mk5 adventures

Just make sure to put it on separate pages. Loading on mobile is a PITA lol

 

Man, I always try, but there's never enough discussion on my build thread to separate everything nicely. That said, each installment of a trip is always on its own page once you get over to the blog. To get there, there's always a link at the top of each post (on TW), just under the title, that will take you to the trip ("Part of the XXXXX trip"), and then you can see the story without loading the 17 other stories on a forum page...

 

Idk man, I’m sure that blog site is making you rich

Not sure I can support it

 

Damn, I was hoping no one would notice - I've almost made enough from it to buy a gallon of gas.

If I could get Mike to write more of my content, I'd surely attract more visitors, and be able to afford an entire tank.

 

Hey, what's with all this concise conversation crap?

The sole purpose of this thread is to crash @Just_A_Guy's browser. Please attach 50 images to all replies. Bonus points if you can embed them at source resolution.

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I’ll take the cheeseburger
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Making our way back to our vehicles, I started to think about my next destination. Which, for the record, was an another abandoned Borax mine further east of the park. But… I was getting hungry too, and what I wanted more than anything was a cheeseburger. So I decided to follow Dan down to Furnace Creek and its visitor center, which I’ve never actually visited, but also and primarily to get a cheeseburger. Certainly I’d have no trouble finding a cheeseburger at Death Valley’s largest oasis, around lunch time in early peak tourism season…



Fun fact: If you go to the visitor center and show them your annual parks pass, they’ll give you a colorful piece of paper to put on your dash, indicating that you’ve paid the fee to access the park for the duration of your planned visit. Or, you can skip this step and enjoy the park for the duration of your visit just like every other time you’ve ever been here.



But by going to the visitor center, you can also ask rangers stupid questions until they walk away in frustration. Like, “Can I traverse this road, which is clearly indicated as closed on your map?” (My record so far is one question.)

Wish he'd have stuck around, because my next question was "can I fly my drone in Death Valley?" And with nobody to stop me, I got this epic aerial footage, right there at the visitor center:


Bzzzzzzz!


You’ll know you’re overpaying for gas when prices at Furnace Creek seem “entirely reasonable!” I had been filling the tank at Baker and other super-pricey desert locations for the past several fill-ups. And that’s not a complaint, I love exploring these parts, even if gas is insane. But… back me up, guys, this is insane, right?


With that checkbox ticked, I bid my farewell to Dan and set about getting this cheeseburger. I headed to the restaurant, but the place was a ghost town. No kidding--the lights weren’t even on at the pickup counter, and the restaurant was so empty I started to wonder if I was in a zombie move. But I’m no stranger to Furnace Creek, so I moseyed over to the ice cream parlor to order my cheeseburger from their grill instead.



Well, apparently they’re really, really short on labor at Xanterra these days! Not even the ice cream parlor grill was offering up cheeseburgers today.

Not wanting to leave empty-handed or hungry, my eyes wandered over to the ice cream menu….

So here’s the thing about ice cream: I can’t really eat it. Well, I mean, I can eat it--it won’t literally kill me. I’m not even lactose intolerant (they checked... twice!) Plus, it’s super-fucking-delicious every time. But I really shouldn’t eat it. Hmmm… maybe, just this once, I could get a root beer float. That’s mostly root beer, with just a little bit of ice cream, right? I can have root beer…

I double-checked the logic -- it was solid.


You can’t not get ice cream here.


Confirmation of prior reported results is a cornerstone of experimental science… and what can I say, I’m an experimental scientist. And hot damn, I can confirm that my root beer float was fucking delicious. Best twelve bucks I’ve ever spent. But we’d have to wait a bit longer before we could draw conclusions from the experiment. That’s just how experimental science works.


Bummer dude


Extreme off-roading in Twenty Mule Team Canyon, Death Valley’s most rugged back-country trail!


I drove the distant ridgeline around a year ago. Been meaning to write that one up too…


My originally planned next destination was the prior site of the above photographed mining camp. But I encountered an improvised barrier, right at its closest turnoff from the highway. This was no official barrier: just two cheap-ass child-size traffic cones on either side of the road, with the tattered remains of the yellow perimeter tape that once spanned them now flailing in the wind. Evidently, many recent travelers had already chosen to ignore this barrier. I was pondering the morality of following their fresh tire tracks myself, towards—

Oh god, did I just hear thunder?

I glanced around… scarcely a cloud in the sky. Had I imagined it? Oh how I wished, how I prayed I had imagined it… Eyes growing wider with terror, I scanned the horizon again, hoping for something—anything—that could explain that deeply alarming rumble. A jet streaking overhead. A child’s bicycle beneath my tires. A mushroom cloud rising from Los Angeles. Anything.

I pushed on to Evelyn in denial, then the sound returned, this time undeniably originating from within the cab. The experiment was reaching its conclusion.

Root beer or not: No, I can’t eat ice cream.

What the hell was I thinking?

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Shoshone
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Shoshone has clean, well-maintained public restrooms--almost completely free of vandalism, save for this one profound statement scribbled in sharpie:


God damned right!



