Marie Walsh

My grandmother‘s niece, Marie Walsh, who grew up at Home Ranch, in the Reese River Valley, a block fault valley near Austin, Nevada, was a math whiz. But she disappeared right out of high school. Whenever my grandmother talked about her, she grew sad, Marie had disappeared. She said Marie was like so like an angel with her golden hair about her, my grandmother explained, task-tisking. My grandmother, who was also her godmother, was distraught by the lack of contact. Eventually postcards with 4-cent stamps began to trickle in from exotic places like Chicago, New Mexico, with no return address. Sometimes there were words cut out of the text going right through the postcards like little windows to the soul, but we couldn't see our way in or out. In this way we kept track of Marie, never knowing the backstory, or where she was. This much we knew, she was gifted in math. It had something to do with crunching numbers. Most of our family never got the math gene but we made up for it with boisterous singing at family parties, and in the gift of the gab. It was during the late 50s or mid 60s that we got the obituary, a small column scalloped by a fingernail scissors. My grandmother kept all Marie's cards and letters in an old cigar box, on the top dresser drawer that doubled as a linen closet. The article said that she had died of cancer and there was a hint of the life she had lead, hidden in the lines. I memorized the names of places, Alamogordo, White Sands, Los Alamos. In this way I learned the reason why we practiced those bomb drills, hiding under our desks, waiting for the big one to drop. During recess we all filed out onto the blacktop to see the white flash in the east, followed by the percussion and the sound as they detonated bombs at Jackass Flats. A neighbor, Roger Kent said the Manhattan Project was one of the best kept secrets during the Cold Was, as even his brother Buffalo, who was in the CIA, didn’t even know about it.

6/16 Mill Valley Library Non-fiction class with Sarah Broderick

Pupfish sightings

Ash Meadows, Amargosa Valley

My first introduction to desert pupfish was in the early 1970s when I wandered across the saltflats from Badwater, Death Valley, following a dry salt stream, when I got to the other side of the saltflats, beneath Telescope Peak, there was a nascent aster-choked stream, Salt Creek, with tiny minnow-like fish. But some were as blue as peacock feathers, they were busy attacking my toes. So I had to know what they were. 

For years, I thought there was only one species of pupfish. Cyprinodon salinus. Ya seen one, ya seen 'em all. Was I ever wrong. There are actually two subspecies in Death Valley, once the pluvial bed of Lake Manly, Cyprinodon salinus salinus, and the northern subspecies, Cyprinodon salinus milleri.

Devil's Hole, Amargosa Valley

The Mojave Desert (SoCal & SW NV) is home to at least five species of pupfish, maybe more: Death Valley pupfish, Cyprinodon salinus, Cyprinodon nevadensis, Armagosa pupfish,  Devil's Hole pupfish Cyprinodon diabolis.  Owens pupfish, Cyprinodon radiosus, and on the other side of the Sierras, Desert pupfish (Cyprinodon macularis).

You're probably wondering, what the heck is a pupfish? A pupfish is a relic species from another epoch, left over from the Pleistocene era when the greater American Southwest was lush, and vast lakes and wetlands dominated the landscape. When the waters began to recede, leaving behind what we now call the Mojave desert, the pupfish survived by retreating into fossil water seeps and springs, many of which are saline hot springs. 

Ghost town, Rhyolite, Nevada (photos)

In a once remote sector of southwest Nevada, on the border of California's Death Valley, stands a sentinel, the concrete ruins of a town that was built to outdo Chicago. This Lily of the West, once Nevada's largest city, took the moniker, Rhyolite, after a vein of rare rose-colored granite discovered at the site.

Rhyolite, at the northern end of the Amargosa Desert, was founded in 1904, in the Bullfrog Hills of Nye County, Nevada. Prospectors Eddie Cross and Frank "Shorty" Harris's discovery of gold attracted the attention of eastern industrialists and became a magnet for swindlers and unscrupulous promoters.

