Update: Disclaimer: While we are, and will always be The Desert Way, sometimes the Pacific calls to us, especially in the dog days of summer, and we must go. Anyway, as the rock group, America, told us in 1972, “The ocean is a desert with its life underground.” Okay, it’s a stretch, but we hope…
Cronese vs. Coronise Figuring out the origin of the Cronese Cat’s name has just about as many theories as a storybook feline has lives. It was believed the natural wonder is either named for early explorer and author Titus Fey Cronise or William H.V. Cronise. In 1870, both were officers of the Piute Mining Company….
Calico’s reputation as a ghost town is well deserved as there are numerous reports of actual ghosts being sighted. Lucy Bell King Lane, a longtime resident who ran Lucy Lane’s General Store has often been seen in her store.
Margaret Olivier, the last schoolteacher, has been seen teaching in her classroom. Tourists who have talked with Margaret thought she was part of the staff dressed in period costumes, only to find out she has been dead since 1932. There is even the ghost story of Dorsey, the shepherd dog that carried the US Mail between various mines.
Was that really the howling wind that woke us up at 3 a.m. at our Calico campsite, or was it Lucy Lane?
Welcome to Stonehenge II, located in Ingram, Texas. And to think, it all began with a leftover limestone slab from a landscaping project in nearby Hunt, Texas. Stonehenge II was erected as a quirky art project by the late Al Shepperd and his friend and neighbor, Doug Hill, beginning in 1989. It took 9 months…
Dateline: March 10, 2012… The Associated Press–“Dr. Robert Schuller and his wife Arvella announced “with great sadness” Saturday that they resigned from the board of directors of the Crystal Cathedral, the televangelist ministry he founded four decades ago in Garden Grove, California, and made famous through his “Hour of Power” television program. Their resignation was…
The movie Tarantula featuring the small desert town of Desert Rock, Arizona, and a giant tarantula was actually filmed in Apple Valley, California. Many of the scenes were shot at Dead Man’s Point. It was the fourth biggest film at the box office in December 1955. The movie’s tagline said, “More terrifying than any horror known to…
How many have driven by this older building with a bright green extraterrestrial on its door, located on Old Woman Springs Road in Lucerne Valley without knowing the startling history of the former mild-mannered owner with a French accent? Do they know an author of five books sat in the corner of the store, then…
Laughlin, Nevada is 90 miles south of Las Vegas, but if you’re looking for something milder while still waltzing with Lady Luck, then Laughlin just might be the winning ticket. The Avi Casino Journey KOA is conveniently across the road from Avi Casino and just eleven miles from downtown Laughlin’s riverfront casinos. Avi Casino sits…
Collected at Rand District Cemetery are the final resting places of some five generations of dream chasers, miners, merchants, ranchers, freighters, madams, promoters, vigilantes, teachers, movers and shakers, loafers and busy bodies; most from somewhere else, from all over the world, all brought here by the winds of fortune, and caught, like nuggets, in holes in the ground.
Burro Schmidt, famous for digging a half mile tunnel through a solid granite mountain for 38 years, left his beloved town only twice in his lifetime. Little did he know as happenstance would have it that years after his death a widow by the name of Tonie would pay the ultimate tribute to the miner by protecting his legacy for the rest of her life, and spending eternity next to his grave…
Driving along Pearblossom Highway (Hwy 138), it’s just you and maybe a few hundred cars and trucks passing by in both directions. Perhaps lost in thought, or just concentrating on surviving the drive, you look ahead and the roadway becomes a beacon to place unknown to most people, even though they may pass it every day. You’re approaching the ruins. Soon, you will know what others don’t. The history of a failed dream. Welcome to the Socialist community of Llano Del Rio…