A great place to visit, for any reason!

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Ibex Springs
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Somehow I had lost most of the afternoon. The sun was about to set!



It was time to select the day’s final destination and b-line for it. I had one in mind… but could I make it? Too lazy to air down, I made pretty terrible time over the scarcely 5-mile jaunt off-highway to the springs.



For such a major thoroughfare, you’d think they could build a bridge…


That’s not to say I didn’t rush it. In fact, all evidence suggests I drove entirely too fast for the conditions. I discovered this only upon returning to the highway later that night: I couldn’t find the damn cruise control! I’m guessing I jumped a tooth or few in my steering rack, because now the cruise lever points straight down. One of my CV boots got torn as well, pooped out its grease, and the axle was making noise by the time I got home. And my headlights were all out of whack too, at least based on the fuck-you high-beams I got from oncoming traffic on the highway. When one guy does this, I’d call him an ass hole, but three in a row gives fairly conclusive evidence that I’m the ass hole. Stopping to adjust them downward wound up seriously cutting into my timeline. See, my wife and I had booked a flight out of Las Vegas at 6AM the next day. So tonight, I needed to wrap up this adventure, drive back to LA to pick her up, turn around and race back up the 15 all the way to McCarren. Which, wait… apparently is no longer called McCarren. Correction then: Harry Reid. The important thing was that I’d be cutting it close as possible. And enjoying the shit out of every moment. Oh, and buying a whole lot more $7/gallon gas in Baker!


Racing past Ibex Springs


But that’s getting ahead of the story. First: the mine!


Driving with such gleeful exuberance, I didn’t even notice how perilously washed-out this road is in places… well, at least not until the return trip in darkness!

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The mine
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​

Behold!



I made it!


One of TW’s more prolific Death Valley explorers recently stated:

I have yet to attain this level of maturity and wisdom in my Death Valley pursuits. I’m gleefully infatuated with any and all old mines, often to the detriment of my taking time to properly appreciate of the natural beauty of the surrounding terrain. Not that I don’t stop in awe of the landscape from time to time. But anyone reaching this particular mine, whether in pursuit of the region’s natural splendors, or transfixed by the permanent scars mankind has wrought upon them, will have little choice but to agree: this is an absolute gem of a mine!



Only minutes of sunlight remained…



And I enjoyed them all immensely!


Talc mines are frequently described as being dangerous, but they’re absolutely photogenic. On the former point, I’m not talking about the more recent litigation that awarded damages to habitual users of talcum powder. (My takeaway there: Don’t apply it to your perineum!) What’s of greater concern to me--an aspiring explorer of abandoned mines with a consistently unpowdered perineal area--is the fact that underground talc mines are quite prone to collapse, owing at least in part to the fundamentally weak nature of talc, which is apparently... um… Mg₃Si₄O₁₀(OH)₂. (Thanks, Wikipedia!) I don’t know what to make of that, but I’ve worked with enough density functional theorists to know the proper knee-jerk reaction to that chemical structure is fuck that, and I’m glad I’ve never had to ponder its electronic properties. As for its material properties… well here’s one that’s well-known: talc forms the “soft” end of the Mohs scale of harness.



Hardness isn’t quite the same thing as strength, but it’s somewhat related, and at the end of the day talc is a weak crumbly material that’s not particularly good for making long-lived underground mining excavations. This is less of an issue for modern large-scale strip mining, but they heyday of talc mining in this region occurred primarily in the era of underground mining, and even those that were worked as open pits later in life often have decaying underground workings lurking below. Or at least that’s been my experience to date, including at this mine, as well as another I managed to blunder across last year, wondering what had caused these massive gaping holes in the ground as I steered between them in a three-ton pickup truck. But that’s a story for another time.



I guess the point of my rambling is to establish that it’s stupid and reckless to explore old abandoned talc mines. No argument there. But… I like exploring them all the same, and at least thus far, I’ve never been crushed to death or asphyxiated, nor has the earth dropped beneath my feet to swallow me alive. In all likelihood I’ll die of heart disease or cancer or some other type of complete bullshit. The more abandoned mines I can explore until then, the better.



That said, I hope my stories don’t come across as intentionally reckless. I try to be really careful out there, not only for my own sake, but also to ensure that future generations can enjoy exploring these places too. And for the record, my perennial area was well-protected the whole time. (Well, except for that icewater incident earlier...)



Here’s another noteworthy thing about talc deposits: they’re white. Like, totally crazy white! Not the kind of crazy white that shoots up shopping malls, but the kind that stands out in surreal contrast to the surrounding terrain, ready to soak up the subtle, glorious hues of the sunset.


Surreal contrast



Who would have guessed these dark mountains contain such bright white material?



