Chaos Leaves Town

At Portland July, 2005

Posted on July 3, 2005 by Jim@HiTek

I didn’t take many pictures after getting to I-5 since it was a straight shot to Portland, and I’ve seen it all a million times. But after I got to Portland, turned out that a bunch of my friends were headed to Lake Billie Chinook east of Portland for a 5 day party. So, well, I just had to go. These are a few pictures from that trip. Over the July 4th weekend. Two of my friends own property up there so finding a place to stay was easy.

The lake front dock where we launched the boats, that’s TJ standing above the dock.

The lake front dock where we launched the boats, that

TJ tries to win at Bingo. Nope, never happened.

TJ tries to win at Bingo

Millie, Gordon, Jack, Linda.

Jack, Linda, etc.

Here we are just hanging…stopped for a rest break. We waited out the cops. They were checking for boat issues. We tried to avoid letting them discover that everyone (except me) was drunk or on their way.

Here we are just hanging...stopped for a rest break.

An actual view of the lake!

Later that night, after a great freshly caught salmon dinner…

Campfire

Posted in Lake Billie Chinok | 2 Comments

On the road North.

Posted on June 25, 2005 by Jim@HiTek

After spending 6 weeks at Lake Tahoe, I planned to head north to Portland, OR. I asked the locals and got several comments that Highway 89 wasn’t suitable for a 37′ RV, to many tight turns or something. I tried it anyway and didn’t really have any trouble. It would have been nasty if it had been snowing though. My plan was to follow 89 North, passed Lake Almanor, then through Lassen Volcanic National Park (no need to make this place a destination). It turned out that I spent the night at McCloud and the next day got onto I-5 just below Weed. Then I just stay on I-5 all the way to Portland. Just a short little backwoods trip.

Here’s a shot of Lake Tahoe from the West side of the lake, from Highway 89. This was taken from an outlook that has a trail to another ‘historic’ home, built at considerable cost and difficulty by another rich lady from San Francisco in the ’40’s. I’d had my fill of historic houses while staying at Lake Tahoe so I didn’t bother to make the trip down the trail.

Lake Tahoe from 89...

This is one of many stream that feed Lake Tahoe…I stopped here because it had been a long period of winding around curves and I was needing a break. Not a very good picture, but the river was pretty cool.

Finally reached a place that I can really appreciate…

Here I am at Lassen Volcano Nat. Park.

When I reached McArthur Burney SP, I intended to spend the night at the camp grounds but I couldn’t find a space where I could fit the rig. But I did have time to take a hike to the Falls. Had a neat loop trail back to the campground.

Posted in Tahoe to Portland | 1 Comment

More from Lake Tahoe

Posted on June 20, 2005 by Jim@HiTek

While I was at Tahoe, I worked as a volunteer at the Tallac National Historic Site, and I was assigned to fix this double gate into the ‘bone yard’, which is the fenced area that the scrap wood is kept. It was sagging badly and scraped the ground, was wobbly and basically falling apart. It had been repaired last year but it was too far gone to save, so I built a new set of gates. The gate posts were put in new last year and were still strong, I should have swapped them out for 4 X 6’s but decided against it since they seemed so strong.

Here’s another view of the gates.

A close up of the gates, note the 2 X 4 on the left bending from the weight.

This is a shot inside the carpentry shop where I built the new gates. This is the only shot I got of them, had camera problems.

On Edit: The next year (’06), I took some pictures of the gates I finished in ’05.

I tried to arrange the gate structure so I had nice big triangles to support the long swing arm. I used 2″ X 6″ lumber in a couple places to add strength.

Here’s how they look, note there’s no droop at all after hanging for nearly a year.

Posted in More from Lake Tahoe | 1 Comment

At Lake Tahoe

Posted on June 15, 2005 by Jim@HiTek

It’s now June and I’ve been at Lake Tahoe for 3 weeks. This place is the best, but some stuff is expensive. Like tourist expensive. It took some skill on my part to find the stores that offered the bargains. One example: close to where I was, within a mile, there was a ‘Medieval Faire’ set up. I walked over to the faire one fine Saturday and started to walk in. I was stopped and asked for my ticket. I didn’t have one so I ask “how much is the ticket”? The gate keeper answers $20.

So I ask, “What’s inside the faire that’s worth $20?”

She answers, “Oh, there’s food”.

I ask, “Don’t I have to pay for that?”

She answers, “Yes. Oh, there’s beer”, she says.

“Don’t I have to pay for that too?”, I ask.

