. That looks like Queen Anne's Lace beside it. The yards in this neighborhood were mostly done in rock, but there were plenty of weeds growing too. 

Here's a potted geranium.

And another rose. I was standing way back and zooming way in for some of these shots. If I lived in this neighborhood, I wouldn't be happy about some stranger walking around taking pictures, and so I try not to make myself obvious.

I might think this is lithodora like what we have back home, but the greenery is different. My phone tells me it's rosemary. I could be, I suppose.

In the fake flower category, these sunflowers. They don't require water.

There were plenty of fake animals too. Here's a song dog, aka coyote.

This turtle...you can see he has a friend in the lower left corner of the image below.

There were plenty of deer. 

Do deer live here in the desert? If they do, I haven't seen any.

A frog in a bird bath.

These were parked on the top of a brick wall. You can see the painted rocks there too.

Behind the wall was this next blowing object. You'll have to look carefully. It's the head of a peacock in the lower left corner, and then the tail "feathers" were blowing in the wind.

Beside the peacock was this donkey.

Here's a white rabbit. No word on whether this is the white rabbit.

A swan. I was trying to figure out what this is made of, but I didn't come any closer than this picture.

More deer and rabbits.

I like the pattern on the trunk of this palm tree. This happens as the lower fronds are cut off.

There was also this take a book, leave a book little library. I have always loved this idea.

We've seen this house as we drive by. We think they've coiled some black hoses on their roof for a sort of jerry-rigged solar water heating system. Kinda clever, actually.

And that was the end of my walk. Back at the RV, I finished off the 5th stitchery for the Snowmen & Reindeer project. That button is supposed to be a little bluebird. It took me a while to figure out which button belonged here.

And I'm happy to say there's still this much floss on my first spool of Perle cotton. I doubt there's enough to finish the next block, but these have a way of lasting a lot longer than I thought they would.

Here are the five blocks I have so far.

And now I've traced the next one. This one is called "Snowman with Mittens."

And now, that's hooped up and ready to go.

Probably I won't have time for stitching today, although Mike has gone back to bed, so maybe I will. Anyway...the plan for the day is to drive the half-hour or so over to Shoshone, which is across the state line in California. There's a historic mining town called Dublin Gulch we can see there. You can read more about it at that link I've given you. There's also an associated 3-mile trail, and we'll probably do that too.

So that will keep us busy for most of the day. I'm happy to see some better weather. These days cooped up in the RV have been disappointing, and so it'll be nice to get outside more. I'm hopeful y'all are seeing some warmer weather too.