The steep roadway leading to the upper levels is so thoroughly washed out that some spots are treacherous even on foot



Anyone else here remember the good ol’ days when playground equipment was made out of metal and wood, not this new-fangled foam-padded plastic bullshit? I remember the childhood exuberance of discovering how insanely fast one could descend those old metal slides by riding upon sheets of wax paper—the closest we’ll ever come to warp-speed travel. One particularly epic day, my friend Matt stole a whole roll of wax paper from his mom’s cupboard and we all biked across town to biggest slide of them all: an all-metal quadruple-spiral towering into the stratosphere. With growing excitement, we took turns riding fresh sheets of wax down this slide, each trip more dizzying than the last, until eventually the centripetal force flung Matt clear off the slide on the second loop! Broke his arm in three places, yet he was able to help us conceal the evidence and synchronize our excuses before the ambulance showed up. The slide was removed some time later, citing safety concerns, and replaced with a modern waist-high foam-padded plastic effigy of disappointment. But last I heard, Matt’s a combat vet who owns his own business, whereas the younger generation still lives in their parents’ basements. I’m not convinced metal slides were really that bad.



But sadly, I didn’t bring any wax paper on this trip!



I can’t get enough of the elaborate cartway remains about the lower levels of this mine… perhaps the most impressive I've yet found in Death Valley!



End of the line at the second level: a rather modest spoil tip…

… from which the dramatically larger first-level spoil tip can be appreciated:



The massive extent of these spoils suggest there are immense underground workings at the lower levels of the mine, especially considering that talc mines tended to ship out a large fraction of extracted material as product. (As opposed to precious metal mines, which at this scale would have typically employed on-site processing to separate high-value ore from low-value tailings, resulting in a dramatically higher fraction of the extracted material being discarded on site.)



However, this seemingly huge volume of spoils from the underground levels, which I might estimate at ten thousand yards, is utterly dwarfed by that from the open-pit operations above, which displaced and discarded at least an order of magnitude more material. Their extent can’t really be appreciated while standing on them, and as my limited time didn’t allow hiking to a proper vantage point (and NPS rules don’t allow flying cameras), here’s the best shot I was able to come up with later on my hike:



Anyway, I wound up chasing the final rays of sunlight as they retreated further and further up the mountain, eventually stumbling upon the mine’s uppermost level, which had been worked as an open pit. You’ll have to take my word that that brief final moment of direct sunlight was spectacular, because by this point, my camera was so completely filled with dust that hardly any of my shots found their focus.

Along the way, we reach a vantage point from which the distant Ibex Dunes can be appreciated:




Sorry guys, gotta get to 50 pictures somehow. I'm posting the duds too!



This final splash of color prompted a frantic dash to reach sunlight one more time…



And hell yeah, I caught that stupid sun one more time!


Selfie time!



After the sun had set, twilight photography became abysmally disappointing, per usual, despite the fact that everything was still spectacular to the eye. Maybe it’s just a lack of skill, but this is the best I could do.


With the sunset petering out, and having checked in with the wife to insist I’d somehow make it back home in time to make our flight… I set my attention to finding a composition for what I was hoping would be some favorably clear and dark skies that night. Even before arriving here, I had been looking forward to getting a night exposure of the absolutely epic dual chute structure that once delivered ore from the second level down to the first. But today’s hike had revealed that the platform beneath the chutes has largely collapsed, and what remains is hopelessly unstable:



See? Nowhere to stand down there!


So I wouldn’t be able to position a camera or lights below the chutes without climbing around on collapsed materials and needlessly eroding the loose hillside on which the remaining structures still stand. That’s not how I roll.




The nearby adit provided an intriguing subject, and by the time I was done, I felt it was perhaps my best-yet night photography session. (In fact, the result won the most prestigious photography contest in which I’ll likely ever contend: the TW weekly photography challenge!) But first, let’s start with the precarious setup I constructed trying to go for a portrait shot with a landscape-only tripod:



lol


And the intermediate result:



While I wasn’t quite content with the result, this photo sets the stage for the next: I caught glimpse of a particularly bright star over my shoulder, and it appeared to be moving! Sure enough, it turned out my evening was graced by a spectacular overflight of the international space station! I quickly repositioned to catch it:



Sometimes I have my phone set to beep when ISS is arriving, but not tonight. This was an honest-to-goodness surprise--already a delight--but made even better by the fact that I managed to pull off an exposure just before ISS dove into earth’s shadow!

I went back to fiddling with lights and settings at the adit, for another dozen or two exposures, toppling the precariously-braced tripod a few times before giving up and going for landscape. Not that I'm disappointed about the result:


Ta-da!

I just love it. My best yet. Took well over an hour to set it up, and I lost track of how many times I scrambled to and from the truck in search of additional supplies. I’ll quote a prior post on the experience:

Only then did I check the clock, confirming my suspicion that I had spent entirely too much time photographing this mine. It was time to frantically pack up and rush back to LA!

But … of course … time management has never really been my strong point, so I dawdled a little back at the truck, too:



For a final shot at the mine, I used a flashlight pointed at the hill behind me to add just a hint of foreground illumination.



Not too bad.

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Epilogue
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In my excitement to reach the mine, I overlooked how wildly washed-out the road up there is!



There are more treacherous squeezes along the way, but photographed above was the most dramatic.

