Our Move to Corpus (in pictures) Part 4...Days 9-11

I went to write this post today and realized I never clicked "publish" on the last post, so if you're completely enthralled by my re-cap of our trip, and don't want to miss a second of it, then make sure you don't overlook the post before this one that I should have published weeks ago.

Days 9, 10 and 11 of our trip!

Day 9 - August 3, 2011

We spent this entire day zig-zagging back and forth across the border of California and Nevada.

(We had spent the previous night in the small town of Bishop, California - the last of the "colorful" part of our trip. Bishop sits on the eastern edge of the Sierra-Nevada Mountains and on the North Western edge of Death Valley. So from this point forward, what you see in this picture is pretty much all we saw for the rest of the trip. I have to admit, that while the rest of the trip was fun, and interesting, I don't think I could spend my whole life living in an area that is nothing but different shades of brown. Its just very bleak looking. Interesting to see, because I had never been to this area of the country before, but boring to look at.)

(on the outskirts of Death Valley, California)

(We're still on the outskirts of Death Valley here, but the road curves into Nevada at this point. This part was exciting to me because I had never been to Nevada before, so this was the first of 5 states during the trip that I could check off of my "seen it" list for the first time. And yes, those are bullet holes in the Nevada sign.)

(We had made plans to see a couple ghost towns on this trip because of all the old gold mining towns in California, and the silver mining towns in Nevada. There are tons of small ghost towns around and if we had more time I would have loved to stop and see more. This is the ghost town of Palmetto, Nevada. We had no idea this one existed. We just happened to pass it on our way to Death Valley, so of course we had to stop and check it out.)

(Palmetto, Nevada - an old silver mining town)

(Thomas inside the old mine shaft in Palmetto, Nevada [which in retrospect, probably wasn't a smart idea])

(me in Palmetto, Nevada. There's an old abandoned house from the town behind me, and then a whole lot of nothing. The desert was definitely interesting to see, but also creepy in a way. Vast, open, dreary looking land is not something that makes me feel very comfortable for some reason. If I look hot in this picture its because I was. Leaving Washington in the summer and heading into Death Valley is quite an eye opener temperature wise. This was the point in the trip where we experienced temperatures in the 115 degrees range. It was 60 degrees when we left Washington, so my body had a pretty bad shock. I've never dealt well with hot weather in general, but this was just miserable. And anyone who says "but its just a dry heat!" is full of crap! Dry heat is just as miserable as humid heat! In fact, I think I actually prefer humid heat because at least you know when you're getting dehydrated. The dry heat was weird in the sense that you felt hot, but had no idea if your body was actually over heating.)

(walking around Palmetto - I wish I wasn't in this picture but its the only one I have from this angle of the remains of this building - which seemed to be the main building in the town.)

(looking around one of the houses in Palmetto)

(We aren't exactly sure what this was. Its obviously a grave, and it was for a little boy, but we don't know why everyone still puts gifts [offerings?] on it to this day, and its the only grave in the entire town [at least the only one that is still visible]. We just found it interesting and wonder if this little boy was possibly the only person to die in this town before people packed up and moved away.)

(A Joshua tree in Palmetto, Nevada...I had never seen one before so of course I needed a picture by one. Apparently, the people who settled this town had also never seen a Joshua tree before. They thought they were palm trees, hence the reason they named the town Palmetto.)

(and then the road brought us back into California)

(Death Valley National Park is honestly a place I never thought I would see. Mainly because I didn't think there was anything there besides a huge desert and extremely hot temperatures. Its the hottest place in the United States and one of the hottest places on the whole planet. And I can vouch for that - it was pretty miserable when we were there. However, it WAS an interesting place, with more to see than I had imagined, so its a place I'd like to go back to one day...maybe in the winter time when its only 80 degrees instead of 125 degrees!)

(Scotty's Castle in Death Valley. Who knew that someone built a resort home here almost 100 years ago? Not me! Basically, the story is that "Death Valley Scotty" was a con man who attempted to con some guy out of a lot of money. The man figured out he was being conned, but he liked Scotty so they decided to con people together. The guy built the home for himself and his wife, but Scotty was apparently a good story teller, so he went around telling everyone he ran into that it was his house. People came to visit "Scotty's house" and they were charged money to see it. Thats the short version of the story. There's an hour long tour you can take [which we did] to learn more about it. I found it pretty interesting. The grounds of the house were never finished because the Great Depression rolled in. There's a huge hole in the ground where a swimming pool was supposed to go. Definitely an interesting place. I'm fascinated by the fact that someone would actually want to vacation to the middle of the hottest desert around!)