Said "Shorty":

The best strike I ever made was in 1904 when I discovered the Rhyolite and Bullfrog district... Ed Cross was there waiting for his partner, Frank Howard, to bring some supplies from the inside. For some reason Howard had been delayed, and Cross was low on grub....
When I reached the burros, they were right on the spot where the Bullfrog mine was afterwards located. Two hundred feet away was a ledge of rock with some copper stains on it. I walked over and broke off a piece with my pick—and gosh, I couldn’t believe my own eyes. The chunks of gold were so big that I could see them at arm’s length—regular jewelry stone! ... Right then, it seemed to me that the whole mountain was gold.
I let out a yell: “...Ed we’ve got the world by the tail, or else we’re coppered!” —Half a Century Chasing Rainbows, Frank "Shorty" Harris, as told to Phillip Johnston

It all began as a small camp called Bullfrog. Then another tent camp, Rhyolite, sprung up a mile north. Rhyolite camp hosted saloons, eateries, and boarding houses—all in lean-tos and tents. The first post office (a 10-x-12' tent) opened for business on May 19, 1905. Rhyolite was on the map, so to speak. The first real building constructed in Rhyolite was the two-story Southern Hotel. (Rhyolite-Nevada Ghost Town)

According to "Shorty":

The rock was green, almost like turquoise, spotted with big chunks of yellow metal, and looked a lot like the back of a frog. This gave us an idea for naming our claim, so we called it the Bullfrog. —Half a Century Chasing Rainbows, Frank "Shorty" Harris, as told to Phillip Johnston

Thousands flooded the Bullfrog Mining District to stake a claim and strike it rich. No less than eighty-five mining companies, with over 2000 claims, were active in the hills within a 30-mile radius of the town. The Montgomery Shoshone Mine hosted a rich strike of ore that promised to make everyone rich as Croesus. Said "Shorty":

It’s a might strange thing how fast the news of a strike travels. You can go into a town after you’ve made one, meet a friend on the street, and take him into your hotel room and lock the door. Then, after he has taken a nip from your bottle, you can whisper the news very softly in his ear. Before you can get out on the street, you’ll see men running around like excited ants that have had a handful of sugar poured on their nest....
I’ve seen some gold rushes in my time that were hummers, but nothing like that stampede....  It looked like the whole population of Goldfield was trying to move at once. —Half a Century Chasing Rainbows, Frank "Shorty" Harris, as told to Phillip Johnston

In its heyday, Rhyolite, hosted a fluctuating population of 3500+, some say the population swelled to 10,000 during the gold rush. Rhyolite reached its zenith in 1907 and 1908—with a population of squatters and citizens estimated to be between 8,000 and 12,000. Within seven years it was a ghost town.

Frank "Shorty" Harris & Eddie Cross were the first to strike gold in the Bullfrog District and named their mine "Bullfrog" due to the green color of the ore. The town symbol was a penguin. It represented the enigma of gold mining. "As much chance of finding gold in the desert as finding a penguin." —Rhyolite Historic Gold Mine Town Site, BLM brochure

Bullfrog Miner, Nevada Historical Society photo

Thanks to investor Charles Schwab, Rhyolite had electric lights, three water companies, three public swimming pools, telephones, cement sidewalks,  three newspapers, a miner's union hospital, a school, an opera house, an ice cream parlour, and a stock exchange.

In 1906 Countess Morajeski opened the Alaska Glacier Ice Cream Parlor to the delight of the local citizenry. Rhyolite Ghost Town - Death Valley National Park

Rhyolite was so wealthy it was served by three stage lines, including the first auto stage, the Tonopah and Goldfield Auto Company; and three railroad lines, the Tonopah & Tidewater Railroad, the Bullfrog-Goldfield Railroad, and the Las Vegas & Tonopah Railroad. As many as a hundred train cars waited at the depots with incoming freight, and reloaded with gold-laden ore.

Sweet water was a rare commodity in the Armagosa Desert (the salt-laden Armagosa River was bitter) and fresh water was hauled in and sold at  $2 to $5 a barrel. But by June of 1905, Rhyolite had an efficient water system replete with water mains. It was a build it and they will come mentality (which later worked for Las Vegas).

