White House Saloon, Randsburg, CA. The desert can be a thirsty place, but if you’re visiting Randsburg, California, the White House Saloon will slake your thirst on many levels. Randsburg is part of a cluster of ghost towns in the Mojave Desert close to the junction of Hwy 395 and Hwy 14. There is a…
Owens Valley, Keeler, CA. It took me a minute to realize I was standing in the middle of a political art installation, prompted, apparently, by decades old venom directed at the Los Angeles Department of Water. A grassy expanse rolled out ahead of us, the snow-covered Sierra Nevada Mountains spectacular in the background. Fair weather…
Amargosa Opera House Hotel, Death Valley Junction, CA. I wasn’t prepared for the noose hanging in the abandoned room, the peacock fan headboard with the strange glow, the untraceable bridal reflections in the swinging kitchen doors, and unwelcoming feel. It was the cold of an influenza winter from the perspective of the survivors, clinging to…
Trona Pinnacles, Searles Valley, CA. Take Highway 178 east from the Kern River Valley. Watch the landscape shift from California golden homestead to pioneer death trap. Look for the power spot. The Trona Pinnacles are a geologic anomaly where calcium-rich groundwater met alkaline lake water over thousands of years. The result is a ghost lake…
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