Ghost Ranch, etc. Saturday, 7/4/26

 

Happy 250th Birthday, America! 

Look at ol' Tergel, happily squeezed in beside a Juniper in the Ghost Ranch campground.  We were somewhat surprised that the campground wasn't full, but - then, again - most of the sites don't have electricity, though we made sure ours did.  With the daytime temps in the 80's, having A/C is much appreciated.  At least by us!

I trudged up a hillside path to capture this pic of Tergel after the sun dipped below the mountain.  Think everything inside and outside might be covered in reddish dust?  Yup.  That's the bathhouse behind Tergel.  This is a pretty site/sight in every way.

Two nights in a row we were privileged to see skies like this.  Rain was falling, but sorry to say, not much landed on the ground.  We got maybe 16 drops on the windshield.

This old log cabin is the first thing you see upon entering the Ghost Ranch property.  Wait ... it appears old, but it was made expressly for the movie "City Slickers!"  See below.  The "road" into Ghost Ranch from the highway was one of the worst ever -- total washboard -- and it was looooong.

Some basic info: Ghost Ranch is a 21,000-acre retreat and education center.  A dining hall, library, tours, trail rides, two museums, swimming pool, lodging, camping, group meeting and celebration facilities are available. It's owned by the Presbyterian Church.  And its elevation is 6,500 ft.  We spent six days/nights at the campground, going out daily in Smartie on excursions of our own.  We really enjoyed our stay here.

In 1975 Ghost Ranch was designated as a National Natural Landmark by the National Park Service.

Of course, Georgia O'Keeffe figures largely in the area.  She had a villa/studio at Ghost Ranch (off limits), as well as a home in Abiquiu, roughly 15 miles south.  She fell in love with the geography and much of her work was inspired by what she saw here.  We stopped by the Welcome Center in Abiquiu and watched a short film on her life.

Wowzers!

The ranch is also known for its concentration of fossils, most notably that of the dinosaur, Coelophysis, of which it's been estimated that nearly a thousand specimens have been preserved in a quarry at Ghost Ranch. So, on one of our days we visited the anthropology and paleontology museums, both well worth going into. Just so much to see!

Coelophysis -- but maybe it wasn't green and white striped!

On Friday, the 3rd, we drove south to Los Alamos to do the downtown historic sites walking tour, stopping first at the Manhattan Project VC. I was expecting more than just a small room, and the volunteers there simply steered us to the walking tour.   Okay.  BTW, Los Alamos is situated at 7,200 ft on the Pajarito Plateau, and its location was chosen for its relative inaccessibility to help protect the Manhattan Project's secrecy.  (think:  up high, middle of nowhere)

Most of the Manhattan Project (atomic bomb) era buildings are gone.  Fini.  Replaced by new and modern buildings, so if you're looking for historical evidence from the 1940's, you won't find much.  Nevertheless, we walked to all the sites and were glad we came.

Creased and in a pocket or purse at one time or another during the day, this gives you a hint as to the walking tour.  The pond at the bottom of the picture from the WW II era looks a whole lot different than the pond today, photo below.

Our first stop was the museum (above) named for Norris E. Bradbury, the second director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, and not Ray Bradbury, the author!  And talk about overwhelm!  The best part for us were the two 16-minute movies -- Racing Toward Dawn tells the story of the Los Alamos National Laboratory’s beginnings and the challenges/successes of the Manhattan Project, and Mission: Stockpile Stewardship covers the work the Lab does today to ensure the safety, security, and reliability of the U.S. nuclear deterrent.

A ton o' info to take in!  Several rooms' worth!

I bees standing next to a replica of "Little Boy,"

the bomb that decimated Hiroshima.

"In 1943, the government built a secret laboratory at Los Alamos for a single military purpose -- to develop the world's first atomic weapons."

We also walked past this ancestral pueblo site.

The Oppenheimer house wasn't open,

it was being renovated.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, so to speak ...

Look who stopped by!

I believe this is an Ash-throated Flycatcher.