A network of 400 electric streetlight poles were installed to light Rhyolite twenty-four hours a day. Rhyolite-Nevada Ghost Town

During its heyday, Rhyolite also supported 50 saloons, 35 gambling tables, numerous brothels and cribs, two score boarding houses, 16 restaurants and eateries, 6 barbers, a public bath house, four newspaper plants, and a weekly newspaper, the Rhyolite Herald.

There were hotels, stores, a school for 250 children, an ice plant, two electric plants, foundries and machine shops and even a miner’s union hospital. Rhyolite Ghost Town - Death Valley National Park

HD & LD Porter Brothers' Rhyolite Emporium, built in 1906, sold everything needed in the mining town. The Porter brothers had three stores in California, they hauled goods from Ballarat, across Death Valley. The store slogan was "We handle all things but whiskey." Note that it's the Irish spelling of whiskey. Gives you a demographic hint as to the ethnic background of the clientele.

 Overbury Bank, Nevada Historical Society photo 

Across from the Rhyolite Emporium was the Overbury Bank, erected in 1907, at a cost of $45,000, it had electric lights and indoor plumbing, a luxury at the time.



Rhyolite's two-story, brick eight-room school was the second school built. The first school was erected in 1906 without taking an accurate headcount of how many children actually lived in the town (90). By May of 1907, the kiddie ranks swelled to 250.

So a second school with an auditorium upstairs, was constructed in 1909, on a grand scale to accommodate the children. It was short-lived and never filled to capacity as people fled the town in droves after the 1907 financial panic in the east, following the 1906 quake in San Francisco.

The 1904-1907 Nevada Gold Rush was centered around three short-lived boom-towns: Goldfield, Tonopah, and Rhyolite..Rhyolite's prosperity ended permanently when the mines played out in 1909. By 1910, overnight the population had shrunk to 600 souls. By 1916 the light and power were shut off for good and the town went dark.

Stock exchange, Nevada Historical Society photo

According to "Shorty," 

Stock speculation—that’s what killed Rhyolite! The promoters got impatient. They figured that money could be made faster by getting gold from the pockets of suckers than by digging it out of the hills. And so, when the operators of the Montgomery-Shoshone had a little trouble; when they ran into water and struck a sulphite ore which is refactory, and has to be cut and roasted to be turned into money—the bottom dropped out of the stock market and the town busted wide open, She died quick, too. —Half a Century Chasing Rainbows, Frank "Shorty" Harris, as told to Phillip Johnston

    John Cook & Co. Bank on Golden St. Nevada Historical Society photo

The John S. Cook & Co. Bank, erected in 1908, on Golden Street was an ostentatious elaborate affair with imported Italian marble stairs, imported stained-glass windows, luxurious amenities including lighting and steam heating, and cost $90,000 to build. The bank was 3 stories tall, plus a basement for the the post office. The bank housed brokerage offices, a stock exchange, and the Board of Trade.

Ryolite in 1909, Desert Magazine (Feb 1959) 

When the gold mine panned out in 1911, so did the town. The post office closed in 1919. By 1920, Rhyolite was officially a ghost town, with a population of 14. The last resident died in 1924. Most of the buildings and fixtures were hauled off to Beatty four miles down the road, so if you want to see most of the buildings, stop by Beatty first.

The Miners' Union Hall is now the Beatty Old Town Hall, many two-room cabins were moved to Beatty and cobbled together as multi-room homes. Other buildings were used to build the Beatty school.




The California mission-style Las Vegas & Tonopah Depot, erected in June, 1909, was once the most elaborate train station in Nevada (LV & Tonopah, Bullfrog Goldfield, and Tonopah & Tidewater rail lines). The depot was Nevada's most important railroad hub.

The depot was also a roadhouse, a museum, and casino. It still stands, but is fenced off, the victim of repeated vandalism. In 1937, the train depot was converted into the Rhyolite Ghost Casino, which later became a small museum and curio shop that closed in the 1970s.