(Its hard to tell in the picture, but this is in the shade. We had thermometers in the cars because we had the cats with us and we needed to make sure that we were keeping the cars at temperatures that wouldn't kill them whenever we got out of the cars. We took this out of the car to take a picture. Not that we needed proof to show how hot Death Valley is, but we still thought it would be a neat picture. So in the shade it was about 113 degrees. In the sun it was closer to 120. That was quite possibly the hottest temperature I had ever been in.)

(Inside Scotty's Castle, which was surprisingly not unbearably hot. Still a little too hot for my comfort, but cooler than I would have expected. The people who built it knew how to keep the place cool and if it looks dark its because all of the curtains were closed to keep the sun out of the house.)

(outside the entrance to Scotty's Castle)

(The grave site of "Death Valley Scotty" which we found amusing considering that he's not even the one who owned the house or built the house, but yet he's the only one who is buried at the house.)

(grave site of "Death Valley Scotty" - check out all the "beautiful" scenery in the rest of the valley)

(View of Scotty's Castle from the site of Scotty's grave)

(And then we left Death Valley National Park and drove back into Nevada - and yes we took pictures each time we re-crossed the state line)

(driving on the outskirts of Death Valley in Nevada - "pretty" huh?)

(The ghost town of Rhyolite, Nevada. This was a planned visit to a ghost town and it was pretty interesting. I think the reason I'm so fascinated by ghost towns is because I'm from a place where this would never happen. I can't quite wrap my head around the fact that people can just pick up and leave a town, and then the town just sits there and rots away. Where I'm from, this would just never happen. If people left a town, then more people would move in. So the fact that there are so many ghost towns like Rhyolite and Bodie and Palmetto in the west is just truly mind boggling to me. Rhyolite was another mining town that is now completely abandoned.)

(the old bank in Rhyolite, Nevada...if you google "Rhyolite" this seems to be the most photographed place in the town. I kind of like the somewhat eerie look it has.)

(another view of the old bank)

(me by the Rhyolite Mercantile)

(One of the entrances to the old mine, which clearly had a fence and gate around it, but which people had bent and pushed aside. I'm not sure how I let Thomas talk me into going past the gate and into the entrance of the old mine. The gate has a sign clearly stating its dangerous and plain old common sense says that its dangerous, but still - its an old mine. Thats history right in my face so I wanted to see it!)

(This is as far as I would go in. Thomas went in even further, and said something along the lines of "Wow it looks like the whole ceiling is about to collapse." This was probably not our smartest moment. But we came out of it just fine :-).

(Dusk in Rhyolite - Thats Death Valley off in the distance)

(And then we went back to California)

(We stopped in the teeny tiny town of Death Valley Junction [I'm honestly not even sure if anyone lives in this town or if there is just a hotel and small cafe], because we wanted to see this place. We watch Ghost Adventures on the Travel Channel and they went to the Amargosa Opera House in one episode, so we wanted to check it out since we would be in the area. I would have loved to see the inside, but there was no way we would have been able to get there before it closed, but the outside was creepy enough. Its now a hotel, that looks like a place straight out of a horror movie. The opera house is still used for shows - which are preformed by the lady who owns the place. It was interesting to see and I want to go back and see it when its open. Thomas wants to stay at the hotel...I'm not so sure I'd be up for that. I enjoy watching ghost hunting shows. I just have no desire to be a part of one!)

(And then we went back to Nevada again, and left California behind for good this time.)

Day 10 - August 4, 2011

(I'm probably the only person in the world who has a chance to spend a night in Las Vegas and puts "visit the Hoover Dam" at the top of my list of things to do.)

(Standing on the Hoover Dam and looking away from it - that bridge is a new bridge, that is apparently pretty exciting because you can buy all kinds of souvenirs with the bridge on them.)

(at the Hoover Dam! This was definitely something that was really cool to see.)

(The Hoover Dam)

(This was pretty interesting. This is the water at the top of the dam. The whole southwest was in a really bad drought all summer [Texas still is right now in December, but I'm not sure how the rest of the southwest is doing], so do you see the white on the bottom of those rocks? The water level at Lake Meade is usually above the top of that white area. So this is a pretty good indication of how bad the drought was [is?].)

(Me - happy because I am checking another state off my list in this picture. I'm standing on the Arizona side of the dam here.)

(By the Welcome to Arizona sign at the Hoover Dam! Another state I had never seen before. Technically, we wouldn't go into Arizona completely until the next day, but I still wanted a picture of my first steps into a new state :-).)

(me by the Hoover Dam - not the best picture...the wind wasn't co-operating with my hair, but this is my "proof I was here" picture)

(Eating a huge banana split at Terrible's Casino in Las Vegas. I have no idea what the actual casino is like here but they have really good food for really cheap prices here so I definitely recommend eating here if you're ever in Las Vegas! [and yes thats a cat Thomas drew on my arm while we were waiting for our food])

(The Eiffel Tower in Las Vegas)

(drinking our drinks from our Eiffel Tower and Paris hot air balloon cups on the Las Vegas strip)

(the famous dancing fountains at the Bellagio in Las Vegas)

(The New York, New York casino in Las Vegas)

Day 11 - August 5, 2011

(We got to Las Vegas pretty late at night, and then spent our second night on the strip, so we took a picture of the famous sign as we were leaving the city. We were incredibly amused that we saw Elvis also stopping at the sign. This just screamed "real Las Vegas" to us :-).)

