Yosemite National Park - East Entrance

Ah-ha!  The ghost of Granma!  Always livin' on the edge of excitement ready to jump in at a moments notice, eh?

This interpretive marker lets us know that the east entrance to Yosemite National Park is only eighty miles from Death Valley National Park.  Major contrast between the two!  Both exquisite in their own ways.

Granpa and I have definitely decided that the east entrance to Yosemite is the only way to go.  It's a long drive through the park from here to the famous Half-Dome and other well-known and well-touted sites - but it's so much better from here. Something tells me that the California tourist industry sees the west entrance as a much better opportunity to capture your tourist dollars, and that's why they promote it so heavily.

We have uncovered the secret, though, and are delighted to share it with our readers across the globe.  (We're being read in 64 countries now!)

This is the gateway to Yosemite from the east!  

(Granpa says that now we have to go back in from the west and put the pictures side by side!)

I learned in the Yukon Territory a few years back that when the water is green because of the glaciers of the past that have melted and left behind debris that gives the water a green tint.  The water is so very clear -- and I don't even have to touch it to know that it's c-o-l-d!  A few weeks later this sprinkling of snow became a whole lot more when it began falling at two inches an hour.  They don't plow the roads of Yosemite in the winter time, so we are just in time - God blesses our timing yet again!

We love mountain creeks and rivers,

 and mountain lakes with beautiful beaches surrounded by unsurpassed beauty!

A bit farther on down the road we find a wonderful place to begin hiking -

 and it's as close as we got to the famous half-dome mountain.  

We spent way too much time on photo ops - but absolutely could not pass any of them up. 

It simply means we will have to come back. (YEA!!)

The Drive Up Highway 395

It's early morning, 

and our brains can't believe how many wonderful sights our eyes have seen over the last 24 hours!  To the left and to the right we are blessed.

There are almost two dozen short side roads off of 395, just from Bishop northward, that will take you into canyons and up the side of the Sierras and into amazing sights!  There are dozens of small lakes throughout the area that provide fishing and beautiful stands of cottonwoods, willows and aspen.  We have (once again) stumbled onto another of God's gifts to mankind - what is known as the #2 area in the good ol' U.S.A. for Fall colors!  But when you consider the height of the Sierras and, because of that, these Fall colors go on for weeks based on elevation and temperature, I think it should be considered #1!

USA Today's Weekend Magazine said this is one of the USA's 5 best road trip destinations.  Sunset Magazine says the June Lake area is in its top 5 Fall hiking destinations.  TravelandLeisure.com says the "blinding displays of yellow and orange" make it one of America's best Fall color drives!  Lonely Planet says this is "The secret California dream... Just follow the scenic US Route 395 as it connects wonders."

Even without the Fall colors the sights are breathtaking...

There's one area called Buttermilk Country - and it got it's name because, in the 1800's, the ranchers would load their goat milk into wagons and the rough road into town would churn it into buttermilk by the time they reached Bishop!  

Bodie State Park contains the West's largest unrestored ghost town.  It's an old gold-mining town that even brought Mark Twain to the area!  Now its in “arrested decay,” which means the buildings are protected but not restored.  When the last of Bodie's residents moved out there were no more moving companies in town, so they loaded up what they could carry and everything else has been left behind.  But there is an active curse on even the smallest item - like a nail - that will attach itself to you if you have sticky fingers and decide to pocket a souvenir.  A great article on the town can be found at http://www.csicop.org/si/show/curse_of_bodie_legacy_of_ghost-town_ghosts/

And all of this leads us into the Tioga Pass entrance to Yosemite!

The Methusaleh Tree

The location of the ancient Great Basin bristlecone pine forest is not a secret.  Which tree is actually the 4,846 year old Methusaleh tree IS the secret!  Thank you, vandals, everywhere :-(



It's not difficult to find Inyo County, California and the White Mountains.  There's even a sign on the highway that points to the forest, though it wasn't a very big, imposing sign.  So, we hang a left and then another left, and up the mountain we go!

The tree has had the name of Methusaleh for so long that it probably won't change.  However, the scientists have discovered another bristlecone in the same area that is judged to be 5,065 years old. (meaning that it poked its first bristle out of the ground -- are you ready? -- 3,051 years before Christ! Yowser!)

It was really, really cold when we got into the car this morning down in Bishop. Now we're about 9,500 feet above sea level, and the wind is howling.  The tallest peak in the White Mountain range if over 14,000 feet high.  Today it has the first dusting of this season's snow.

