Bungalow Bill's Blog

NYC 2011

2012-02-03T21:04:00.000-08:00

MacDougal Street
Greenwich Village

Gaslight Cafe

Coney Island
Ferris Wheel

World Trade Center

Bad Face Trail

2012-01-24T21:52:00.000-08:00

If you look closely, you will see the light track of the trail constructed on Winnemucca Mountain to connect the city to the mountain top. The communication towers near the peak mark the end of the trail. I took this photo from the street in front of my house, on October 16, 2011. The trail building crew's season was about over. Halloween was the last day that crews were on the mountain. It has been a long time coming.

Forty Mile Desert

2012-01-13T16:53:00.000-08:00

Low Point of the Year

2011-12-27T22:55:00.000-08:00

Death Valley 2011
282 feet below sea level

Thirteen point seven billion years later, it is early evening, and Stuart and I are sitting on the table of camp space #11, looking across the road at #12, our annual Mesquite Springs campsite.

There is a Class B sitting there, and parked in front is a shiny new 1963 Volkswagen Beetle. It was dark green with a British Columbia license plate. There's no one around over there, but we know they are in, we can see the glow of their TV screen.

We're thinking that by using the right mind control technology we can urge them to pull up stakes and leave in the morning. This might work because we did exactly the same thing last year.

Just before dark, this little German gentleman come's over and says, "we are leaving in the morning, and I'll come over and let you know so you can move to our spot. It's the best one here".

When the wind came up on our fourth day in the valley, it was a real reminder that Death Valley would be a very different place if you were traveling in a mule drawn wagon. The rock above provides some indication of the wind's effects. It had been moved several hundred yards in looping arcs and long straight skids, across the playa, leaving a 14 inch wide mark in it's wake.

The racetrack playa, in the Racetrack Valley, is the home of these mysterious rocks streaking across the ground. The trip to this remote valley is a 60 mile round trip of rough wash-boarded gravel road.

Stuart on the Racetrack

While we were there, 10 to 12 other people visited the Racetrack, and I think I saw every one of them lay down flat on the playa. Some did it right away, and others waited until they had done some roaming about. I tried it flat on my back. Seems to be some sort of primal urge.

Stovepipe Wells

We did have an opportunity for a little downtime one evening. We sat on the tailgate drinking coffee and eating crackers, and watched evening settle over Stovepipe Wells. They seem to do a really good job keeping the light pollution to a minimum. There were hundreds and hundreds of people staying within 1000 yards of us, and there was almost no sign of them. The only lights are the few around the Inn.

Death Valley 2011

2011-12-26T19:33:00.000-08:00

Its been a long time since I posted anything here. This time the seven month delay was because I wanted to upload a video to YouTube and embed it here, but every time I tried to upload it I found that my internet connection was too slow. I would try to upload it at home, or at my office, and I would get a message that it was going to take 160 to 180 minutes. And then the upload would time out before it completed. The DSL connections I'm getting are very, very slow, so I'm doing something about that, but that's another story. I got the video uploaded by taking it to Great Basin College and using their fiber optic broadband connection. Took 6 minutes.

So, Stuart and I made another April trip to Death Valley, did some camping, some exploring, and had a great time. While we were up near the crest, on the eastern side of the valley in the Funeral Mountains, near the former site of Chloride City, this is what we across:

Based on the help provided by Sam Hipkins, in the comments below, we now believe these are Crotalus Stephensi - Panamint Rattlesnake

Winnemucca Pink House

2011-05-19T21:17:00.000-07:00

This inactivity must come to an end.

This little gas station building, converted into a home, sits on the edge of the golf course.

I'm all lost in the supermarket

2010-12-12T12:12:00.000-08:00

Stuart on a recent trip to the market.

Rice Grass

2010-11-19T18:14:00.000-08:00

Eastern Sierra.

Creek Grass

2010-11-10T00:09:00.000-08:00

Grass along Green Creek in the Eastern Sierra

Late June Wildflowers

2010-09-01T21:00:00.000-07:00

Mule's Ears

Great Basin Garden

Lupins and Irisis

Some of the images from a June 27, 2010 trip over Hinkey Summit in the Santa Rosa Mountains. Much like the rest of the desert in the Great Basin, there is a beautiful but brief explosion of color each year.

How's That?

2010-08-03T09:35:00.000-07:00

Sam, this is for you!
Shot and posted from the sidewalk with the iPhone.

Reconnaissance

2010-06-14T21:18:00.000-07:00

Went back up to the Santa Rosa mountains over the weekend. This is a great time of the year in the northern part of the Great Basin. The roads have only been open a little while, the snow drifts and mud holes have pretty much given way. The main roads seemed to have been recently bladed.

Everywhere you look there is a little brook carrying away the cold, cold water. It's a big country, and it was completely empty.

Hardheads

2010-06-09T20:18:00.001-07:00

I have much more to say on this topic, but not right now, it will have to wait.

Aquereberry Point

2010-04-18T23:04:00.000-07:00

A view of Badwater, the lowest point in the United States, from Aquereberry Point.

