Scotty’s Castle

Several readers told us not to miss Scotty’s Castle and are we ever glad we didn’t let the 114 mile one way trip deter us!!  An amazing place and an amazing story!  There was a guy, Walter Scott, he rode with Buffalo Bill in the Wild West Show.  He conned wealthy east coast men into investing in his non-existent gold mine in Death Valley and Albert Johnson was one of those investors.  But Johnson was a little smarter than any of the other investors—he came out to see the mine, realized he was being conned and didn’t care.  He and Scotty became the best of friends—in the castle brochure Johnson is quoted, “We have been partners for a long time.  Scott has a great appetite for money and I like to feed it.  He has always repaid me—in laughs.” 

Albert Johnson’s wife Bessie came out west from Chicago and she too fell in love with Death Valley—they decided to build a vacation home and thus Scotty’s Castle was born.  It was neither a castle nor did it belong to Scott but calling it Scotty’s Castle was just fine with the very private Johnson’s. 

The structure was started in 1929 and building was still going on in 1931.  Johnson recognized the power of owning water and built the house in Grapevine Canyon where above the house site is located a spring producing 300 gallons of water per minute.  The mechanics of the house were way ahead of its time—they had a solar hot water heating system:

A freeze damaged the solar heating structure beyond repair—it is in the budget for restoration.

The house never used candles or gas light fixtures, it always had electricity supplied by Pelton wheels powered by the water coming down the canyon.   The electricity fluctuated, making the lights dim and brighten, the Johnson’s didn’t like this so Mr. Johnson called up his friend Edison, as in Thomas Edison and ordered a huge bank of batteries—the Pelton wheels produced the electricity and it was stored in this bank of nickel iron batteries.  ALL the batteries had to be filled with water TWICE a day! 

Does this give our solar powered RV friends battery envy???

The plans for this house were just incredible—one of the non-completed designs was the swimming pool.  This photo shows only half of the pool—it was huge with a bridge going over the middle of it—it was to have been lined with beautiful blue tiles with special tiles around the top—many of these tiles are still stored in the basement tunnels. 

 

The depression and the creation of Death Valley National Monument put a halt to the construction efforts.  When surveyors came to mark the boundaries for the park it was discovered Mr. Johnson had built his house on land he didn’t own.  It took him six years to finally strike a deal to buy back the property from the US government—property he had all ready paid for once. 

Ornate blacksmithing!!

This place was simply awesome—that such a structure could have been built in the middle of nowhere using technology way before its time--Michael and I both so enjoyed both the tours we took—park rangers dress in period costume to give the tours and both rangers we had were outstanding!  We took a tour of the underground/mechanical workings and the house.  Tomorrow I’ll include some more photos and a little more of the story. 

Chores Day

Ms. Emmi was a little shaggy looking for desert living so into the shower she went (not willingly!) this morning and once she dried we set up a beauty parlor outside under the little carport we have with this site and Emmi got a haircut!

Here’s our next RV:

It was candy stripe pink—kind of cute but I don’t think the cowboy was too impressed!

Do you have trouble when binding quilts?? Paulette had a link to this Binding tutorial and while I bind my quilts using most of the methods shown in the YouTube video, there was one tip which blew my socks off—don’t stress out making those binding strips match perfectly when sewing the 45 degree angle—just lay the strips in a “cross” and stitch, eyeballing the 45 degree line and whacking off the excess—can’t wait to try this one!!

The search engine on my blog as well as other blogs I read has stopped working.  I mentioned it in last night’s blog hoping Rick had a solution—nope, his doesn’t work either.  But, Rick did have a suggestion—use the one which appears in the top blue bar located at the top of any blog using the Blogger platform.  I tried it and it does work—not as well as a blog specific search engine but it does work.

Well, if you want to know how to do anything—watch a YouTube video—I learned how to take a screen shot using my new iPad—now if I could just figure out how to get that photo uploaded into Picasa  I would be doing well!!  Recognize that “despicable quilt shop app” Paulette??  It worked like a charm except the quilt shop it led me to in Pahrump doesn’t exist—maybe.  Seems there is little if any zoning in Pahrump—there will be a street of beautiful, newer homes and one of them will have the garage closed in and there will be a business there—today I saw a shop which advertised makeup tattooing.  The quilt shop was supposedly just down the street from that particular house—new house, yard wasn’t even totally landscaped but no sign, nothing to indicate it was a quilt shop other than a package which had been delivered and left on the front porch—looked suspiciously like a roll of batting.  

The cowboy had a little episode today—seems he is tired of our bay doors falling due to worn out gas cylinder props—he gets whacked on top of the head causing the air to turn blue! So, he made a run to the local RV shop looking for those and a new propane regulator.  He found the gas props and the propane regulator will be in tomorrow.  Success! 