(by the famous Las Vegas sign)

(Officially in Arizona...sort of. We were actually on our way to Utah at this point, but when you leave Las Vegas, you have to drive through the top left corner or Arizona to get there. I think it took about 45 minutes, so we were in Arizona for longer than when we were in Arizona at the Hoover Dam. Since we had already started a trend of taking pictures whenever we crossed a state line, we had to do the same here.)

(I'm including this picture of us driving in Arizona, towards Utah, because I was convinced that this is what we were going to see everywhere for the rest of our trip. Different shades of brown for hours and hours and hours. I was pleasantly surprised though. It turns out that while this is what most of Arizona looks like, Utah was BEAUTIFUL! I have no idea what I pictured Utah to look like, but it wasn't this beautiful in my mind. I have now been surprised twice by two states in our travels. When we moved to Washington, we stopped in South Dakota for 4 days. We had initially planned on spending two days there but it was so beautiful and there was so much to do and see there that we added on two extra days. Who knew South Dakota was actually interesting? Not me! Now I want to go back. The same goes for Utah. Its absolutely beautiful and I want to go back to spend more time there!)

(I swear the colors of the landscape started changing as soon as we crossed the state line. Look to the back left corner of the picture - see the red? Surprise to me - Utah wasn't all brown like the rest of the four corner states (or at least the areas that we saw of the four corners)! Oh and P.S. This picture means that I crossed another state off of my "to see" list!)

(Red Canyon in Utah - did I mention that its beautiful here? I couldn't narrow down the pictures to post so you get to see quite a few from this area!)

(Red Canyon, Utah)

(Hoodoos [what these rock formations are called] in Red Canyon, Utah)

(me in Red Canyon)

(Red Canyon - me by the beautiful hoodoos!)

(another one of me in Red Canyon, Utah)

(Red Canyon, Utah - have I mentioned that its absolutely beautiful here?)

(Red Canyon - I loved Utah!!)

(Leaving Red Canyon - I caught a picture of Thomas driving under an arch in Red Canyon. We spent the night in the small town of Tropic, Utah. We were greeted by friendly people, good food and a free Book of Mormom [because in case anyone is lacking knowledge of American History, Mormoms run the state of Utah - we really did get a free book of Mormom at the restaurant we are at, which was attached to the hotel we stayed at]. We got a good nights sleep and then spent the next day at Bryce Canyon National Park, which I had never heard of before this trip. But then again, I didn't know anything about Utah before this trip, aside from the fact that Mormoms live here, so who knew it was home to one of the most beautiful National Parks out there? I'll post Bryce Canyon pictures in my next update.)

Our Move to Corpus (in pictures) Part 3...Days 7 & 8

Ooops...I wrote this a while ago, but apparently forgot to click "publish" so here it is - better late than never!

Our move continued:

Day 7 - August 1, 2011

(Driving to Yosemite National Park- this picture doesn't do the road justice, but this was a pretty scary, twisting, turning road that we drove for about 2 hours to get to Yosemite. Not my favorite portion of the trip, but if you want to access this part of California you better learn how to love roads like this (and learn how to accept the fact that whoever designed these roads did NOT put guard rails in places where a logical person would think guard rails should be!))

(Yosemite National Park - the country's 1st National Park! Definitely one of my favorite places on the trip! Yosemite, was truly one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen, and I wish we had spent more time there. I also wish it wasn't the middle of summer because unfortunately, some of the beauty of the place is overshadowed by the thousands and thousands of tourists swarming the area.)

(Half-Dome - the famous rock formation at Yosemite)

(Us with Half-Dome behind us)

(Me at Yosemite! It was so beautiful here! If you look closely, you can see Yosemite Falls behind me.)

(Yosemite Falls)

(me by the Lower Yosemite Falls - this location was beautiful [minus the hundreds of people that we thankfully managed to not capture in this picture]. It also felt really good because you could feel the mist from the falls right here, and this was the first day of our trip where we had officially left the rainy, cold weather of the Pacific Northwest behind. So needless to say, after 3 years in Washington, Mr. V and I both were beyond hot, sweaty and uncomfortable once we crossed the mountains into the summer heat.)

(me with El Capitan behind me. Not my favorite picture of myself, but El Capitan is one of the most famous places in the park, so even though the picture sucks, I still needed one of me at this location.)