 Las Vegas & Tonopah Depot. Nevada Historical Society photo

According to Desert Magazine writer Nell Murbarger:

As I came into view of the town, I was pleased to see that the big gray depot still watched over the ruins with the complacency of a Buddha. Farther along Golden Street loomed the shell of the John S. Cooke bank building —a three-story-and-basement structure built at a cost of $90,000. Beyond the bank rose the broken walls of a $50,000 school house and a $100,000 hotel—one of 10 hotels in the city in 1907!... 

[Rhyolite was] no claptrap mining camp, built of castoffs and canvas; but a flourishing city, for a time the largest in southern Nevada.... Mrs. Heisler inherited the depot from her brother, N. C. Westmoreland, who had bought it for a song and then converted it into a roadhouse and casino which he operated for many years.— Desert Magazine (Feb 1959)

The caboose is in sad shape. This caboose is from the LA &SF Union Pacific RR. The caboose (sans undercarriage) was later used as a gas station.





The Bottle House, built by an enterprising miner, and saloonkeeper, Tom T. Kelly, is in much better shape. In February of 1906, Kelly built his abode from 30- to 51,000 empty beer and liquor bottles—the only free building material available in treeless Rhyolite.

By right, the unusual abode should be called the Budweiser Bottle House as most of the bottles were from the Adolphus Busch brewery. Kelly built the Bottle House in order to raffle it off. The winning family lived in it for many years before it became a curio shop.

Was it a case of Build it and they will come? It must've worked as there is a child's bed in one of the rooms. (But that may be a leftover movie prop.) At any rate, the Bottle House is a Southwestern landmark.

Tom Kelly's Bottle House. Nevada Historical Society photo

It took Kelly six months to build in the winter of 1905-06, and was abandoned with the rest of the town when the gold ran out in 1912. It lived on as a desert landmark and was featured on vintage vellum postcards.
Preservationists rebuilt the Bottle House during the summer of 2005. It stands behind a locked fence, along with a miniature bottle village that was also Kelly's work.  Last Supper and Giant Pink Woman —Roadside America

Bessie and Jimmie Moffatt enlarged the adobe Bottle House, improved it with paint, wallpaper and curtains. Jimmie planted cottonwoods, yuccas, and joshua trees, but had to haul water from Beatty to keep them alive.

In 1956, Tommy and Mary Thompson, retired honky-tonk vaudvillians, bought a 20-year lease from the Beatty Improvement Association, moved into the Bottle House and stocked it with curios to sell to Death Valley bound tourists.

The town of Rhyolite was featured in 15 films: several silent Westerns including Wanderer of the Wasteland (1924) based on a novel by Zane Grey, starring Jack Holt (a lost film—by 1971, the 35mm nitrate film decomposed into jelly); and Rough Riders' Round-up (1939) starring Roy Rogers. At the end of the Spanish American War, Roy and his Rough Riders become US Border Patrolmen on the Mexican border.

Wanderer of the Wasteland —Wiki

Rough Riders Round-up —Wiki

During filming, the motion picture company, Famous Players-Lasky (Zukor and Lasky) better known as Paramount Pictures, restored the Tom Kelly Bottle House for the 1925 silent film The Air Mail, featuring Douglas Fairbanks. The Bottle House was later restored again in 2005.

 The Air Mail was filmed in Rhyolite in 1925 —Wiki

One ramshackle structure was scenic enough to be featured in the dystopian sci-fi film, The Island (2005) with Scarlett Johansson, Ewan McGregor; other recent films include the drama, Bone Dry (2007); A Line in the Sand (2009); and the forthcoming Cannibal Corpse Killers. (Trailer). Don't hold your breath.

The Island —Wiki

Bone Dry —Wiki

Sadly, the Rhyolite Mercantile burned down in 2014—victim of a lightning strike. You can still see glimpses of it in some of the movies filmed in Rhyolite. If you have the time, there are still a few shacks and relics hidden in the outback, but beware of rattlesnakes.