We also seem to be about the only people on this peak!  It's a beautiful center - but closed for the winter.  Thank goodness the potties were unlocked!  Icy cold pit toilets are not my favorite, but Granma had to go! 

The paved road ends at the interpretive center. We try to follow the dirt road on up, but it got pretty rough.  No worries, there's a footpath that wanders through the forest.  This place is at the treeline hence the sparse growth.

These guys are not the most attractive organisms in the world, but I think that they are beautiful!

The bark-less (is that a word?) wood is part of the reason the bristlecone pine is so long lived.  Also, their needles don't fall off - so no energy or nutrients are wasted re-growing them. They also grow very, very slowly which makes them virtually pest-resistant.  Then there's the fact that they grow in a location that minimizes exposure to wildfire.  And finally, the oldest of them grow in what's considered "poor" soil conditions. The very same pine trees in "good" soil grow taller and straighter, but they don't tend to live as long.  It's a strange combination of facts, but it works for Methusaleh - and his older brother, whatever his name is.

Now it's back down the mountain and back through Bishop to Yosemite, which is where we originally planned to go before being run off the road by a brothel and sidetracked to Methusaleh...

Maybe someday we'll go find the eighty-thousand-year-old Quaking Aspens in Fish Lake National Forest in south-central Utah; and the eleven-thousand-seven-hundred-year-old Creosote bush named "King Clone" in the Mojave Desert near the Lucerne Valley in California!  These guys are what's known as Clonal organisms - different class from the bristlecone pines.






This is a view of Death Valley from the top of the White Mountains Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest!

Moving on to Bishop, California

We chose Bishop, California because it is just outside the eastern entrance to Yosemite.  It's a small resort-ish kinda place.  The more research I did I realized that it was also just about fifteen miles from the Methuselah tree!  Death Valley was a bonus - and so will the search for the oldest tree on the planet be a bonus!

We spent so much time in Death Valley that we must pass by Methuselah and check into our room. In the morning we'll backtrack the fifteen miles, find those ol' trees, and then go back through Bishop to Yosemite.

We stayed at the Days Inn in Bishop and gave it a 4 out of 5 rating - not bad for a $50 room!  I suppose during the "season" the price might be higher though.  Days Inn, of course, is a "chain" hotel. We've started looking for the privately owned places because they seem to be so much cleaner and quieter than the chains.  Hotels.com has their own customer-based rating system, and we've found it to be right on target.  If a private hotel has a rating of 3.5 at the right price, we'll consider it.  If it has a higher rating?  Fantastic!  We have friends that "shop" Hotels.com, and then call hotels direct to try to get a better price.  I don't feel like that's right or fair - and motels at $50 a night is about as reasonable as you can get!

I guess we stay in motels because every time we stay in hotels the car is so far away that we walk ourselves to death retrieving things like tablets and laptops.  What we're looking for is a good night's sleep - not bragging rights to a location.

And I have no clue how I got on this train of thought to post on the blog - but you might find it interesting how we end up some of the places that we do...

Zabriskie Point in Death Valley

This place gets a 4.5 out of 5 rating from TripAdvisor.com.  I personally give it a full 5!

It looks like chocolate swirl ice cream to me!  Anyone for a hot fudge sundae?

Turns out that we made it in just under the wire because the National Park Service is closing access to this area until March or April of 2015.  Again, the Lord blesses us!

Zabriskie Point is named after the vice-president and general manager of the old Pacific Coast Borax Company.  From here you can see these richly colored mudstone hills and canyons left when Furnace Creek lake dried up five million years ago.  Later sculpted by erosion - water does come to Death Valley but usually in downpours and what we in Texas call gully-washers - the beauty of what we see in this vast graben (the geological term for a sunken fragment of the Earth's crust) cannot be explained by merely using the word "erosion."  Neither does the phrase, "200-square-mile salt pan surrounded by mountains" or "forbidding desert conditions" give even the slightest clue to the exquisite beauty of Death Valley.

I so wish we were younger and could scramble around the formations!  They say that there are fossilized footprints of ancient mastodons, camels, horses, carnivores and birds in what was lake shore mud!  The only way to see them is to take a hike.  These ol' hips and knees aren't up to the task anymore.  Take heed my young family - it's now or never!

Telescope Peak is the highest point in the park at 11,049 feet.  It is only fifteen miles from that peak to Badwater Basin - the lowest point in the United States.  The vertical drop within that fifteen miles is twice the depth of the Grand Canyon!  You can imagine the drive from the normal world down to Badwater Basin gives endless views of amazing landscapes.  Check your brakes, boys, and get out the cameras!

The Coolies of Death Valley

The above is the mule-train.  