(Look closely and you'll see 2 people climbing El Capitan! This was seriously insane to watch. We were in the field across the road from here and there was a group of people who were just watching the climbers with binoculars. It may be hard to see, but it was just before sunset when we took this picture, so they were setting up tents on the rock. I honestly don't completely understand how people nail tents into the side of a sheer rock wall and then sleep there all night, but it apparently takes about 3 days to climb El Capitan so I suppose sleeping is necessary. The crazy part is that as we were driving to Yosemite, we heard a news story about a woman who fell to her death while trying to climb this exact same rock just two days before this. Clearly that news didn't stop these two crazy people though! It was making me nervous watching them!)

Day 8 - August 2, 2011

(We stayed in the town of Angels Camp, California for two nights during this part of the trip. Its a small town about 2 hours to the west of Yosemite [so yes we drove 4 hours round trip on one day just to visit the park]. Take my advice for this - if you ever want to go to Yosemite, make reservations WAY in advance [like 2 years in advance], otherwise you will be staying about 2 hours outside of the park. Thankfully we knew this before we left Washington, so we had made reservations in Angels Camp. If we had waited until we got there, we may have had to back track and stay even farther outside of the park because all of the hotels in Angels Camp were full when we arrived. All of the towns in this area are really small old California Gold Rush towns so lodging is few and far between!)

(The town of Angels Camp, California - All of the towns in this area of California are really small towns that are from the 1849 Gold Rush era. I love towns like this because they are full of history and relatively untouched by modern society. They still look old and they hold onto their history instead of caving into corporate America towns. You'd be hard pressed to find a Walmart within 4 hours of this town, and I love that! I had never been to this part of California before, and it was kind of fascinating to me.)

(Me in Angels Camp, California. There was random artwork throughout this whole area related to the Gold Rush - and the reason for the existence of these towns.)

(Driving away from Angels Camp, a little North of Yosemite, over the Sierra-Nevada Mountains through the Stanislaus National Forest and Sonora Pass. More winding, twisting, scary, steep roads, with beautiful scenery. This was also our official exit from the West Coast. Once we crossed over the mountains and into the desert of California, it really felt like we had officially left Washington behind.)

(Stanislaus National Forest, California - this is a beautiful area to drive through!)

(Stanislaus National Forest, California - near Sonora Pass)

(We visited the California ghost town of Bodie. Its another Gold Rush town, on the eastern edge of the Sierra-Nevada mountains. Its also the most well preserved ghost town in all of America. This is where the history nerd in me comes out because I LOVE stuff like this! Thomas took this picture as we were driving into Bodie. Once you leave the paved road, you drive for about 10 miles on a gravel and dirt road. Its so bumpy and dusty that by the time we left, our cars were beyond dirty and the racks on top of the cars had gotten loose from all the bumps. He likes to call this picture "Brooklet eating my dust - literally".)

(Driving into Bodie, California. I like this picture because you can see how there is nothing around this town. I'm beyond fascinated by the fact that during the gold rush people packed up everything they owned, then traveled across the country, and set themselves up in towns in the absolute middle of nowhere, just because they MIGHT find gold.)

(the ghost town of Bodie, California. I love ghost towns and historic places, and this is by far one of the best places I've seen. Its so well preserved and even though part of the town burned down years ago, there is still so much left! You can easily spend an entire day here exploring the place. We spent about an hour, but I wish we had known how cool this place would be ahead of time. I would have loved to have scheduled more time to spend here.)

(Ghost Town of Bodie, California)

(inside one of the houses in Bodie. So much was left behind here, and it is now deemed to be in a "preserved state of decay". I loved that there was so much still here because it really gives you a sense of what it was like to live there. It looks like people just packed their bags and left one day, and didn't bother taking all of their stuff with them.)

(Me inside of of the houses in Bodie.)

(walking down one of the streets in Bodie. I like this picture because you can see the old town behind me, but you can also see the vast nothingness in the distance. I couldn't even imagine what it would have been like to live here. I'm impressed that this town was as large as it was.)

(outside of Bodie, California with the Sierra-Nevada Mountains behind me)

(We stopped here to fix the racks on top of the cars since they had become loose and dislodged from the the bumps on the gravel road. I just like this picture because it really gives of sense of where we were. There is NOTHING out here! Behind my car in this picture is where the town of Bodie is...but you can't even see it from here. In the direction of Bodie, is the California desert and in front of my car, which you can't see, are the Sierra-Nevada mountains. Other than that, there is nothing around for miles and miles. We were driving to our hotel for the night, but we wouldn't even reach it for another 2 hours from this point - and there were no towns of any significant size that we passed in those two hours. I'm pretty sure that stuff like this will always fascinate me, but I guess thats what I get for growing up in the most densely populated state. The concept of vast wilderness is just so foreign to me, and even though I've seen areas like this, I still find it hard to wrap my mind around.)

Still More to Come!