first half last day in and near Death Valley

Our final day heading back to Death Valley, while traveling on the highway we noticed way off the road toward the hills what looked like some old buildings out in the desert. Never ones to shy away from a narrow dirt road, off we went.



We found several structures with only part of the concrete still standing. All the wood had been gone for years. The best we could tell was that it was used for processing whatever was being mined in the area.

Dick never misses a shot through a building. Notice all the bullet holes in the walls. We also found several areas where the facility was used for paintball. Could be quite a lot of fun as long as you don't fall into one of the basements.



Lots and lots of desert with the mountains in the background.

Someone went to a lot of trouble to create some artwork on one of the walls. Not sure how many years it's been there.

Further up the road was the small town of Beatty with this interesting and I must say well done murial.

Just before getting into Death Vally was a ghost town, Rhyolite, where some of the buildings still stood. You could wander around the ruins and there were several people spending most of the day taking pictures. Add us to the list. Up the hill from this artwork is the town.

More about the artwork in the next Blog.

The old train station still stands but is completly surrounded by a chain link fence, so the only way to get a good picture was to back the truck up to the fence and stand on top of the tool box. (Of course Dick had no problem with that!)

This is the remains of Jackie's bank (the COOK bank).

Not sure why some of the walls are still standing. Take a look at the bricks on the top left corner and then take a look at the next picture.

Why are they still there?

Someone decided to build a "bottle house"; here again it is surrounded by a fence. The yard is full of artwork with broken glass imbeded into all the structures.

Would be interesting to go inside and see what the light shining through all the bottles looked like.

To be continued...