Then there was the discovery that I had once again completely fucked up my truck by driving too fast earlier that day, and subsequent stops to assess the damage and readjust the headlights. So... pretty much par for the course.

But the icing on the cake? We still made our flight!

Had to gas up in Baker, both ways through, and splurge on valet parking at the airport… but we made it!

Still beats the fuck out of flying from LAX--worst airport in the country. And that's sadly not a joke: Normally we fly from LA's many non-shitty airports, such as Burbank, Ontario, John Wayne, Long Beach, Palm Springs, or San Diego. But there weren't direct flights from those to our destination, so my only options were LAX and Vegas. And I chose Vegas. That's how fucking hard LAX sucks.



Fret not--more reasonable gas prices prevailed at our flight's destination… heck, maybe Dan's blog revenue could purchase two gallons here!

Sorry for the drawn-out post, folks... And for the total lack of discretion when it came to including any and all photos. Had to get to 50. Them's the rules!

 

No crash yet. Try harder

As for LAX, I’m the anomaly that doesn’t hate that airport. Usually take a rental, arrive early, take their shuttle into the terminal. Haven’t had any major issues.

 

I think you meant "jadedness" in the above. Ibex is one of the gems, enough so I've been there three times I think.

Advice from a formerly stubborn photographer who saved all his money for cameras, lenses and film (when that was a thing) to the exclusion of decent camera support. Get a damn decent tripod. A good carbon fiber set of legs and good ball head is not the bank breaker it once was. Knock off brands like Leofoto are an amazing value even at full price. Around the holidays there are often sales and coupon codes too. Used tripods are also a fairly safe purchase. Cameras and lenses tend to come and go, you'll buy a good tripod once for life these days. Given your particular interests you'd really get a lot of joy out of something that isn't crap. You should also be able to pickup a knock off Arca-swiss plate or L-bracket for your camera in the $30 range these days.

Yeah, you can drive to Vegas twice in the amount of time it takes go around that fucking U at LAX just once. Having it under perpetual construction since the last millennia has made it extra pleasant. Pro-tip: if you need to catch a shuttle bus and fly into Terminal 1 at LAX (Southwest) jog across the top of the U from Terminal 1 to Terminal 7 and spend 35 fewer minutes sitting in the stupid bus trying to navigate its way through the LAX cluster fuck.

You should also try out LAX's perfect complement - Dulles. Dulles architects threw the pendulum in entirely the other direction until it smashed out the side of the clock. Just 100 feet of drop-off/pickup curb for the entire airport but serviced by 54 parallel lanes of traffic. There's one car that's been trapped in lane 1 next to the Skycap since 2013 - has had the left blinker bulb replaced seven times so far. I hear there's a biopic on the poor soul slated for 2023 staring Tom Hanks.

 

Ha. That drive from Vegas is anything but rainbows and sunshine. Nothing like sitting in traffic as far as the eye can see, driving up a mountain, in 115 degree heat. I get LAX can be bad, but Vegas has plenty of drawbacks.

Never been to Dulles. Take your word on that one.

 

Good point. I'm spoiled by almost always doing it opposite traffic so I just sail through.

 

Love exploring old desert mines in my taco, great pics!

 

You do your traffic sitting in the gorgeous DMV.

At least on the 15 between Vegas and LA, you have mountains to look at instead of apartment complexes, trash, and speed cameras!

 

Thanks again for strong-arming me into buying a new tripod, Ken. Jeez!

I don't think I've done enough ranting about LAX yet... and your comparison to Dulles has given me cause to look a bit more into the history of these airports.

LAX and IAD seem to have been truly visionary airports of their era, embracing innovative approaches to deal with the surging volumes of air travel in the early jet age -- and it seems both actually did pretty well until the advent of ridesharing apps. My conclusion is that their present shortcomings are really more a result of mismanagement and faltering commitment to their original design principles, rather than any inherent incapability of their design principles to accommodate modern needs...

The exception there is the Theme Building at LAX--an iconic yet ill-fated vestige of mid-century optimism, scaled-back from an original proposal calling for the entire curb-facing volume of the terminal complex to be enclosed beneath an immense dome, the scale of which would have put even Hitler's Volkshalle to shame. Of course, neither of these grandiose architectural plans were realized... Germania's planners only made it as far as constructing the Schwerbelastungskörper, and considering who was behind it, that's definitely a good thing. LAX's grand dome got downsized to its now-famous levitating UFO-shaped restaurant for more practical reasons, such as the absurd cost and utter lack of need of such a thing in SoCal. But while I'll proclaim the latter to be of far greater architectural merit, I must admit that the former currently rivals it in terms of dining options -- because the theme building's restaurant closed forever in 2013. An unfortunate casualty of post-9/11 security and modern travel culture. Oh well, I still sometimes take the time to venture to the theme building's rooftop, assuming I can convince the dude at the elevator that my luggage doesn't contain any RPGs. But today, if you want to enjoy dining in a UFO-inspired restaurant regarded as perhaps the finest specimen of mid-century modern architecture, then you'll have to fly to Seattle -- and hopefully you can get a flight there from Burbank, because LAX sucks.