Rhyolite Mercantile store burned down in 2014.—Wiki

In Feb. 1959, Desert Magazine ran a feature story on Rhyolite. I've pulled some quotes from it. Unfortunately one of the pages is missing in the scanned issue. I had to wing it, but I think the history will hold. You can read most of it online, or download it as a PDF. Desert Magazine Archives

Desert Magazine (Feb 1959)

In Feb. 1959, Desert Magazine ran a feature on Rhyolite.

We didn't get to the brothel or the jail a few streets over in the gully, nor did we get to the cemetery down the road as we were on a tight schedule to get to Bishop and daylight was burning. Perhaps another time.

The Goldwell Open Air Museum is just south of Rhyolite. Quirky plaster and fiberglass ghosts manifest as a tableau from the Last Supper greet unsuspecting tourists. Fodder for another story. (Last Supper and Giant Pink Woman Roadside America).

Perhaps the tableau was inspired by murder and betrayal in Rhyolite. The year 1908 began with the grisly murder of a young woman, Mona Bell, cut down in her prime. She was only 20.

 A lonely grave on the edge of town far from the regular cemetery is said to be that of Mona Bell's. Today the grave is a tourist attraction and there are rumors of visitations by a mysterious group of dancers who annually celebrate Mona's life and death. What happened to Rhyolite? Who was Mona Bell? And why is there a strange grave that attracts an unusual cult performing strange rituals? (Weird Tales 5: The Strange Case of Rhyolite Nevada (2011))

Road to the cemetery

Outrunning the Snowstorm

Donner Summit, late spring snowstorm.

We tried to outrun the freak spring storm from Bishop, the wind howled, and pummeled the rental car all the way from Long Valley to Mono Lake, where a curtain of alkali dust shrouded the shore. We stretched our legs at Lee Vining, but our eyes stung. Rain turned to curtains of snow in the hills. We were planning to go over Hwy 88 after Mono Lake, I wanted to see the wildflowers, but I was treated to a mirage—curtains of distant snow falling.

Every pass up Hwy 395 was closed that day. I raced through Bridgeport, past the Bodie turn-off, slalomed through Walker Canyon, skirted Topaz Lake. I raced over a series of mountain passes, as snow was threatening to stick at 7000 feet (do you know how many passes there are on Hwy 395 between Bridgeport and Carson City that are over 7000 feet?) It was Donner Pass or bust. No potluck jokes, please.

We were racing the snow flurries to the junction, only to have Hwy 88 close just as we got there, so then it was another mad race onto Carson City (almost no rain lulled us into a state of false security), and then it was onto Reno where the rain began to pound in earnest, then it began to sleet, then hail...

We made it all the way to Hwy 80, and onto Donner Pass, but we were too late to beat the clock... the snow began to stick just as we crossed the Truckee River. 4 PM is the witching hour. Snow sticks as night approaches. We drove as far as we could before CalTrans busted us.

Chains and installation from the shell station cost a bundle. More than a C-note. We're now the proud new owners of snowchains...they've come a long way since the good old days. We were one of the lucky ones. As snow chains became a scarce commodity on the backside of the Sierras, the price jackknifed to $200. Of course, neither of us knew how to put them on, my skills were old school. So we got back onto Hwy 80 and crept along until we were caught again.

Traffic ground to a standstill, yet another chain inspection check station. Bumper to bumper. Trucks spinning, sans traction. The truck behind him pushed on his rear bumper, it was a collaborative effort to get over the pass even with chains. Where's the freakin' snow plow, and sand when you need it?

We began to make off color potluck jokes, and wager bets as to how far down the snow level went. At first I thought it would be 6000', but no, it was still snowing at 5000, 4000, would you believe 3500'? Some spring weather.

Then there was the problem of no snow monkeys at the other end of the pass to take the chains off, or should I call them cables? I guess they weren't expecting snow either. Probably all on vacation. Somewhere else warm.

Whatever you want to call them, chains/cables, they're still a bitch to remove. You don't want to do it in the dark. Can't get the inside chain off? It'll slice your brake line. Our journey exacerbated by a rear tire threatening to go flat. Snow, sleet, hail and it's nearly May. Who ordered the weather?