Now let's focus on the borax works.

This is what the "factory" looked like during it's hey day.  Below is what it looks like now.

The storage barn that was out front is gone, but this part is pretty much intact.  (Look beyond the structure!  Look at that valley!  and the mountains and sky!  I simply cannot get over how pretty "Death" Valley is!)

Anyway, back to borax...

As you can see, the gathering of the borax "cottonballs" was done by Coolies.  The influx of "Chinamen" began because importing African slaves was becoming unacceptable and/or illegal.  So in the late 1840's Europeans and Americans began hiring men from the Far East at rock-bottom wages.  The term "Coolie" is from Hindi - kuli means "wages."

Most coolies came of their own free will through contractual agreements - much like the indentured servants of the 1700's - but never put it past mankind to shanghai a few.  Free will or not, these men weren't treated much better than the African slaves that came before them other than the fact that they did receive wages.  The Chinese government had a ban on emigration (immigration means coming into a country; emigration means going out of a country), but it was just on paper.  They didn't seem to care if people were leaving their country. Suffice it to say, therefore, that the Chinese government didn't do much to improve the treatment of emigrants.

The wages were $1.30 a day - not bad for the 1800's! - but then the owners deducted housing and company store expenses.

By the late 1800's free immigration was replacing the coolie trade.  People who came from China, Japan, and Hindustan would continue to be known as coolies, but they were no longer bound by contracts.  Technically they were free immigrants.

So, the coolies would gather the borax.  Because transportation costs (meaning not just money, but the wear and tear on men and animals and equipment, too.)  Transportation cost was so high that they processed the "cottonballs" on site and only transported pure borax.  Not so pretty, eh. 

They would boil the raw material in water.  Adding carbonated soda caused the borax to separate from the lime and mud which settled to the bottom of the tank.  They drew off the borax into cooling tanks.  It would crystallize onto hanging metal rods.  The coolies chipped it off the rods and reprocessed it to get the most concentrated form of borax possible.  The coolies then bagged the borax and stored it in the barn until shipment out of the valley.

The good news is that borax will not crystallize in temperatures above 120 F, so processing ceased during the hottest part of the year.  I suspect, though, that that's when the owners would have the coolies do maintenance on the facility.

Then the concentrated borax would be loaded into the wagons - as much as 36 tons (72,000 pounds!) - including 12,000 gallons of drinking water.  The rear wheels on those wagons were seven feet high!  That's taller than Granpa!!  But those large wheels were better able to manage uneven surfaces.  There was no modern road grading equipment for sure.

This map also shows the location of the four borax companies operating in Death Valley in the late 1800's.

20-Mule Team Borax

Borax was first discovered in the dry lake beds of Tibet.  Arabians brought it west via the Silk Road. It was an uncommon commodity.  

You have to be a real old-timer to remember TV commercials advertising Borax - and a really, really old-timer to have ever seen a 20-mule team in action!  Gpa's grandmother claimed to have see one in Texas.  I mean, teams like this were used to haul more than Borax, so she probably did!

The discovery of Borax in the California and Nevada deserts, its easy accessibility and its large deposits turned one Francis Marion Smith into a rich man.  Suddenly, Borax became a common commodity!  Smith's Pacific Coast Borax Company began marketing "20 Mule Team Borax," and in the 1950's and into the 1970's advertised on a plethora of TV shows.  Seeing those twenty mules hauling a huge wagon coupled to another and yet another wagon loaded with a couple of tons of borax was pretty impressive.

This is one of the actual roads that those wagons traveled.  I can't believe I am actually seeing this!  I loved all the shows that they advertised on:  "Wagon Train," "Have Gun, Will Travel," "Death Valley Days," and on and on - to the tune of something like 700 episodes!

The deeper we go the prettier the scenery.  The beauty of Death Valley cannot be shared in photographs.  You simply have to see it in person!  Preferably in the wintertime!

In 1877, Scientific American reported that the Smith Brothers shipped their product in a 30-ton load using two large wagons with a third wagon for food and water drawn by a 24-mule team for 160 miles (260 km) across the Great Basin Desert from Marietta to Wadsworth, Nevada where the nearest Central Pacific Railroad siding was.  

Can you imagine?!  I mean, Death Valley (before satellites) held the world's record for the hottest recorded air temperature on earth - 134 degrees Fahrenheit !!  Now satellites have been measuring earth temperatures from space, and a spot in the Lut Desert in Iran has a recorded "land skin" temperature of 159.3 F (70.7 C) in 2005.  That spot also had record temperatures in 2004, 2006, 2007 ...  Well, you get the picture.  It's not always the hottest spot, and Death Valley is always in the running for that dubious distinction.