“Yes”, she answers. But she can’t tell me what’s in the faire that might even be close to being worth the $20 ticket. In fact, she had never been into one of these yearly ‘faires’, just worked at them at the gate. She suggested I check at the ticket booth for more specific information.

Needless to say, I don’t go to the faire. Even the nearby ‘Information Booth’ can’t tell me what’s at the faire that might be worth $20 to see, and the information guy had never been to it either.

So, I don’t have any pictures from the faire. And from what I can see from the outside (they had 5′ high fences!) it’s just a bunch of little stalls where they sell you stuff. It damn sure ain’t worth $20 to see a bunch of retailers trying to sell me something while they are wearing 1400’s type clothes. Big deal. And that’s all there was to it. No rides or nuttin. Someone later mumbled that they had little period plays once an hour for free. Again…big deal. So instead I went to a local bar right on Lake Tahoe and had a great steak dinner. With spectacular view.

Here’s another shot of the beach after the snow melted. Looking south. If you look carefully you can just make out a building or two in South Lake Tahoe. It’s built up with casinos and multi-story hotels.

The weather is now warm and sunny so I take another trip down to the wetlands. Of course this is a wetland so there’s water. Sometimes to much.

Damn, here it comes again…

And then it goes…this house was the subject of a field trip we took. It’s been gifted to the forest service so they maintain it as a tourist destination.

Posted in Living At Lake Tahoe... | Comments Off

On the Road to Tahoe.

Posted on May 25, 2005 by Jim@HiTek

After spending two, three weeks at Mush’s farm house, I left to go to Lake Tahoe and work there at the Tallac National Historic Site as a volunteer. As I was leaving I took a pix of the old barn across the road from her farm.

After crossing the Missouri, I was on Interstate 680 I think, I stopped at the aerospace museum.

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A couple of days pass before I take anymore pixs.

I spent the night at a city park somewhere…and they had some animals hanging around. Took a shot of this elk, poor guy, no females, look how his coat is all shaggy.

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The next day I got into SLC, and the day after headed out passed SL. I stopped at a rest stop that overlooks the lake. The white is all dry salt.

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I’m in Nevada and this rain storm pops up…I like storms.

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An hour later and it looked like this.

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A day or two later, I’m heading up the mountains outside of Reno, NV. After cresting the mountains, I start dropping into the large bowl that holds Lake Tahoe. About a mile or two out of the first town is the park from where I took these photos…

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The evening of the day I got to Tahoe was cool, not cold, but sometime during the night, it did this…

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So, I took a walking tour of the grounds around the Tallac National Historic Site. I’ll be working here as a volunteer. Carpentry, electrical, etc. Whatever they want me to do. But during the off time, what views, this place is a gem.

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I can’t tell you how spectacular this place is. I’ve never been here until now but, like all of us, I have heard about it all my life.

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This is the front door to the museum at Tallac. We (the volunteers) had our lounge here. Computer, coffee maker, mailboxes, etc. The building is two stories. The main room is behind the door there with a huge fireplace on the north wall.

Front door.

This is the beach in front of the ‘home’ of the Baldwin’s (original owners), where I’ll be working. Looking north.

A few days later, the snow was gone, the weather was much warmer and we went to a nearby lake, Fallen Leaf Lake, to open some buildings meant to house the national guard crew that was coming up to work on the museums roof. The electric service wasn’t ready for them so they stayed in a local motel for two weeks instead. Cost the Forest Service a bundle.

Perhaps I take a break from work to pee…or not.

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This is some of the crew, the two in front are Allie and Mike, they’re both Forest Service employees, the two in back are volunteers, Mel and what’s-his-name. We spent several hours opening and cleaning and fixing stuff here, all to have it go unused for weeks. Because the electrical contractor hadn’t finished a rewiring job started the previous fall.

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This is the wetland close to the Tallac site. The FS is trying to reclaim the area and let it do it’s job of cleansing the water that flows into Lk Tahoe. It’s in pretty good shape now.

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There are trails that wind around the area and there is a ‘Stream Profile’ house that is below ground next to the stream so you can get a cross section view of the stream (it’s too big to be called a creek but to small to call a river). Oh, and you’ll see some fish too. I also saw some chicken wire wrapped around trees near the stream but the beavers just climbed up on the wire and cut down the trees anyway. There were about 6-7 trees felled that way near the profile house. The FS captured them and moved them someplace.