Bishop to Oakland, the long way home, 12 hours on the road...

Desert peach (photos)

I found an interesting flowering chapparal shrub. It looks related to cherryplums. It has fruit tree bark. But it's a native species..... some sort of prunus/ Rosaceae. At first I thought it was a peach. Nope. Wrong continent. People suggested wild plums, peaches, crabapples. These are not garden escapees. Native species. Lots of them.

Think plum family. Serviceberrry? chokecherry? Wrong color blossom (it's really pink, like a Japanese quince, or a peach). It has incredibly tiny ovate leaves, and spines. It must flower first, then get leaves. I saw them on Whitney and Mono Lake too. It grows at 4-7000 ft., Eastern Sierras, Mammoth Lakes, so, it's a Great Basin plant, (high, cold desert) shrub vs. a California plant.

At one point I thought it was Prunus subcordata, Klamath plum, Oregon plum, Pacific plum and Sierra plum, is a member of the genus Prunus, native to the western United States in California and western and southern Oregon. But it did not resemble a plum tree. No thicketing. Very much a dense shrub.

After much deduction, I think it's Desert peach, aka Desert almond (Prunus andersonii) (CalFlora) native to Eastern California and Western Nevada. Not a peach per se, as peaches came from northwest China by way of Persia. But it gets heart-shaped drupes that have flesh in moist years, but are more like almonds in dry years.

My botanist friend Katelin Stuart thought I had enhanced the photo. She said your picture is very pink. When did you take it, morning? Or maybe you enhanced it? Or very good rainfall recently?

Those are all different bushes that grow among the sagebrush. They're really showy, and no, most are afternoon pix. I did not enhance it, Very, very pink, At first I mistook it for redbud, until I saw the flower up close. Then I got excited and went all gaga. It's screaming shake your fist pink, not a shy wallflower. I use my camera as a memory aid, and also as a reference. It's an extension of my eye. Sometimes I get lucky and sometimes get a decent photo as well.

I also found wild desert apricot (prunus fremontii), very close, but it was the wrong range, Desert peach (Prunus andersonii) seems to be it!

Katelin Stuart concurred: Hmmm, possible, especially If yours is growing in with sagebruch and atriplex, it tolerates salt and is in a similar micro-clime. 

It took a Facebook village to ID this plant. 

I saw dogwood in bloom too, on Hwy 80, and on 395, in Walker Canyon. No time to stop. Outrunning the storm.

Bishop to Mono Lake (photos)

Leaving Bishop for Mammoth Lakes, beautiful weather.


Mammoth Mountain, storm brewing

Hot Creek

Mono Lake, alkali duststorm, Earth Day, 4/22/2016. That's a very late season snowstorm blowing in as well. We tried to outrun the storm from Mammoth to Reno, we managed to make it over seven passes above 7000 feet, but go caught at Donner Pass. All the other passes, including Hwy 89, which was open in the morning, were closed.


Mother of all storms brewing over Mammoth Lakes


So we headed for Donner Summit, and got caught. A foot of snow fell. we made off-color jokes about potlucks, and bought very expensive snow cables to get over the pass. We also had a slow leak on the rear tire that made it even more exciting....we made it home on a bum rim, running from air pump to air pump across I-80. Flat tire in the morning. I managed to pump up the tire with a bicycle pump.

Alluvial rocks from the base of Frenchman's Mountain

Alluvial rocks from the base of Frenchman's Mountain (4,052 ft)—sometimes erroneously called Sunrise Mountain, North Las Vegas (eastern side of North Las Vegas—facing west). 

Some rocks look like the sparkly blueschist embedded with garnets we used to find in Sonoma County. Granite/volcanic, sedimentary mudstone, metamorphic rock—a new one for me: Vishnu schist. I like the black schists and pink granites of the Vishnu Group—from the ancient core of the continent. 

Geologist Garry Hayes says: "Most of the rocks are mica and garnet-bearing schist and gneiss, and they are 1.7 billion years old, some of the oldest rocks in the American West." 