Can you imagine sitting on a wagon seat with no shade for days on end!  They only did this long enough for Smith to get a railroad line built to do the hauling - but still !  And as Smith bought mineral rights elsewhere, the mule teams would do the hauling from the new location until more rail lines could be built.

But as I mentioned, we were here in the winter and the weather was wonderful!  Death Valley drops to 282 feet below sea level and gets less than 2" of rain a year which is less than most desert environments.  We absolutely had the best time traveling through Death Valley.  Surprise, surprise, surprise!  Thank you, Lord!

A Resort Hotel in Death Valley??

Furnace Creek Resort

There really is a place named Furnace Creek, as well as places like Funeral Mountains, Coffin Peak, Hell's Gate, Starvation Canyon and Dead Man Pass.  You can trust that this resort was NOT here when the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corp) was down here in the 1930's.  It was more like what the Shoshone Indians lived in before the white man came, with ancient foot-trails and petroglyphs .  That, and the remains of white man's capitalism:  borax and metal ore mines, ghost towns, and things like Old Dinah:

This ol' steam tractor and her ore wagons (circa 1894) replaced the 20 mule teams.  She was herself replaced by the Borate and Daggett railroad.  Because of the climate, things down here don't rust like they do elsewhere in the world, so this is the real deal.  She was abandoned on the Beatty-Keane Wonder Mine Road over a hundred years ago!

Below - yes, literally below - Furnace Creek Resort is an oasis where you will find a beautiful place for campers of any kind.  This is operated by the National Park Service, and because it is the only one in Death Valley you would be wise to make reservations well in advance.

Beyond the oasis is what you probably have envisioned Death Valley to really look like - so it will live up to at least those expectations, but as you saw in our previous post Death Valley is so much more!

A Surprise Visit to Death Valley!

Well, Granpa decided that he wanted to see Yosemite National Park again.  It was okay the first time around, but just wasn't that impressive to me.  He's asking me how long it would take to get hither, tither and yon.  I finally pull out the road atlas and, as a result, I suggest we get to Yosemite through the eastern entrance.  It's shorter - due north of Las Vegas and hang a left.  He's not real excited about the idea - but I prevail.  (Yes!)  I've also recently read about the Methuselah tree being in the area of Bishop where we booked a room.  So, when his next set of days off comes around we load up the car and head out through 'Vegas.

It's amazing how itineraries tend to produce themselves. We're loping along (Granpa never goes above the speed limit - especially in a vehicle that has been as faithful as our Sienna which now has something like 267,000 miles on it!)  We're moseyin' up the highway, having made it through Las Vegas without sinnin', and what to my wondering eyes appears on our right but an enormous billboard that says:  B-R-O-T-H-E-L !!  Yes, my children, brothels are legal in Nevada.  Granpa slams on the brakes and, since the brothel is on the right, I push the steering wheel to the left! 

Granpa manages to stop in a parking lot as I'm pulling out the road atlas.  We are gettin' outta Nevada asap!  Lookin', lookin', lookin'...  This road that we made a left on (State Highway 373), if we stay on it headed west, we're (gulp!) going into Death Valley National Park!!  But in just eleven miles we will be out of Nevada.  We're doin' this!  Death Valley, here we come!

And that is how itineraries produce themselves...

It is winter, so temperatures in the Valley shouldn't be a problem.  Not that Death Valley was ever on our bucket list, but once we get through to the other side we never have to worry about it getting on our bucket list!

God is so very good to us when we turn away from sin!  It turns out that Death Valley is absolutely unequivocally gorgeous!

The variety is unending!

And it has stories to tell, too!

Christmas in Kingman

Christmas for a traveler has to be about more than family.  It helps us to focus on the reason for the season - the birth of Christ Jesus.  We do definitely thank God for our travel-church family.  It is so incredibly important to our "survival" as travelers to go to any town and find like-minded brothers and sisters in Christ.

Now, don't get me wrong, we love everything about the Christmas season.  I will always love the (almost) fantasy of Santa Claus since it's based on St. Nicholas, the patron Saint of children.  But I love the Christmas animations with Rudolph and the Grinch and Frosty the Snowman.  I love the holiday songs and the Christmas carols.  I love the joy of small children on Christmas morning.

For most of the past five years, however, Christmas has been just the two of us.  Gift-giving to the children and grandchildren has been a long distance thing.  We rest easy in the knowledge that our sons and their wives have created their own Christmas traditions.  We pray earnestly that they not get lost in the trappings (literally) of the season, and that they all remember the birth of Christ as the reason for the loving of everyone.

