Venus of Nevada

Welcome to Nevada!

Your vehicle, driven slowly and with the heater fully cranked, maintained its uphill composure pretty well.

Now that you’ve gotten out of the depths of Death Valley, it appears to be holding up just fine. In fact, the air itself is slightly less hot. It’s only 113F out here, yay!

The first thing you notice as you approach Rhyolite is some garish, 25-foot-tall pink sculpture off in the distance…  some sort of homage to pixel art, perhaps? Ah, this is the Goldwell Open Air Museum. You can stick around to check out the other artifacts here, or continue towards the town itself.

At least, what’s left of it…

Sixteen Fathoms Below the Sea

One word: Hot.

It’s over 120F here in the lowest point of North America.

You’ve drank almost a gallon of water just getting to this point, and yet your sweat feels like it’s nearly boiling.

If the ocean could be here with you right now, you’d be more than one hundred feet below the surface. Despite the thought of those depths, you still wonder if it wouldn’t be at least a slight improvement of this situation.

You struggle to squint through the windless miasma, but don’t see much beyond the dusty playas and outstretched road. A couple Joshua trees and Creosote bushes dot the desert floor.

For a while you’ve noticed the increased crush of air pressure… it reminds you of pressurized cabins on commercial flights, when your ears start popping and the wee babies start crying.

The heat is incredibly intense and your skin isn’t taking to it very well. Your vehicle is nearly overheating, so it’s probably best to stay the night rather than risk getting stranded. Maybe there’s some shade around here you could faint in? 

Well, let’s decide- you can either head back towards Nevada now and maybe risk overheating the vehicle, or you can look for some kind of shade and make camp. It’s gotta be easier to travel in this desert at night, right?

Poker Face?

The trickster coyote often works in a group to overwhelm and/or snatch from their prey.

One trick I find fascinating is when one (usually the youngest or smallest coyote) acts like they are tame, injured, or even playful. Meanwhile, the rest of the group flanks you while you take photos…

Death Valley, CA really has some hardened (and beautiful) coyotes. You find some shade under a big creosote bush to wait them out.

That Roadkill Feeling

Well this is awkward.

These decent-sized creosote bushes don’t really account for a lot of shade, but it’s more comfortable than being under the vehicle.

There’s no way you could handle staying inside that thing, even with the windows down. So yeah- a nap under the biggest, shadiest bush you could find made sense considering your options. Until (and well after sunset) you woke up from your hazy fade to a snake slowly brushing by your neck.

You reflexively swipe at it but in doing so you also whack it right in the mouth. The snake’s fangs are stuck in your palm! You throw your arm in a wild arc, trying to sling the snake off. This works, but you also feel the heat from it’s venom start to throb in your wrist.

It’s pumped ever faster by your own startled heart up into your armpit, tingling. This is happening way too fast. 

You immediately jump up and rush to the driver’s side door trying to escape this waking nightmare, but you feel a tingling in your neck and nausea start to take over. You stumble over the asphalt shoulder as you swing around the front of the vehicle, splaying headlong into the road itself. You can barely get your hands out to stop your fall and your head just

donks

off the asphalt like some cartoon sound effect. You note the sound well, because it seems so much louder than the blood that’s pounding through your eardrums.

What’s in a name like Death Valley, right?

Your arms feel like they aren’t yours anymore.

You taste something like metal in your mouth. Your vision begins to tunnel.

Your chest shudders. You can barely see down the road anymore…

Can’t even move… and so you wait; with a faintly sinking, almost roadkill feeling?

 

You can start over, if you’d like.

Rhyolite Ruins

The town of Rhyolite looks, well… ruined.

But you’re here now, so might as well have a look around. 

You can take a closer look at the ruins of the three-story tall building just ahead or check out a lone train caboose that seems to still be standing on the other side of town.

Wait… is that a sign?

Icara

From a distance you thought this was some kind of crucifixion and now that you’re closer, you realize that actually might be the intended effect.

It looks like artist Dre Peeter’s wood sculpture is called Icara which you presume is the feminine equivalent of Icarus (that sassy son of Daedalus who flew too close to the sun). Metaphor or not, the sun is really good at pointing out hubris. Cool heads prevail.

From here you can take a closer look at the base (which seems to have booty shorts nailed to it) or you can investigate the ghosts nearby.

Water Wells

This appears to be the truck that either got the most care over the years… or else it just suffered a lot less tragedy than the others.

It looks like it’s pretty decent shape, maybe it even still runs? Someone around here must be collecting these trucks, you think.

But who (and where) the hell are they? Enough trucks already; you decide to head over to the lively side of town: the Post Office.

And the Landlord Taketh Away

Interior image of a long lost roof, likely once a stable part of a farmer or rancher’s home. This is out in Eastern Oregon near the Ochoco National Forest. There were obviously a few tenants around still making use of the structure, but they weren’t up for talk about the matter; most of them just flew off when I approached. The rest scurried underground.