RETIREMENT TRIP #6

     THE GHOST LIVES    

                      September 2015                 

Andy packed the car as I checked out of the Dow Villa Hotel this morning.

“Did you enjoy your stay here?” asked Amanda, at the registration desk.

“Yes,” I grinned.  “I tried to have a little chat with John Wayne, but he didn’t have too much to say.  It only felt like he was around.”

“Are you the lady who was sitting at the table?  The one with the burgundy cloth?” she asked.

“Yes.   For hours both nights,” I told her.  I had typed in blog stories, loaded and adjusted photographs, edited essays for private students and checked AOL email and Facebook.  Andy sat with me checking emails and reading the paper.  “I sat at the table next to the old desk,” I told her.

In Red Rock Canyon State Park the iron oxide makes
cliffs look like bleeding rocks.

“Then he probably was around,” Amanda added.

I’m sure I looked very surprised.

“You were sitting at his poker table,” she explained.  “It used to be in the basement here.  I’m told that he and the guys would go down the basement at night to play poker around that table.”

WOW! Imagine that. I’m friends with John Wayne’s ghost!

Weathering causes unusual formations
in Red Rock Canyon.

Our first stop today was Red Rock Canyon State Park in Ridgecrest, California.

“There are two little hikes here,” said Andy.  The formations were all badlands clay, but Ridgecrest gets so little rain.

The meeting of two geological plates produces uplifting here.

The Hagen Canyon Nature Trail was named for Robert Hagen, who originally owned the land and a store and a rudimentary inn here.  He sponsored walks into the canyon where two fault lines meet, one uplifting the other into angled slabs.  We followed the trail a mile in where it circled around the washes.  The red in the rocks is iron.  When it rains, the iron oxidizes and washes down, making the rock look like it’s bleeding.  At 10:30 a.m. the sun beat down, and it felt really hot.

A half mile up the canyon, the uplifting
is readily apparent.

But the trail offered beautiful perspectives of the badlands cliffs.  Lined with lava and basalt, the trail was easy to follow, but lots of side trails didn’t match the main posted map.  It was still a lovely walk early in the morning.

“This is Mohave Desert,” said Andy. “We have left the Great Basin.”

The car read 78 degrees, but it felt a lot hotter than that.

Randsburg is a mining town with people still living in the tiny one-or-two-room houses.  The welcome sign said, “Randsburg, a living ghost town.”

Driving down Butte Street was like going back about a hundred years in time.  Everything in town was closed except the grocery store, but most indicated “open on weekends.”

Johannesburg, population 172, was a mile away but on the main road.  Johannesburg actually had more livable trailers, but it wasn’t as quaint.  Here, the road in town had been re-tarred recently.  We advanced gingerly.

The third mining town, Red Mountain, didn’t even have paved roads.  But a modern Kern County fire truck drove back in among the tumbled shacks and rubble.

Spoils from mines dotted all the hillsides.

“And they just leave everything,” said Andy.

Businesses in Randsburg look like the set of a movie
in the Old West instead of real life.

Mines had been here for many years, based on the mountains of spoils.

“The criminal part is that all this is contaminated,” said Andy.  “It probably leaches out sulfur and who knows what else, but if anyone tries to come after the owners to clean it up, they just claim bankruptcy.”

From below Red Mountain, we followed Butte Street as it wound back into the hills of spoils.  It was the only paved road around, and it led right back to Randsburg.  There, far behind the town, was a huge strip mine.

“There has to be something of value here,” said Andy.  “They are cutting that whole hill down.  That’s why you got good cell service.  The tower isn’t for the people.  It’s for the mining company.”

Closed on Wednesday, shops in Randsburg announce
they are open on weekends.

Everything along the road was fenced with “danger” signs.  To me, living here was incomprehensible, but they did have great cell service.

On the south side of the mining towns it truly looked like desert.

“I think the Mojave is the harshest desert in the country,” said Andy.  “Great Basin is colder, but all you have here is creosote.”

I agreed.  It was mile after mile of creosote bushes.  We knew that nothing can grow around creosote, because the roots of the creosote poison the surrounding ground to eliminate competition for water.  Smart move, but it sure makes for an ugly landscape.  There was some sagebrush, but that didn’t help much.

After doing laundry and checking into the motel, we set out along Interstate #15 to explore the area.
“I’m doing the speed limit—70—and everyone is passing me,” complained Andy.

A pick-up truck whizzed by.  “Just let them go,” I suggested.  “We’re not in a hurry.”  Only the semis went slower, but for them the limit was 55.

We took a couple of exits off of I-15 to check out the landscape.  They were both absolutely disgusting with litter and garbage. There were broken bottles everywhere.  If California is such a wonderful place, this state has some serious problems with values.  I’ve seen few highways as disgusting.

People live and work in the mining town of Randsburg.

We turned off at Newberry Springs. It looked from the map like a whole “suburban” community with all kinds of streets.  Instead, we found dirt paths with street signs.  I guess it’s called urban planning.  The residents were pistachio farmers.  We followed paved streets all the way south to U.S. #40.

“A tour bus?” said Andy.  “What’s that doing here?”

Then we realized that U.S. #40 replaced the old Route 66.  Everything along this stretch was abandoned.

But the tour must have been a trip down Memory Lane to remember days gone by before the time of the super highway and the interstate.  At 23 miles from Barstow, time and the interstate had passed them by.

And U.S. #40 was also a mess with mile after mile of broken glass everywhere. 
“You’d need an army to clean this mess,” said Andy, when I suggested Adopt-a-Highway miles.

And he was absolutely right.