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More wetlands…

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Posted in At & After Mush\'s house... | Comments Off

Leaving Salt Lake…

Posted on April 30, 2005 by Jim@HiTek

After visiting with a company in SLC that owes me money, I ended up getting stuck there for several days because of snow. This first picture is me in the only RV park or parking lot where I could find a wireless internet link I could use. I spent two days looking too. Just happened to drive in the place because I knew of the impending storm, quickly hooked up to power, powered up the computer and did a wireless search and bingo!, there was one free wireless internet connection. So I ambled over to check in and pay. Ended up staying there 3 days because of the storm.

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The day I left SLC, I headed south for a while and then east. Up in the mountains I stopped at a small town that had a dinosaur museum. These are the pixs from that visit…

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These things all lived around here…

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Strange, but true…see the raptor just on the right there, getting ready to attack? If it looks familiar it’s because it’s almost exactly like the raptor in the movie ‘Jurassic Park’. The director somehow divined (with the help of consultants and experts) that such a creature might exist. Turned out that this nasty was found here in the area 10 months or so after the movie came out (all according to the plaque next to the display), unknown to science previously.
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Millions of years later, and a mere 12,000 years ago, Indians were bringing these mammoths down…
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Chicken Itsa takes a break nearing the desert, on the way to Arches National Park.
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What a view.
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And another, but this time a rock.
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I stopped at this arch because the big one, the one you know from all the pictures? The area around it, including the RV parks nearby were packed. I’d rather not be trampled by hoards of curious tourists like myself so I went to this arch. Smaller, but still cool. You do have to hike to this one, it’s about a 1/2 mile from the road, but the exercise is good.
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One hundred or so miles down the road I found this arch. Pretty spectacular. I tried to get that color slash in the picture (just testing for it). I was surprised at the color.

A little closer.

And here’s me enjoying it.

Another few miles down the road.

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Posted in From Salt Lake City to Texas | Comments Off

On the Way to Ely…featuring Black Rock Lava Flow

Posted on March 27, 2005 by Jim@HiTek

After leaving Scotty’s Castle, I headed up US267 to US95 and on north to Tonopah. Then east on US6 towards Ely. About 3:30 or so, I passed a wide spot in the road named Black Rock Lava Flow. This is public range land with very, very few houses or people for that matter. Only saw about 20 vehicles all day.

Here’s the sad little plaque they have at Black Rock…

The road was graveled but level so I went the 1 mile off the highway to the little park. The display was totally unimpressive but I took a pix anyway. But the lava flow was kinda cool. Just a jumble of blackish, sharp edged rocks thrust up from the flat valley floor. Probably 2-300 yards in diameter and 25-50 feet high.

So I drove another mile around the lava flow till I found a neat place that faced west where I could pull the rig off the road and spend the night. At the time it was 45F and calm. The sunset was not to far off so I began settling in. Also took a walkabout to check things out. Note that there wasn’t a soul within 20 miles or so except for the occasional car/truck that passed on the highway, two miles away. The silence was perfect.

After I climbed up the lava flow I took this pix of the RV in it’s little protected cubby hole. I couldn’t back up any further because the ground got soft back in that area and I was worried about getting stuck. Think about that. I was sooo far from anything that I’d probably still be stuck there. There is a town shown on the map several miles west that I’d passed earlier in the day named Warm Springs, but it’s abandoned now. I also found a animal den of some kind near where I took this pix, which put me in a very watchful mood for nasty animals. (Do cougars live around here???)

If you’re looking for this place on a map of Nevada, it’s just 2 miles north of the highway, US-6. About 6 miles south of the turnoff for Lunar Crater. I didn’t go to the crater because the road was unimproved and rough looking. Here’s the coordinates:

38.461176, -116.005369

Just copy those, plug them into any mapping app and it’ll go right to the turnoff.

Looking due north over the lava rocks.

Looking due east.

Looking south.

It started getting cold around sunset and at 7ish it was snowing.

Moonset the next morning looking west…one of my favorite pictures out of this group.

And this one is cool too with less foreground light after cropping:

Dawn over the rig. I got up at dawn because this was my first experience with snow in this rig and I’d heard stories about the diesel engine not starting when it got cold. I wanted to be on top of the situation and then while I was looking around, the beauty of the place struck me and I wandered around enjoying the snowfall on the rocks and valley:

Edit: Replaced missing pictures on Oct. 5, ’06 and expanded text.