Gary says the pink one is orthoclase feldspar. It was different than quartz in that it fractured with smooth planes. It's related to the moonstones we find at Point Reyes. I once found strange pink dradel-like gobs embedded in granite in the Trinity Mountains that reminded me of it. 

Frenchman Mountain was named after Paul Watelet, a European immigrant who claimed  a mine after a 1912 gold strike. Watelet was a Belgian, probably a French-speaking Walloon, the locals thought he was from France.

The Great Unconformity, 1.7 billion year old Precambrian granite and schist. I am trying to contemplate how tectonic plates moved the mountain 50 miles.

Some folklore I found online: 

"I've lived in the Vegas valley since 1978, i met some local teens who were born in the valley I hung out with them at the base of Frenchman mountain at the end of Bonanza Rd. there was a porch and a cave at the foot of the mountain where teens gathered to drink and smoke pot. I remember stories of an old woman living in the mountain inside a cave, the story was she had owned the mountain or had inherited it from her family and chose to live there some time during the late 1930s to the mid or late 1960s when she was found frozen to death. Has anyone else heard about this story?" 

 I wonder if that was Paul Watelet's mine? His daughter?

Chris Callaghan, our host said: "I've lived here since 1960. The cave and parties are true, kids from my high school did this. The old woman was still there in the mid-60's. Don't think she really owned it, just lived there, an early squatter. It was very far away from town in those days. I remember when she died."

Pretty cool finding Vishnu schist studded with garnets in her back yard! And mica schist/gneiss. Sandstone, limestone and shale sediments metamorphosed and recombined with metamorphosed lava flows to form Vishnu schist. Even older Zoroaster granite metamorphosed into gneiss. 

Geologic remnants of the Grand Canyon and the Great Unconformity right in her  back yard. Who knew. She was right about that other rock—it is resin. It burns. Smells like pine. Unless, of course she has a strain of amber in her yard as well!

Fresh snow, Earth Day, Mt. Charleston, Clark Co., NV (photo)

Mt. Charleston, Clark Co., NV © Maureen Hurley 2012 

Petroglyph hunting at Mouse's Tank, Valley of Fire, NV

Petroglyph hunting at Mouse's Tank, a box canyon in the Valley of Fire, NV. (Eastern Mojave Desert). The Navajo Sandstone is the same formation found in Red Rock Canyon and Utah's Zion National Park. The Valley of Fire, once the bottom of a deep ocean basin became a desert 150 to 180 million years ago; the dunes fossilized into sandstone; 65 million years ago, subduction along the North American plate caused faulting, uplifting so older limestone rock is now on top of younger redrock!

There were so many petroglyphs we couldn't see them all in one day! There were two hidden sandstone pools like large baths at the end of the boxw hich are catch-basins for runoff—and occasionally become a cistern for a waterfall.

The entire canyon (1/2 mile) is one vast storyboard. Sad that erosion has taken its toll and sides of rock faces have sloughed off, taking the ancient stories with them. We didn't have time to hike to AtlAtl Rock (even more petroglyphs). Next time.

 The canyon is named 'The Mouse's Tank' because a Southern Paiute Indian renegade,'Little Mouse,' who went wild whenever he got drunk, was accused of gunning down two prospectors and other crimes, hid out there in the 1890's.

 The petroglyphs are 4000 to 700 years old, and many were re-eched later. Different styles, enigmatic symbols. Not necessarily Paiute as the Lost City—aka Virgin Anasazi pueblo is nearby in the Moapa Valley.


added 4/17

Long lost relations

I am so excited that a long lost relation, a distant cousin (3rd, once removed—I think—my great-grand uncle’s ggg-granddaughter) Jennifer Harwell, from the Home Ranch Nevada Walshes found me on the internet because of a blog I wrote about my grannie. That's the second group of long lost Nevada Walsh kin that found me via my blog. Regrouping the scattered family. It just gets better. Now I'm in contact with another branch of cousins from Paddy’s brother, David Walsh who was killed in a mining accident—Karen Kelly Boyce—she knew the name of Paddy’s mysterious 3rd brother—it was William Walsh. That jives with my memory—my grannie was always telling me stories of the elder William, and those long lost relations at the knee but I never had context by which to hang them.