Has anyone read The Book Thief??  Oh, my—a very disturbing, stay with you kind of book, I am so glad I read it.  A young woman growing up in a foster home in Nazi Germany develops a love for books and turns to stealing in order to get those books she loves so much—the story is much deeper but I will let you read the book for yourself!  It’s the first book I’ve read on my iPad mini using the Kindle app—I loved it!

Death Valley

Early this morning we decided to take a drive over to Death Valley National Park—remote, barren, wild, scenic, dry, rocky, colorful—and full of tourists!  We were surprised to find Death Valley crowded so to speak—the visitor’s center was very crowded as were most of the pull-outs for scenic overlooks.  The park covers 3 million acres so “crowded” is a loosely used term but the areas for viewing the park by car were crowded.  We enjoyed our drive and will probably go back this week while we are here.

Rugged and scenic!

 

We thought this rock looked like a monster of some sort—see his slanting eyes and piggy nose?? 

Thanks to all of you who left comments about the anticipated birth of our great-grandchild—we think is is quite “great” too!

And, I finally solved the problem of the new iPad not wanting to connect with our Cradlepoint router.  Rick was right in that Cradlepoint routers have a problem with Apple devices.  Once I called Cradlepoint and was directed to re-configure the router settings the iPad connected immediately.  Yea, now I can download that quilt shop app Rick made so many disparaging remarks about!!  And Rick, how come the search engines on our blogs aren’t working??  Couldn’t search on my own blog yesterday and just tried to search your blog for the exact name you called the quilt shop app but your search engine isn’t working either??

An Announcement

Laci (our granddaughter) and John’s last name is Fox—isn’t this the cutest baby coming announcement!!  Except there is one problem, it makes us GREAT Grandparents!!!!!  Me, a Great grandmother?????  To tell you the truth, I am thrilled--Katie and Laci have always accepted me as a part of their family and both call me Grandma—I can’t wait to hold this new little member of our family!!

We had a busy day—the cowboy decided the rig and the trailer AND the jeep needed a bath.  This park doesn’t allow rig washing at the site but does have a rig washing spot all set up with concrete pad, hoses, brushes, etc.  But, that meant we had to hook the trailer to the motorhome and move everything.  We now have squeaky clean everything! 

The cowboy gets the “husband of the year” award today!!  We have a Splendide washer/dryer combo unit in our motorhome.  At first I hated the thing but became a convert!  While in Texas I used the washer/dryer a lot, almost exclusively instead of a laundromat.  The dryer half of this unit does not dry like a home type dryer—it doesn’t get that hot but it does dry.  Toward the end of our stay in Texas, the dryer just stopped drying—it barely reached a warm temp, much less a hot temperature.  I told Michael and due to the fact the unit is very difficult to remove—he kind of blew me off saying it was doing what it was supposed to do. 

Fast forward to this trip—yesterday I put “fix the dryer” on his honey-do list.  Again, he blew me off.  Well, this morning I put “fix the dryer” on his honey-do list AGAIN and I guess I was insistent enough—my cowboy fixed the dryer!!!!!  Greg White was instrumental in figuring out the cause—Greg said the first thing to check was the vent—was it stopped up??  Wow!!  Was it ever stopped up!  After Michael pulled the vent hose off, we vacuumed and cleaned and the dryer works like a charm!!  I even dried a load of towels!!

Rick left a comment on Sunday’s blog asking if our hydro-hot heating system took the place of a propane furnace—yep, it does—and as I was walking Emmi around the park early this morning, I came to the conclusion—our hydro-hot system is no noisier than a RV propane furnace.   Our little blue flame propane heater uses no electricity and has no fan making it a great boondocking heat option—Michael also made the blue flame heater run yesterday but it still isn’t operating just right yet—and propane stoves are nothing to mess with if not operating properly!!  The cowboy will get it figured out!

Our little heater.

We enjoyed a quiet, delicious New Year’s Eve dinner at home—filets on the grill, oven fries and a Cesar salad—much better than a meal out if I do say so myself!!

Hope you all have a fun, enjoyable and safe New Year’s Eve!

We Made It

Our first stopping spot for the season, Pahrump, NV.  We decided to stay at the Escapee’s Pair of Dice RV park on the outskirts of town.  We thought there would be some ATVing spots around here but that doesn’t seem to be the case.  But, it was 62 degrees and sunny this afternoon—we are happy!

