The cat came out of her funk shortly after my last post and decided that eating, drinking, and, well, disposing, were good things to do. She liked it much better when we weren’t moving. She decided that she wanted to join us in bed, and nothing would dissuade her. She’d end up on the floor, then the next thing we’d know, there she was again. I finally decided to let her curl up between me and the wall, and we spent the rest of the night that way

The night wasn’t the most restful anyway, since we had a gusty wind shaking and rattling the camper. It finally died out toward morning. Tonight we are at a different and rather isolated campground, and there’s no wind. I don’t expect any sleep problems tonight. The campground is much nicer, too, with widely spread campsites in a pleasant location near a dry wash. The last one was basically a big parking lot.
We saw two coyotes wandering around in the early evening. There wasn’t much light, which explains the quality of the picture. The ranger said that there was a pack of 6 or 7 that lived in the gulleys next to the camp, and they would sweep the camp for whatever was left loose. He told tales of finding pots, cloths, and even a wok in their dens. Apparently they are especially fond of old sneakers, for the rich odors, no doubt, and if campers leave their shoes outside of the tent they often wake to find them missing.


Today we slowly drove north from Furnace Creek stopping at an old borax mine along the way. I realized that I don’t even know what borax is, other than that it’s a Boron compound. I looked it up on the internet when I got home. I was wrong. borax is actually any of a number of boron compounds, possibly all mixed up. The picture shows a couple of cars from a typical 20-mule team. The tank car carries water for the mules!

It’s interesting that the driest place in the US is largely shaped by water You can see huge alluvial fans coming down from the mountains on either side of the valley. The floor of the valley is covered with rocks, and looks just like a stream.

We went to Scotty’s Castle at the very north end of the valley and took the tour through the house. Scotty wasn’t the owner or builder, by the way. He was a conman who persuaded East coast businessmen to send him money to exploit fake gold mines. The fellow who built the house wasn’t fooled in the least, but he had more money than he knew what to do with, and he found Scotty enormously amusing. It’s a good story
There was an interesting and very large theatre organ which they wouldn’t let us see. About all that was visible was the movement of the swell shutters. I asked if there was some way to see the interior of the organ, but was told that it was just too delicate to allow visitors. I can’t really blame them. I got a picture of the console, which gives some idea of its complexity.



It had a self-player attachment, like a player piano. You just stick in the Rolls and it will play itself I thought it was the most interesting piece of furniture there.
We bought a CD of the organ playing, and you can hear a sample. I never knew that they made them work like a player piano.

They also had a grand piano with a player attachment built in, and a small carillon in a bell tower (without the player attachment). It seems they liked music, but nobody in the family played.


It started to rain while we were on the tour, and the rest of the afternoon was dark and occasionally stormy. We drove over to Ubehebe crater, formed by a steam explosion when magma met groundwater. It’s not at all like the volcanic crater we’ve seen elsewhere, since the sides are all sedimentary rocks

We got settled in the campsite just before a storm came through. It was quite impressive, with gusty winds, lightning and heavy rain. We called the weather service to check, and they assured us that we were safe from flash floods where we were, so we stayed here and now the weather has moved on.

The camper is truly convenient in bad weather, as I was remarking to Flo, warm and dry go a long way toward a good camping experience. Being able to cook meals with a microwave doesn’t hurt either.