Pete Aguereberry, the miner that built the trail to this spectacular viewpoint, was apparently one of the very few good guys that populated Death Valley in it's early mining days. Late in his life Pete built the trail to this "Grand View" of Death Valley with a wheel barrow and his hand tools, so he could share the view.

This is Bill, having a look:

Badwater
Close up, sort of.

This is the bottom of Death Valley, so people like to walk out and see for themselves. 282 feet below sea level.

Rhyolite Ghost Town

The train depot at Rhyolite badly needs structural repairs. Administrators with the BLM need to develop a new visitor experience. The chain link fence with the razor wire on top that surrounds the entire building makes it look more like a crime scene than a historic treasure.

Blue Mountain from the iphone

2010-04-16T21:48:00.000-07:00

This is the second picture I took with my new phone. The first one was of my lap.

Delicious

2010-02-18T14:00:00.000-08:00

(Click it up Big)

What is he building in there? - Tom Waits

This is another Wordle, made up of the tags from my own delicious bookmarks. May give you some idea about where my attention is much of the time. If you want to investigate further, you might try here: http://delicious.com/bsims

If you want to give it a try, and you can spend hours at this if you are so inclined, you can create your own Wordle here: http://www.wordle.net/

a new year is coming soon

2009-12-31T19:38:00.000-08:00

To the Consolations of Philosophy

by W. S. Merwin

Thank you but

not just at the moment

I know you will say

I have said that before

I know you have been

there all along somewhere

in another time zone

I studied once

those beautiful instructions

when I was young and

far from here

they seemed distant then

they seem distant now

from everything I remember

I hope they stayed with you

when the noose started to tighten

and you could say no more

and after wisdom

and the days of iron

the eyes started from your head

I know the words

must have been set down

partly for yourself

unjustly condemned after

a good life

I know the design

of the world is beyond

our comprehension

thank you

but grief is selfish and in

the present when

the stars do not seem to move

I was not listening

I know it is not

sensible to expect

fortune to grant her

gifts forever

I know

A Wordle of Great Basin A&E

2009-12-24T23:34:00.000-08:00

Toiyabe Range

2009-11-11T19:00:00.000-08:00

This is the eastern wall of the Toiyabe Range, looking SSW, as seen from Highway 50 about 12 miles east of Austin. On the map below the spot would be very near the intersection of U.S. Highway 50 and Nevada Route 376.

View Larger Map

Red Cat Records

2009-10-23T23:22:00.001-07:00

So I was digging around in my files, and found this.

If the Red Cat were still with us, it would just now be preparing to celebrate the end of its 10th year. Gone but not forgotten.

Big Rocks

2009-10-23T19:01:00.000-07:00

Chocolate Mountain, Santa Rosa Range, Humboldt County, Nevada
October 7, 2009

Hinkey Summit, Santa Rosa Range, Humboldt County, Nevada
October 10, 2009

Took these photos during three trips to the Santa Rosa Range. My friend Stuart invited me to help out with a photography field trip for his class at Great Basin College. We went out on "scout" trips twice to find a good location for a large group. Then we took about 18 people out to one location we'd found in the mountains, and then on the way back to town spent some time in Paradise.

This sounds like much more of a report, than a story....argh...

Try the full screen feature.

Austin Summer of 2009

2009-09-02T22:23:00.000-07:00

This is the nearly the longest time I have ever gone between posts. Just too much life and not enough time for creativity.

I spent today judging photos at the county fair, or the Tri-County Fair. This is interesting work. You get to claw your way through a huge pile of mounted photos that range from the sublime to the truly awful.

People tend to enter photographs that they have some sort of emotional connection with, or that evoke a fond memory, no matter what the subject matter or quality of the image.

Our job was to score each one independently, and then write some notes, constructive suggestions, on how the image might be improved, to "offer the entrants encouragement".

It was with this in mind that I chose my own image, above, to post today. This picture, while rather poorly done, represents my current, confused, state of mind. It was captured in Austin Nevada 7/26/2009 when I was on my way to a meeting in Ely.

Sacred Ground

2009-01-18T22:00:00.000-08:00

Inspiration - Illumination

We sent our brother John Allen off in a manner he would have fully appreciated. A wake filled with his spirit, his friends, his artwork & totems, and his writings & poetry. Conversation, music, singing & dancing, smiles & tears, and hugs. The land, the wind and the sun.

Home was filled with small children of all sizes playing hide-and-seek on the stairways and in the doors.

The moon, and then fireworks, and likely some gunfire off in the distance.

We spread his ashes over his 80 acres. These lands along the White River hold a powerful medicine, and now he has joined with it.

more photos

John Allen's Blog - Mind over Matters

Dunes

2008-12-07T22:23:00.001-08:00

The High Desert. That's an accurate name for this part of the Great Basin. I'm beginning to think in terms of years, to remember when this dry spell started.

And no, these are not snow drifts. These are dunes.

It seems I always end up making a trip to the dune fields about this time of the year. This year it got dark, and I almost missed the light. I don't think I have really adjusted to moving the clock, and the days getting so short.

The blue light is what had my attention. The shadows on the dunes were filled with a beautiful blue light.

W.V.F.D

2008-08-22T22:51:00.000-07:00