A side trip home - to 3/4/26

I'm not sure where I heard about it or perhaps I read something in a magazine, e.g., AARP, but since we were already "in the neighborhood," why not stop by?  I'm referring to Trona Pinnacles, a "unique geological feature" located about 170 miles north of Desert Hot Springs and 28 miles east of Ridgecrest in the Mojave Desert.  While we've been all around this area, we'd never been to Trona or Ridgecrest.  Because it's BLM land, dispersed camping is allowed and I thought it would be grand to camp below one of those tufa spires.

We found it easily.  At the entry, a sign read that the 5-mile-long dirt/gravel road is generally accessible to passenger vehicles (if you're willing to drive on a washboard), but after a rain, the road may be impassable, even to four-wheel drive vehicles.  Rain had fallen two weeks earlier; we figured we were safe. 

With Smartie in tow, Tergel started down what used to be a dirt road, transformed into a dried mud (like cement) track, with deep, irregular ruts.  We made it possibly a quarter mile before crying Uncle!  Then we had to turn around and make our way back toward the entrance.  Truly, that was an awful experience for Tergel, Smartie and us.  Nearer the entrance we found level ground and, since camping was allowed, we decided to stay where we were.  Too bad we were still five miles away from the pinnacles.  And we said, ain't no way we're walking that far!  Well, at least we could see them.  

Tergel sits all by herself with the pinnacles in the distance and train cars parked on a siding.  (Can you see her?) We'd taken Smartie for a spin so we could check out the ghost town of Trona.  Not much to see there.  The town is still functioning, but only barely.  A huge chemical complex closed down years ago, and we all know what happens then.  A new outfit is pulling sodium and potassium minerals out of Searles dry lake, but Trona is floundering.

This train was moving toward Trona (at a snail's pace),

going to pick up some raw material?  Flashy cars.

We went for a walk to the siding with the rail cars,

looking, examining, supposing ....

Toward dusk, I climbed a ridge behind Tergel and found a treasure trove of wildflowers.  The bottom two are Brown-eyed Primrose and Desert Five-Spot.

I took this picture of the pinnacles from atop the ridge.  Isn't it fantastic?  I'm glad we stopped here even if we couldn't get any closer.

In 2016, the BLM designated Trona Pinnacles as part of the California Desert National Conservation Lands due to the area’s significant scientific and ecological values; this means that the area will be managed to protect those values and will be permanently protected from development.  Good.  (They could work on that road, however!)

This pic is from Wiki.  As you see, people were closer to the spires.

There's Tergel/Smartie (and my shadow where I stood on the ridge).  Being camped here was extra-special, and with no one else around the silence was pervasive and so welcome.  Aside from the pinnacles, the area isn't particularly scenic, but we appreciated both the vastness and the tiny wildflowers at our feet.  I didn't fret that we couldn't camp at the base of a monolith tufa, nope.  Just happy.  Period.

And the sky!  We saw the breath-taking full moon rise above yonder mountain -- what a sight!  We didn't expect this which made it even better.  For sure, we wouldn't see many stars nor the Milky Way, not with the super bright moon filling the sky.  Alone as we were, there wasn't any need to close our windshield curtains.  We watched the moon climb in the sky.  I got up once in the night to look around, and it was like daylight out there.  So quiet.

The next morning was cool and sunny, blue skies all 'round.  Whoa, I looked out our dinette window and saw this black smoke.  We didn't hear anything, but China Lake Naval Weapons Station is beyond the hills.  The smoke continued and spread eastward in the sky.  It looked like a plane had crashed, but, like I said, we heard nothing.  Just about the time you think you're alone in the world, bang, a reminder you're not.

We left the site after breakfast, heading for Tehachapi (the -ugh- wind tunnel) and eventually I-5.  It didn't take us long to reach Hwy 58, the road to Tehachapi.  Meanwhile, we were treated to mountains and flats blanketed with blooms, the yellow you see on the peak above.

And here!

Yellows and purples and masses of white,

but hard to get a great photo at 60mph!

I'd also hoped to stop at Red Rock Canyon, but the entrance came upon us too quickly and we missed the turn in.  Nowhere to turn around!  Well, okay, two for two: we came, we saw, we almost conquered!