Just as we were coming out of Las Vegas our phone rang, it was Larry—of the Larry and Geri fame—they are the previous owners of a wonderful RV park in Custer, SD, just up the road from Mike and Pat’s place.  Larry and Geri now travel full time in a toy hauler with lots of toys—ATV’s and dirt bikes.  They were still in Pahrump awaiting some generator repairs—they came over for a visit that was cut short by a call from the generator repair facility saying they were good to go.  Larry and Geri along with their Canadian friends pulled out this afternoon heading over into California to do some ATVing—we will catch up with them in a week or so when our time is done here. 

We plan on doing some sightseeing—we are not far from Death Valley National Park, some hot springs at Tecopa, CA, etc.  There is a winery here Ellie—we might just have to do a tasting.  The park has some activities planned for tomorrow night but I doubt we partake—we are not New Year’s Eve partying kind of folks.

Geri said while they were here, “we are so close to Vegas—we could just go over there for New Year’s”  I think the statement was made in jest but I said, “nope, been there, done that, NOT doing it again.”  When Emmi was a puppy 4 years ago, we spent New Year’s Eve in Las Vegas—way, way too many people for us!!

I didn’t take a single photo today—I’ll do better tomorrow. 

It’s Warm So To Speak

Fifty four degrees when we landed at Sand Hollow State Park outside St. George, UT after driving about 450 miles.  Let me tell you, after the cold morning we experienced, 54 degrees felt balmy!!  When Michael got up (way too early I might add), it was 47 degrees in our motorhome even with TWO electric heaters running all night.  Our other heating system is our Webasto hydro-hot which runs off diesel, is powered by a pump which sounds like a jet engine taking off and by some strange reason is located right underneath our bed—leaving that system on at night isn’t conducive to sleep!  We do have a Pro-Cam blue flame heater installed but for some reason, it isn’t working—the cowboy will get it going when we get settled in one spot for a while.  It was 22 degrees in Pocatello but somewhere just north of Salt Lake City the temperature dropped to 7 degrees!  As in most motorhomes, the dash climate controls don’t work so well, thus keeping our windshield clear was a little tough!  So, 54 degrees is balmy! 

This is a beautiful state park surrounded by the red rock cliffs for which this area is famous—the sites are HUGE—we fit—and come with full hookups for $27 per night.  After getting settled we took Ms. Emmi for a long walk and she discovered this little fella—I love how the sunshine made his ears look translucent.

We went through Salt Lake City on a Sunday morning and had the lightest traffic we’ve ever experienced—let that be a reminder to us!!  I remember driving through Salt Lake City one year in a nasty snowstorm—I was driving for some strange reason and we were in the Beaver motorhome—cars were sliding off the road in front of me, people were driving crazy and the traffic was horrendous—today was much, much better!

Tomorrow we head to Pahrump, NV where we hope to stay put for a couple weeks at the Escapees park, maybe do some ATV riding and some sightseeing. 

Life is good.

The campground, not real crowded. 

The lake. 

The Cowboy Is Slipping

Excuse the dirty windshield but does this photo tell you what we are doing??  Yesterday the cowboy looked at the coming weather patterns and decided we were leaving Saturday—YIKES—are you crazy I said, that means I have ONE day to pack the motorhome!  And we did it—we had both created piles of stuff in various places around the house so it was just a matter of getting it to the motorhome which was a half mile away, down our icy driveway.  At 7:25pm last night, both exhausted, we were pulling into Nat’s driveway where we spent the night in the rig—spent the night, not slept—the wind was horrendous, rocking and rolling us all night! 

Now as for the “cowboy slipping” part—at 1pm we stopped for the day after driving right at 300 miles.  I couldn’t believe it—we were stopping???  This is our first time out with this long trailer, we knew we could get into the fairgrounds in Pocatello, ID easily—so that’s where we landed.  We talked about going on another 100 miles or so but the closer you get to Salt Lake City the rarer the campground and the greater the chaos. 

This is the coolest gadget—Michael stole it from our host and friend Steve at our Christmas Day white elephant gift exchange—it is a rechargeable iHome speaker which puts out incredible sound—we have it connected to our iPod. 

Having problems with the iPad—it won’t connect to our wifi network—we have a Cradlepoint router and Verizon aircard—our laptops connect and work well but the iPad is being a touch stubborn.  I have Rick working on it for me!  So far we have found TMobile (the cellular data plan included with the iPad) to be about worthless—maybe when we get into a more populated area it will work better???

Paulette, look what I did yesterday while frantically loading the motorhome:

I purchased a bunch of RIT dye at Wal Mart and followed Paulette’s directions for dyeing wool—it worked like a charm and look at those beautiful colors!!

“I just know the best bite is in here somewhere, I just have to drag it all out to find it.”  Well, Red and Roan—stop wasting hay!

Our last sunrise over the Crazy Mountains for a while.