Love against all odds

I’m in love with my LePen. I have two in my writing folder because they often get tired and lay down right in the middle of a line. I am beyond fussy over my choice of pens. The LePens give up the ghost if you write too fast, after a worthless endeavor into aspects of worthlessness. And I really wanted to get away from the sacred profane paradigm and so I chose worthless. Go figure. 

Neil calls at sunset from the beach on Ventura Highway. He’s persevering alone against significant odds. His love of performing, of singing takes center stage, and so I packed him off this morning with a larder and with bedding. He'd forgot his head if it wasn’t attached. It is an odd love affair, if it is indeed love. I do question it often. When the gods of dailiness chew through us, and the continued affections of the beloved is a slippery slope of sand. For every step forward, you slide a half step backward and so on. 

I remember driving through Nevada with my uncle and grandmother, we were returning from a pilgrimage to Austin to Home Ranch where a familial love of land, against all odds, bloomed in the desert, and turned sage into oats and barley. We sat a while amongst the dead, the headstones of the Walshes that I’ve never known except through story. My grandmother was lost among the memories of flesh and blood. She was soon to join them, one foot nearer to the grave. She told stories of Wild Bill, Julia and the crazy twin who sewed imaginary cloth with imaginary thread and needle. Cloth and weft of memory. 

I struggled up that slippery slope of Sand Mountain, on the ancient shores of Lake Lahontan, shaped by the perfect geometry of sand and wind. With each step I was like Lawrence of Arabia scaling that heights, hiking towards the sun line, listening to the singing sand. My uncle and grandmother were the size of ants in the parking lot, but before I got to the top, they were beckoning me back. 

I had underestimated the slope and the height and the durability of that massive mountain of sand. I was so close to the summit I could almost reach it, but then I turned back against all odds, and headed back down. Each step I descended was an entire body length. It was the closest I would ever come to flying, flying down that dune, nearly weightless with each step—like being in love against all odds.

10/13/06 Writers' Group

INTERNATIONAL CAFE

INTERNATIONAL CAFE

Once 10,000 prospectors roamed the streets

of Austin, a ghost town of 204 souls.

At the International Cafe

(the only one in town)

Butch tells me of my cousin, Julia’s ghost,

the spilled coffee. Out at the adobe

the crazy twin who sat sewing

with imaginary needle and thread.

There’s a bar here for every 40 people.

At Home Ranch I look at photos.

My family astride the names of horses:

Ribbons, Stable Boy, Blue, Whitey, Lady.

Which one killed Wild Bill when the bull was unloaded.

Jim tells me stories of my grandmother

gathering eggs before the Indians got to them.

From Ireland she came cross-country

on the Great Western Railroad

to Battle Mountain where her uncle,

Wild Bill, came to meet her in the buggy.

Her brother Joe came by way of Galveston

because the boat was $10 cheaper,

they didn’t have enough for two fares.

There were two Indian villages here.

At the end of the season, Wild Bill

paid the Indians only half of what was owed.

The rest he gave to their women

because the men drank their wages in Austin.

Wild Bill, who once sold his truck in Ione

for a 5-gallon barrel of whiskey & a good game of cards

knew about the wages of sin and hard work.

He’d built this ranch up from dirt to grubstake.

But a foreman sold him out in ’Frisco,

pocketing the bankroll for a round of drinks

and an inferior bull.

9/18/93

CROSSING THE SHOSHONES

CROSSING THE SHOSHONES

On Highway 50, said to be

the loneliest road in America,

the eyes of a coyote gleam in our headlights.

I am caught up in the web of history:

who I am, where I come from.

We climb up into Austin

crossing the Reese River,

the road to Home Ranch.

Who’d have thought this desolate valley

would harbor a child

who would work on the bomb?

We pull into the Pony Canyon motel,

fragments jogged from memory

loosened like milk teeth,

or rocks after the thaw.

9/18/93  Austin, Nevada