From the road, the place looked stupendous.  Maybe next time.

We moved on, with a headwind in our face, through Tehachapi, down to Bakersfield and on to the Baker Museum in Coalinga, a Harvest Host site we used a couple of years ago.  After a delicious meal at Los Reyes Mexican Grill, we enjoyed a peaceful night at the museum.  No dinosaurs disturbed us.  We shared our site with one other camper, a lady from Oregon named Eileen.  Always lovely to meet fellow travelers, especially when they become friends!

On toward home the next morning, we endured a vicious headwind, the kind where you feel like you may as well simply pour gasoline straight onto the road. ** sigh **.  We made it home late Thursday afternoon in one piece, glad to see the homestead still standing, having sustained no damage from the snowstorm.  

Five weeks away, loved it all.

What? No name? Wed, 5/5/21

All you have to do is look around, be open to what's out there, and be willing to get off the beaten path, and you'll discover all kinds of neat or quirky things.  For instance, we're more interested in cool experiences rather than staying at the same-old campgrounds right next to the freeway.  Harvest Hosts is perfect for finding unusual or remarkable places to stay.  We knew we'd be ready to quit driving for the day somewhere near Boerne and the Harvest Hosts site steered us to Cave Without a Name, out in the limestone-karst boonies of Boerne!  Texas hill country.

We parked on level ground near the lofty Cottonwood tree and were quite comfy.  Most HH sites offer no hookups, but with our solar and large water/holding tanks, we're okay without hookups.  After hours, we were the only people in the entire area and it was wonderfully quiet, ideal.  Wildlife, deer and fox, came close.  Our window over the bed was open half the night, till it grew too chilly (46° the next morning). I love sleeping like this.

Who's ever heard of this place?  What kind of name for a cave is Cave Without a Name?  No name a'tall!  It has been designated a National Natural Landmark, regardless of its no-name name.  Fortunately, we got set up in time for the 3 o'clock cave tour.

We entered the cave through a wire gate (no closed system here) and descended 138 steps on a spiral stairwell down the original sinkhole opening.  Jimmy in pink shirt, above, follows Andi, our guide.  One other couple joined our tour.

Sure enough, we looked up and could see daylight!  Zoomed in.

They've mapped three miles of this cave system, but we'd see only a part.  We saw a "scream" face in the above pic!

Stalagmites and stalactites, columns, cave bacon and cave popcorn,

flowstone, soda straws ... this cave had it all.

And BIG chambers!

I received lots of cave "kisses!"

Beautiful decorations, but they're using old lighting (which sucked, IMO), not having switched to LED lights.  We hope they do switch as they're better for the cave.

While there is glare in this photo, you really are seeing white, which indicates new (recent) growth.

The formations in this, the "Queen's Throne Room," were spectacular.

Some areas have pools of water.

Andi occasionally sees a cave cricket.

Looks prehistoric!

At the back of this photo is a dark, small/ish opening.  Experienced cavers can go into and through the caving system here; in fact, that's how they discovered and mapped the three underground miles.

Only one species of tiny bat occupies this cave:  A tri-colored bat.  Looking up on the ceiling, we spotted this one li'l fella today.  

The cave was found by the three kids above in 1938. They entered the sinkhole (with a lantern) and using a rope they found, they explored parts of the cave, by themselves, no grown-up. The youngest, a girl, was only ten at the time.  Wow.  No way would I have had the guts to do that!  I believe the girl is still alive, and in her 90's.

This was a good cave, not the best, not like Postjona Cave in Slovenia, which was superb.  We were happy to have taken the Cave Without a Name tour.

After our nearly-hour-long tour, we wandered around the grounds, finding trails, like the Sinkhole Trail that led us to three or four sinkholes (more potential cave entrances?) and this old rusted truck cab.  The temp was warm, not hot, and the walk was kinda fun.  Once dinner time was over, we relaxed and watched the wildlife.  As I said, being here was soothing to the soul.

 

We have one more HH site in mind for tomorrow night.  Then, it's pedal to the medal, Mable, let's head for the barn.  Time to go home.