Perhaps something similar can be said about the control tower at IAD. A remarkable piece of architecture when built, rendered useless by the passage of time. Perhaps they could turn it into a restaurant?

That all said, for many decades, LAX was a convenient airport with easy parking and excellent connections to ground automotive transport. Not long before the restaurant closed, just as traffic congestion was becoming a real problem, they decided to completely tear down and rebuild the international terminal, right at the bottleneck at the far end of the traffic loop. Rather than taking advantage of this unique opportunity to expand and reconfigure the loop to accommodate another half-century of traffic growth, they just built the world's most overpriced international terminal in place of the prior one, which pretty much cemented the fate of the airport to perpetual traffic jams. And whoever this Tom Brady guy is, he must have been a complete ass hole, because his terminal fucking sucks -- underutilized yet infuriatingly congested at all times. Its annex is even worse -- it's been open for years, yet there isn't a single store or restaurant operating out there... because fundamentally, LAX didn't need a second international terminal, it needed to expand its curb space and alleviate traffic congestion. The only reason the annex terminal isn't shuttered like an abandoned shopping mall is because they leased its terminals to bottom-feeder domestic carriers, who bus in steerage-class peasants like me from the overcrowded shithole country known as terminal one. Perhaps they'll give up and someday convert the whole terminal to section-eight housing, where it might actually do some good for the city.

Prior to this, in the 90s, LA was building a state-of-the-art billion-dollar light rail line towards this very same airport. But instead of routing it to the terminals to help alleviate vehicle traffic, just when the line reached the airport boundary (yet still too far for a convenient link), they inexplicably routed it southward, ensuring that this public megaproject would never play even the slightest role in alleviating congestion at LAX. Their reasoning at the time? To better serve the huge workforce of the military-industrial complex whose offices and factories were located south of the airport. And I guess they had a point... the cold war had just ended and that entire workforce had just been laid off, so they probably all needed a ride home! The more plausible reason for this catastrophically short-sighted blunder, though, was lobbying by taxis and Super Shuttle, not to mention the fear of lost of revenue from airport parking.

Low and behold, decisions like these resulted in terrible congestion at the airport. So, not long before the pandemic, they finally decided to do something: They tore down half the parking garages, doubled the parking rates, and banished all cars from the pickup lanes--including banning taxis and Ubers from picking up passengers at the terminals altogether. In some regards they were successful in reducing congestion... the pickup lanes, once jam-packed with hundreds of vehicles picking up thousands of passengers at every moment, are now utterly barren, save for a fleet of perhaps four shuttles. Those stop at terminals one and two, then cruise past the remaining six terminals without stopping because they're already completely full. Parking at the airport now costs more than your plane ticket -- if you're lucky enough to find a spot. And if you don't park your car there... well, getting a taxi or rideshare home can take hours, including the mile-long walk to the Uber banishment lot if you wind up at one of the shuttle-bypass terminals. I wish I was kidding, but the one time I tried it, it took over three hours from exiting the terminal before I crawled into the back seat of a taxi... the whole time trying in vain to book an Uber or Lyft just like the four hundred equally impatient and tired travelers milling around in the taxi line.

You might wonder if public transit could offer an alternative. In fact, LA has invested billions in its metro system. To get to the airport, I can simply lug my suitcase half a mile to an infrequently-served bus stop, wait there for a bus, ride it to a light rail station, ride that downtown, transfer to the subway for three stops, transfer back to a different light rail, transfer again to a third light rail line, stand in the airport shuttle queue as the first fills to capacity, barely cram my way onto the next to reach the terminal, watch in dismay as it pulls away from my terminal while I shout hopelessly from the back, trek back to my terminal from the next, clear security, then take one last shuttle to a vacant annex terminal where my only dining option is a twelve-dollar stale vending-machine sandwich. Such is the benefit of living only 20 miles from the airport in a major city -- I only need to leave home four hours early and board seven different vehicles to reach my gate.


As for Dulles... well I can't complain as much because I don't live there. I will say, they do take security seriously there. Flying out of there in the late 2000s... one of my travel companions was having foot pain from poor-fitting shoes, so he decided to discard his shoes' sole inserts prior to boarding the plane. Didn't think much of it at the time, until the entire plane was de-boarded again for a "random" inspection of everyone's shoes -- his in particular. It was fucking hilarious. (Maybe less so if you had a connection, but whatever.)

To be honest, the only real complaint I have about Dulles, is that it's been decades since I last got to ride one of these to my plane:



To conclude, LAX just needs more parking ramps and more car lanes, and Dulles just needs more mobile lounges.

There... now I can go back to rambling about esoteric desert stuff.

 

At least back in 2016 the FlyAway Bus was the most reasonable public transportation option to LAX from where you are. Gold line to Union Station and then FlyAway to LAX terminals. It is frustrating that the fastest route from the largest train station in LA to the airport is an effing bus, but that’s LA for you.