We've had to forgo the giant Christmas tree with family-tradition ornaments.  (See our blog post
http://thetravelerstwo.blogspot.com/2013/12/a-2-foot-christmas.html )  We've found small artificial trees, hoping to fit them into the car and take home.  We've gotten a good collection of them going now!  This year is no exception.

And, yes, there are a few new ornaments Granpa has picked up that will become traditional as of next year.

This particular tree reminds me of when our oldest son was away from home on Christmas - in Afganistan! - and I mailed him a similar tree.  He said everyone on base, regardless of their country of origin, appreciated the bright, sparkly tree. This year it is we who are in the land of sand and cactus and tumbleweeds.  And THAT reminds me of a childhood Christmas when Momma couldn't afford to buy a tree of ANY size or kind.  Being the creative lady that she is, she stacked up a bunch of tumbleweeds, spray painted them silver, and THAT was our Christmas tree.  All four of us children thought nothing of the poverty - only the joy our momma always managed to create no matter what.  Momma is a what some folks would call a Great Lady.

If you like our blog, you can buy the book forms on Amazon under the “Heritage Travels” titles. 

Cattle Rancing and Palo Duro

Charles Goodnight (March 5, 1836 - December 12, 1929) is about as famous a Texas cattleman as there ever will be.  He was moved to Texas at the age of ten by his parents, and by the age of twenty was serving with the local militia fighting Commanche Indian raiders and began his first cattle raising venture.  A year later, 1857, he joined the Texas Rangers.

To get a handle on Charles Goodnight, think of the "Lonesome Dove" story.  It was virtually a historical depiction of some of Goodnight's exploits, with the character Woodrow F. Call representing Goodnight.

During the Civil War, Texas cattle roamed free.  After four years they were scattered all over the state.  Goodnight, who returned from the Confederacy,  joined in "making the gather" encompassing nearly the entire state, and then sorting the cattle out by virtue of the brands.  The question then became how to turn a profit by selling them.  Goodnight knew the war-ravaged "South" was destitute of funds and so there was no market there.  Goodnight decided to go west to New Mexico and Colorado, braving the dry west Texas high plains.

His partner in all of this was an old, seasoned rancher by the name of Oliver Loving (1812 - 1867).  (In Lonesome Dove, Loving's character was Augustus McCrae, played by Robert Duval.)

To attempt the first historic crossing of west Texas in 1866 with 2,000 head of cattle, they wisely planned things down to the last foreseeable detail.  One of the more memorable things they invented, or created, was the now famous chuckwagon. 

The Goodnight-Loving Trail from Belknap, Texas to Fort Sumner, New Mexico, 1000 miles, would forever be known as one of the most amazing feat of cattle driving ever accomplished.  Once in New Mexico they partnered with John Chisum (from whom the Chisum Trail gets it's name) to provide cattle to the U. S. Army.  From there, Goodnight and Loving headed up into Colorado.

As in the Lonesome Dove, story, Loving was attacked by Indians and wounded by an arrow.  During the two weeks it took him to die from the wound, Goodnight never left his side.  After Loving's death, just as in Lonesome Dove, Goodnight kept his promise to Loving and carried his body back  for burial in Weatherford, Texas.

Chisum and Goodnight eventually extended the Goodnight-Loving Trail up into Wyoming for a total of 2,000 miles.  Now THAT'S a cattledrive!

Back in Texas, in 1876, in order to take advantage of available grass, timber, water, and game, Goodnight partnered with yet another person, John Adaire, to form the JA Ranch.  Adaire put up the money; Goodnight put up the expertise.  This established the very first cattle ranch in the Texas Panhandle - and their headquarters was in Palo Duro Canyon.

The Wildlife of Sedona

No.  Not the wild life of Sedona, the wildlife of Sedona...

Okay, so we didn't see a lot of wildlife - a long-earred squirrel and a whole bunch of elk.  But our next post will be about our accidental trip into Death Valley !!

Now Comes the Really Pretty Part of a Sedona Visit!

This is my iPhone picture of leaving Sedona.  Think how much prettier it would have been if done with Granpa's camera!  Sedona is gorgeous thanks to the Lord's creative hand.

Mankind doesn't too bad himself, though.

But our very favorite place in the area is this mountain stream that runs by the side of the road. Granpa disappeared for a long time taking picture after picture of this river.

And he finally found some leaf color!

And I didn't do too bad with my ol' iPhone camera.  

This was what the other side of the road looked like.