Edit: Added map coordinates and corrected spelling on May 07, ’21

I hadn’t owned this RV for long so during this winter event, I aware that there is an electrical light type switch on the side of the bed frame, but I didn’t know what it did. Turned out that the switch turned on a 120 volt electrical outlet in a small basement compartment where the engine block heater plug was located and plugged into the outlet. It was all ready to warm up the engine just had to know that the switch was there and turn it on. I’d noticed it before this trip of course, just didn’t know what it was for so left it off.

Anyway, what happened was I tried to start the engine so I could drive to a cafe nearby…if there was one, I didn’t know. But when I tried to start the engine, it turned over slowly and didn’t even try to start. Hmmm – cold. While I was pondering that situation, I started the genset and ran that to warm up the house using electrical heaters, make coffee, have breakfast, etc.. Meanwhile, I read some of the users guides that came with the RV and discovered that the engine did indeed have a block heater. But they didn’t say much about it or how to turn it on. Car type block heaters just hang loose and you plug in an extension cord. Maybe this was the same deal? However, I did have one power switch back in the engine area on the bed frame that I no idea what it’s purpose was but thinking just maybe this might be the switch for it, I flipped it on while the genset ran and I goofed around getting ready to leave. Also looked up my roadside assistance groups phone number and tried to pin down where I was just in case.

And that did the trick. After an hour of the genset running, the engine started right up with no hesitation. Yea! Ok, now I know that the block heater is necessary during cold weather and that switch on the bed stand turned it on. I used it repeatedly during that winter and those that followed. Really makes the engine zip to life quickly. And I only needed to have it on for an hour before trying to start the engine, and it’s designed to be on continuously with no harm. I did find that 30 minutes on time was about all that was needed in the worst of conditions so if it was warmer, I could lessen the on time to as short as 10 minutes and the engine would still start easier. Good to know

After I left this area, I found that there wasn’t any nearby cafe to where I was. In fact, wasn’t until later that I learned this section of highway is named the Loneliest Road in America. Or similar. I believe it.

Posted in Inside Nevada | Tagged Black Rock, Black Rock Lava Flow, cougar, moon over valley, snowscape | 1 Comment

Out of Death Valley

Posted on March 26, 2005 by Jim@HiTek

On the way out of Death Valley, I was forced by several areas of washed out roads to backtrack on US190 and then north on US267. There were some deaths of people caught in a flash flood a few days before. And the road was badly damaged in some areas. One of the park rangers was telling me he had to drive 300 miles per day to get to work and home again.

The backtracking gave me the opportunity to revisit Scotty’s Castle. I had been there back in the mid ’70s.

The front gate. Scotty was a ‘cowboy, gold miner, etc.’ who was able, though guile and personality to endear himself to the real owner of the castle, who met Scotty when he invested in one of his gold mining adventures. Although Scotty had never found any gold, they became friends and Scotty lived on the grounds. Many reporters of the day were convinced that Scotty had made a fortune from gold mining and owned the castle. He told them that the mine shaft started under his bed. The real owner made his fortune in the insurance business. He built the castle as a get away. Cost $2.5 million in the ’20s-’30s.

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The pool here below left was never finished so it’s never had water in it…all the fancy tiles for the bottom are in the underground passageways. They’re there behind those windows in the pool. There is like a 1/4 mile of passageways. I took both the above ground tour of the house and below ground tour.

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The neat thing about the place is that nearly everything that the owners had stayed with the castle. Even their clothes are hanging from the clothes hangers. All the furniture is original, same with the curtains and carpets. The place is huge and quite impressive.

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This is the courtyard of the house….the gal there in the ’30s style dress is the tour guide.

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This is the main room, Scotty had a room right off of this hall but his dog didn’t like to sleep there so he never would either. The owner later built Scotty a small house on the grounds.

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The whole place is kept quite dark to prevent sun damage so I didn’t get to many pics of the small living spaces, and because of the crowd (around 20 people).

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Posted in Scotty\'s Castle | 1 Comment

Into Death Valley…

Posted on March 25, 2005 by Jim@HiTek

Next morning at about 200′ below sea level. Note that it looks like a desert! Weird!

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It’s been so wet this year that there is still some water hanging around the valley.

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This flower is an example of the billions that are blooming in Death Valley right now. I was here in the ’70s and caught them all blooming then too.

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Deeper into the valley are even more flowers, like these…

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One of the ‘Twenty Mule Team Borax’ plants in the valley. Borax is just lying around on the ground. These facilities were used to process it.

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A little further on, at Furnace Creek. I spent the night at the RV park within walking distance of here.

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On the way to Scotty’s Castle the next morning…these looked like ‘Painted Desert’ rocks to me, but they didn’t come out looking as expected for some reason.

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