Oh, and as a military industrial complex worker who wasn’t laid off, I can tell you that despite there being a light rail station literally in the parking lot of the building next door to where I had to work south of LAX that I still saved over an hour driving myself in traffic because I’d have to have taken the whole freaking rainbow of light rail lines with 30 min connections between each color to get there.

I swear the LA light rail system was designed to “relieve traffic” by a super villain played by Christopher Walken with a propensity for pushing attractive personal assistants out of tall buildings.

 

I had fallen behind in your thread. I just wanted to say thanks for an enjoyable evening catching up. The dialogue and photos are great. I will get out to DVNP one of these years.

 

Epic reference there, man. How hilarious is it that a 90s-movie supervillain's diabolical plan was simply to develop and commercialize a cost-effective grid-scale energy storage technology? If someone pulled that off today, it would be hailed as the greatest achievement of the century, and finally enable humanity to arrest if not reverse the progression of climate change.

Pushing assistants out of windows is still frowned upon, though, but perhaps you'll agree... an observant (and incidentally attractive) personal assistant, or even a clueless one of any physique, having just been pushed from the window of a high-rise, could still devise a vastly superior public transit system during his or her freefall, than what LA Metro has achieved throughout its 30 years of existence. Heck, even preschoolers can complete a connect-the-dots, so long as they're not too hungry (in which case, they might just eat the crayon instead). LA Metro's budget suggests that its management should be well-fed, and that their offices should be well-stocked with writing implements. Yet they've been staring at the world's simplest connect-the-dots for three decades. One dot is where people are; the other is where they want to go. And they can't seem to connected them.

I'll admit, FlyAway is definitely the superior way to and from LAX. I didn't mention it because it slightly undermines the hilarity of LA's woefully inadequate public transit options. To other readers: the FlyAway bus offers direct transportation between LAX and union station downtown. It's a shoestring operation that employs charter busses to drive the freeways to the airport. And it's wildly faster and easier than trying ride LA's multi-billion-dollar rapid transit network.

I happened to ride the FlyAway on the very first day of its operation from union station -- which by chance lined up with a flight booked months prior. Back then, not only was FlyAway free, but the girlfriend and I had the whole charter bus to ourselves both ways. Things have changed since then--ridership is so high now that sometimes the return busses fill up before reaching the United terminals. So if that's your airline for a Friday-night arrival, the best bet is to hike upstream to at least terminal 5 to make sure you get a seat. Thanks to the now inexplicably barren passenger pickup lanes, you have an unobstructed view all the way up to terminal 4 to see if there's an oncoming bus, so it's a pretty low-risk maneuver. Another difference from 2006 -- now they're charging like $20 per trip (or maybe per round trip, I forget). That seems like a lot, until I remember that my last Uber ride home cost $110... and the last time I tried to park at the terminals, I had to circle the airport twice, park on the rooftop of the furthest-possible ramp, flat-out sprint to make my flight, and pay $360 to raise the gate after getting back. ($60 of which was due to a three-hour delay in my return flight!)



OK, enough ranting about LAX for this post. To get back on topic, and perhaps in hopes of motivating @Cwopinger to come visit DV sooner rather than later... I present the exciting conclusion of:

The Second Annual Death Valley Winter Luxury Trip

Winter camping conditions in Death Valley can vary wildly. Sometimes, the weather is great -- and few things beat an impromptu overnight getaway when we're able to take advantage of a free weekend and a favorable weather forecast. I love those long winter nights when we can stay up late lounging around the campfire in total comfort. But sometimes winter nights are cold, windy, and rainy -- and when we're planning trips in advance, we don't get to pick the weather. No amount of campfire can fix 40 degrees and gusting rain -- I mean, we'd survive, but it would completely suck the whole entire time.

So last year I started what I hoped would become a tradition for us: a pre-planned trip to Death Valley that would be fun regardless of the weather. I call it the Death Valley Winter Luxury Trip. And having now pulled it off a second time--somehow even better this year--I think we're on a roll!

What "luxury" means for us is that we stay at hotels instead of camping, and eat at restaurants instead of cooking or even bothering with the fridge. We just grab some junk food to hold us over from a late breakfast to an early dinner. Other than that, we do the same stuff we enjoy year-round in the DV area: Mindlessly driving around, no doubt hopelessly behind some nominal schedule, but never worried about sticking to plan -- except when it comes to making it to dinner on time. That's the only non-negotiable objective for each day.

The destinations, accommodations, and restaurants can vary from year to year. The important thing is that we're having fun, staying warm, and spending a TON more money than usual. This year was a great success on all fronts... especially the lattermost. But the icing on the cake? The weather turned out to be utterly miserable for camping! God damn, I've never been so happy to watch the weather turn to shit, as I was on this trip... gazing upon it from our climate-controlled bubble of absolute fucking luxury!



Conveniently, I've already posted summaries of most of this adventure elsewhere, so I can just quote those posts here. Excitingly, this innovative approach will let me exceed the 50-photo upload limit and hopefully make this my longest-ever single post. Make sure to expand all the quotes to bog down your browser and maximize your disappointment!




