I am now forty six days into my exploration of Death Valley and the surrounding area.  Having checked out Indian and Meteor activity I am now looking into the more recent past.

Various old mining cabins, in and around the Death Valley area, have been discovered, adopted and fixed up.  I was invited by my friend Jake to visit a cabin he found and has been working on, off and on, for the past four years.  Jeff, Marti, and Old Tom were invited too.  So,

Easter Weekend was spent with my friends at Jake's cabin.

And, of course, there is only one way to observe Easter in a truly religious fashion...,

Hand me that gun Jake!  Yes!  Nothing like a lot of gunfire on Easter morning!!  We set up clay pigeons on yonder rock and took turns shooting at them.  Jeff won the first round, Jake the second and I finally got the hang of it and won the third round with Marti a close second.

I worked off my ammunition bill by helping Jake with the addition to the porch.

And, I must admit, Jake has one fine outhouse.

Speaking of religious observance....  Jake and I went for a drive in his Toyota 4Runner, after everyone left, to look at various mines and cabins in the area.  While driving along I spotted these Lilies along the old Tonopah & Tidewater railroad grade!  They are the only Lilies I have seen and I only saw them Easter Sunday!  Is that weird or what!

Here is a rather large cabin that is in rough shape.  It would take a lot of fixing but I really liked the view from the outhouse.  The handles attached to the seat are a nice addition!  The toilet paper is under the can held down by a rock.  Basic but effective.

Another fixer-upper that is dug mostly into a hillside.  The outhouse has pretty much fallen apart.  Sliver city!

This cabin has had quite a bit or work done to it to bring it back up to usable standards.

Inside there was food and water, and a bedroll.  Plus cooking utensils.

A nice wood stove, cot and bed.  Quite civilized.

At various remote places there are old trucks that have ended their days and are slowly weathering away.
An International missing its water tank and a home made drilling rig on a Dodge chassis.

There are a lot of mining activity remains at the upper reaches of rough roads.  Here is a ore bucket and a chute made out of cut in half fifty-five gallon drums in the background; a sagging tramway cable overhead.

   I'm not much for climbing around in old mines but I do like to take a peek.  The ladder going down the shaft on the left was pretty much rotted away.  This mine was full of old timbers holding up the walls and ceiling.  Quite scary!  I always wonder when the next earthquake will hit.

This is a fine old structure made out of big timbers.  Ore was brought to this structure via a tramway then dumped into trucks via the four chutes.

   And here is a kiln!  (Smelter?)  I really thought about my Earthenware friends Doug and Jan and their wood fired kilns when I saw this.  This one melted precious mineral out of crushed rock.  There was a "stoke hole" on the side but I don't know what it was fired with; charcoal maybe.

After five days of being with Jake and his dog Tinker I said my goodbyes and visited one of my favorite cabins, "Bedsprings".
In the above photo you can just see the cabin in the center of the photo.  Even in the surrounding mud hills the wild flower abound!

In my wandering in the hills by Bedsprings I found a wind damaged Desert Five Spot.  It was the biggest Desert Five Spot I have ever seen.  I wrestled it to the ground and hauled it back to the cabin so I could take a photo of it.  Definitely a trophy!  It measured four feet tall and it had 234 flowers and/or buds on it!!

Taking a break at Bedsprings.  The weather is perfect, around 47 at night and up to 80 during the day.  I have read two Louis L'Amour westerns that are in the cabin library.  I have done some fixing up around the place and I have put together this installment of my webpage.

P.S.  I want Lolli, Ed and Suzanne to know the cacti are starting to bloom.  Please hurry!
Yes, Ed and Suzanne will be driving out for Spring Break.  My wife Lolli, because of time constraints, will fly to Las Vegas April 17th and I will meet her there.  Then we will all be together for a week of Official, 15th Annual, Spring Break.  Or is it the 14th?

Meanwhile, I guess I will go to Pahrump, Nevada to up-load this and then find something to do!