Travels with Twinkles: Beatty, Rhyrolite and Death Valley

October 25 - 27, 2013:

We arrived at "The Pond" BLM campsite to find one other RV'er there and room plenty of room for us, but the short road into it was pretty rough. It was a beautiful setting right next to a small pond, complete with ducks, beautiful mountain views and even an old mine site above us on the hillside.

View of the campsite from the hill above

The Pond BLM boondock site in Beatty, Nevada

We went downtown to check out "Beatty Days" that just starting, it's a big deal here, all kinds of activities. We than tried to find a grocery store, one would think that a small town like Beatty would have something, No ! All we could find was a poorly stocked convenience type store. If you want a real grocery store you must drive 30 some miles. We then decided to splurge and eat out at a restaurant/bar on Main Street. The dining room was full with a Model A Ford car club group all eating pizza. The menu was not very appealing so we also ordered pizza, which they were baking in a small two pizza oven, so it took quite a while. I must admit though, it tasted real good, might be the best in Nevada ?

Mural in downtown Beatty

Saturday morning we went 4 miles outside of Beatty to Rhyolite ghost town. It was another mining boom town that went bust rather quickly. In it's short existence many large substantial buildings went up, but only a few still survive today. The most complete is the old Las Vegas to Tonopah Railroad Depot. There also is a house with exterior walls built using glass bottles that has been restored. The town was quite large in area, old foundations, rusty cans, broken bottles and other assorted debris covers the whole area. We then went to the cemetery and a weird sculpture park that seemed totally out of place.

Old Rhyolite Mercantile Store

Glass Bottle House

This was an early form of rycycling

All that is left is the front

Old Freight car

Las Vegas to Tonopah Railroad Depot

A very large masonry building shell

A mine entrance in hillside at Rhyolite

The "Last Supper" sculpture by Albert Szukalski at the
Goldwell Open Air Museum

Monument at the Cemetery

In the afternoon, we checked out the "Beatty Days" celebration downtown. It's the usual small town america event, fairly corny, farm tractors, chill cook-off, music, car show, but you gotta love it. The locals are a strange mix, pretty rough looking for the most part. We saw the Pickle Liquor Hoot-N-Holler, it involves filling a shot glass with some nasty tasting pickle juice or something which the contestants are suppose to gulp down (like doing a shot) then scream into the microphone. The first group of contestants were about 5 years old, I told Twinkles; look there're teaching the kids how to do shots. That was enough for us, we didn't stay for the root beer belching or the Chicken Drop Bingo contests.

Lots of BBQ smoke

Hot Rod flames were the rage

These guys seemed to play non- stop and were pretty good

The old Beatty fire engine

Lots of farm equipment

A young contestant in the Hoot-N-Holler competition

Unfortunately the Death Valley Firepit BBQ is now closed

Looks like someone crash landed to get to Angel's Ladies,
They have Truck parking but no RV parking ?

Beatty Days banner

In all of our time in the southwest, we finally saw our very first wild Tarantula Spider today, I had attached the power cable to the rear of the RV and I turned around to look at where the cable was laying on the ground and saw this big Tarantula sitting right next to the cable. I proceeded to connect the generator and start it up and the spider just sat there, I didn't mess with him. We also saw wild burros today eating grass on the outskirts of Beatty, they do roan wild here, descendants of the original mining burros.

Back at the RV, we met the neighbors, a full time RV, single, interesting ex-fishing boat captain (Steve) and Judy and Rick, a very nice friendly couple who had been drinking rather heavily. The conversation with Rick became most bizarre as he kept telling Steve and I that he had a secret power source (rejected by the government) for his RV, not solar or the need for a generator, but would not tell us what it was, or why he continued to run his generator so often. He also brought out his 3 foot long Walrus Task (He is an Alaskan) and kept showing it to us over and over.

Sunday we took off on a trip into Death Valley National Park. The scenery far exceeded our expectations. It is a strange ride, you leave 3,308 foot elevation Beatty, go uphill for a few miles, then travel almost steadily downhill to below sea level in Death Valley. We did a one mile hike into Mosaic Canyon which turns into a narrow slot canyon with beautiful water polished multi colored rocks. We then visited the Furnace Creek Visitors Center where they had great exhibits and a ranger put on the absolute best, most entertaining park lecture. It was then a stop at the incredible Zabriskie Point viewpoint and then a short loop drive on "Twenty Mule Team Canyon" followed by the "Harmony Borax Works interpretive trail".