Day 1: Starting at Ludlow, we headed north along the route of the Tidewater and Tonopah, with dinner reservations in Tecopa and a hotel room booked in Shoshone. I hadn't taken the day off, so I was working into the late afternoon.

I eventually solved the mystery of the wells at Broadwell Lake:

And now for some EXCLUSIVE BONUS CONTENT from day one -- included with your subscription to this thread!!!


Perhaps the most pronounced sun halo of the trip actually occurred on our way out of the LA basin. Was able to snap this shot out the passenger window because my wife is awesome, and she drove us all the way to Ludlow while I worked and attended Zoom calls.


Airing down for the trek between I-40 and I-15... still on my conference call but was no longer needed on-screen, so I switched to the driver's seat here.


I really wanted to race across Broadwell lake, and check out the railbed nearby... but the ground was still a bit wet, so I decided to back up from here and skirt its perimeter instead. I wasn't so much worried about getting stuck, but didn't want to risk plowing deep ruts in the trail that would degrade it for future visitors. The diversion was slower, but I was in no rush because I was still on a conference call and the cell signal was already growing weak.


Scaled-down hazmat dump...


Found this relic from what I'm assuming was a telegraph line running along the T&T. I love finding these old insulators... too bad people tend to shoot them to bits.


A less-elusively framed shot of the desert art installation...


Sun beams!!!


Railroad ties!!!

Finally, I have to mention our dining experience at Steaks & Beer in Tecopa. You will find strongly mixed reviews for the place online, seemingly split between people who knew what to expect, and people who expected it to be like a shopping-mall Cheesecake Factory, which it definitely is not. This is a two-man operation, in a cramped unheated building in the middle of nowhere, with like five tables, so you better have a reservation, and show up ready to enjoy steak and beers. If that's your plan, then you'll enjoy better food than you can find at any shopping-mall chain-restaurant on earth, and I'm not kidding.

We opted for the five-course meal for two, which began with individual salad and soup selections, then a shared fruit and cheese platter, followed by a shared entrée plate centered around perhaps the best steak I've ever had, and ended with a shared desert. Proportions were perfectly sized, and service was instant, with each course delivered the instant we had finished the prior, and with each somehow raising the bar set by the last. I've never really appreciated these aspects of dining, because no restaurant has ever nailed it so perfectly.


Didn't take many photos, but here's the fruit and cheese platter...

I'm not a restaurant enthusiast, nor a food critic, so take this all with a grain of salt. And I'm not claiming this is the best restaurant on earth... although I'm pretty sure this guy could work there if he wanted. But without doubt, I can say we had a great time here, and can't wait to come back. And I was simply so impressed by the experience... I just had to write about it here.

I'm also compelled to put in a plug for DV Brewing in Tecopa, where we filled a growler with a fantastic IPA... twice! And for the Shoshone Inn, which is really nicely remodeled -- wish I had taken pictures of the room! We met the architect for the remodel project around the campfire ring, great conversation!








Day 2: After lingering in Shoshone until checkout time, it was still cold and rainy, so we deviated from plans to cross the Panamints via Butte Valley and Goler Wash, instead randomly exploring West Side Road. Then met up with the in-laws at PSR for a most-enjoyable evening at the campfire... once the rain let up.

We enjoyed the Shoshone museum that morning, so much so that I wrote a rambling post recommending the place:

EXCLUSIVE BONUS PHOTOS from day 2:


This kiosk in Shoshone had seen better days...

For what it's worth, I found a photo of a similar kiosk sign online via Google Maps... this one I think was down at China Ranch:

(Not my photo)

From the same group of online photos I found this map, which is a bit out of date and/or has errors, but actually gives a nice view of wilderness extents in the region:

Interesting that they mislabeled the county enclosing Ridgecrest.


Exploring the railroad grades is always fun. The T&T certainly had a much greater impact on Mojave history than the Nevada Southern I wrote about the other month...


A dreadfully boring photo... but this shows the right-of way through Shoshone, right behind the museum.


See?


Dispatch record, hanging on the wall in the Crowbar.


Some other relics out back...


Chad had a nice camper setup!


If it weren't so rainy and windy, I would have crawled around in here... fascinating 3D excavations throughout the mountain here. If you can see the raindrops in the shot, you'll get an idea of how crazy windy it was!




Day 3: We make our way up to Darwin via the old toll route, then double back to Panamint Valley on the highway. Running low on time, we still manage to hit Augerberry Point on the way to Furnace Creek:

Bonus day-three photos:


This one turned out kinda neat


We got lucky and didn't get rained on that day... but it was definitely wet out there!


Darwin


The overlook


A nice view back over the mining district we had explored that morning -- the hillside mine is smack-dab in the middle. There are tons of other mines and trails up there that I hope to explore someday... although the roads to the more interesting spots don't look wide enough for a car on satellite maps.




That finally brings us to day 4, and finally, some fresh content!

Somehow I woke up before dawn, and was already wandering around outside before sunrise. Pretty rare for me!

Apparently it had poured overnight, but it was pretty damn nice in the morning.



Unfortunately, nobody else was awake yet to join me on an adventure... I fixed that by going back down to the room to irritate my wife until she agreed to take a quick trip to a nearby overlook with me.



Our arrival coincided with a nice break in the clouds, letting some early-morning sunlight in to douse the scenery in its glory.





This guy was making a youtube video comparing two cameras... I believe the R5 and the R6, but I didn't talk to him because I don't do conversation prior to breakfast. Maybe Dan can find his video online to enhance his feeling of regret over whichever camera he bought.



I don't know why this place is so popular... the views suck in all directions, especially in the mornings.



We still had time to kill before we were to join the in-laws for breakfast... so we drove through TMT canyon.





On the drive back I caught a glimpse of a delightful rainbow appearing over the far side of the valley, so I took a ton of useless, blurry shots out the window without managing to catch it.


Tourists!



By the time we got back to the hotel it had become less impressive, but at least I managed to take a picture of it. It lingered throughout breakfast as the winds continued to pick up.



The old man had taken advantage of the pool, but even with warm spring-fed water at 85 degrees, it felt a bit too cold for me, given the weather.

After breakfast, the girls had spa appointments. (We'll add "spa" to our definition of "luxury trip!") The old man had finished up his business calls or whatever, so I headed out with him to check out a nearby canyon. I had been hoping to drive all the way to its upper reaches today, departing at dawn, but everyone else had either business calls or spa appointments. And this was a family trip, not a leave-your-family-behind trip. So today I'll just be checking out the first part of the canyon, and hopefully I'll come back for the rest someday. Although given my time management skills, I doubt I'll be camping in there:



We found a friendly lost dog, but he didn't have tags, so we just rubbed his belly and fed him three bags of doritos.





There's a nice mine site at the end of the easy part of the canyon -- this was our sole destination for the brief excursion.



Like most DV mines, they've close off the perfectly-good roads leading up to the interesting parts, forcing you to hike. Ugh!

But I had read that the first adit up there was worth the hike, and was soon pleased to find its interesting feature: A clear vertical shaft leading up to skylight.





The tunnel went on a lot further, but it was already time to turn around and head back to pick up the girls and check out.

Obviously I pressed on and checked out more of the mine though. I figured I could make up the time by driving recklessly. Plus, gravity was on our side... we had come up about 4000 feet.


Neat! Some sort of fuzzy rock.




What is this... a hole in the rock?

Well that was pretty much it. We loaded up for the drive home, said our goodbyes, and hit the road. By then it was crazy windy!



Evidence of the night's rains got more and more pronounced as we made our way south.





Soon we were at Evelyn, where I stopped to conduct additional research on the mysterious circle there:



The trip yielded the following clue:



Anyone know what this is? Me either.

We eventually caught up with the rain around Barstow, and it turned into a torrential downpour and a 90-minute traffic jam at Cajon. No complaints there, though... it had been an epic trip!

There. Longest post ever.

 

x3 on Flyaway being the way to go. I will say the workers who man the desk in there are probably the most soulless human beings you will ever meet, even putting the typical “DMV worker” cliche to shame, but for the money and convenience, Flyaway is solid. Either that or just renting a car and taking the agency’s shuttle is the way to go. Annoying though that LAX does not have a consolidated rental car shuttle from the terminal.

Sweet write up as usual. Sadly I don’t have any witty comments at the moment to make my writing seem as cool as you all

 

The Bay Area is no better than LA for mass transit or airport access. I was in high school when the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) opened up. It finally extended to San Jose, the largest Bay Area city, just a few years ago. And I’m an official senior citizen now: Federal senior park pass and Medicare card in my wallet. And it’s also fairly recently that it has a spur to SF airport. But not Oakland or San Jose. San Jose’s “transit terminal” is several miles from BART; though it’s only 4 miles from the airport, it takes two busses and a 3 minute walk to get from the transit terminal to the air terminal … about 40 minutes. I grew up riding buses in the East Bay and SF but I’ve never been on mass transit other than recreational light rail rides with our kids, in Santa Clara or Santa Cruz counties where I’ve lived for the past 40 years.

 

I rode the BART once. Never again.

The whole Bay Area is an “avoid if possible” location. Napa is kind of nice though.

 

Kyle!

I think we saw him the same morning. No wonder he turned away our chips; but he didn't complain about the beer.

I used to ride BART from Rockridge to the Colosseum to watch the Bash Brothers and Rickey tear up the field. Loved it. But it's certainly looked a little worse for wear in the last few years.

And to be fair, San Jose wasn't all that when BART was built - I don't think most could have foreseen what Silicon Valley has become. I'd have bet that the east bay would have been "the place."

 

I’ll be 61 this month. I remember going to the Ygnacio Valley BART station on a field trip in 4th grade; it had yet to open and was 15 years behind schedule. It was cheap and fast and convenient for a few years after that. BTW I’ve been in SC for the last 41 years as well. Where in the East Bay did you grow up? Walnut Creek for me back when there were actually Walnut groves.