Rhyolite near Death Valley

Today is Day 1 of a Camera Club of Tucson photo trip to Death Valley and southern Nevada. We (5 of us in 2 cars) departed Tucson at 6:30 AM. We arrived late afternoon with about 45 minutes of light.  shot a few pix.  Headed for Beatty, Nevada nearby for motel and bad dinner.

Bebe is shooting the Caboose

Rhyolite is an old mining ghost town east of Death Valley.  Not much left here.  No people for sure.

Steve Dell Shooting the Caboose.  Me on this end shooting him.

 Several skeleton buildings left from 140 yrs ago.  Not much to shoot.  I am a railroad guy so enjoyed shooting this caboose.

HDR shot of Caboose

 A couple of bikers touring the country stopped for a little visit.  They collect stickers from their destinations.

This motor bike has seen a few states in USA.  Wow.

 One other piece of architecture caught our eye.  An old house whose walls were made from glass bottles stuck in the cement.  This is a lot of bottles.  I didn't take a picture of the house itself, prefering to get a couple more "artsy" shots for you.

Can you see me in the window shooting this house

House made of glass bottles all sides.  Here is a sample

Time to head to bed as we have a 5 AM departure for Zabriskie Point to shoot sunrise.  Stay tuned.

Tehachapi - Rain and snow.

Up this morning early and the sky had cleared out. Rained most of night so ground got a good soaking. Wind still strong and temps cold.

We headed out. 3 miles back to interstate at Yermo where we knew w could find a "decent" gas price for the desert. Filled up and headed west. Fire at was for snow and high winds on tehachapi pass. Sraddha drive over the desert as the winds really threw us around. Some tricky cross winds. Hit us as we circled around Mojave town. The windmills were doing a brisk business.

We stopped at Kramer junction where 395 and 58 cross to ask some eastbound truck drivers about pass conditions. Everyone said the winds were a factor but roads passable with no ice which was our biggest concerne since the temp in the Internet said 32 degrees. Anything above freezing was fine with us. The alternative route through Tejon Pass I-5 was a lot longer and had fog issues.


She pulled over just past Mojave and I hopped into the drivers seat. Started up the grade and found some snow. Fortunately we had waited a whole before heading out so temps were warming up a bit.

We passed Monolith cement factory. (see pic below) and through tehachapi. Beautiful snow covered hills greeted us and the roads, while wet, proved not icy.

As we descended Tehachapi pass and the famous tehachapi loop we saw 6 trains in process of climbing grade. Sraddha grabbed the iPhone camera and got a pic of one of them.

Snow turned to rain and rain dried out as we entered Bakersfield. We drove over to buttonwillow for our favorite salvadoran restaurant and also gassed up. Back in the Valley again.

As I write this fr the passenger seat, we are almost to our Lodi campground destination. Only 100 miles from he. We will relax by the delta tonight and enjoy one more night on the road. Tomorrow we will stop en route to do some shopping and be home leisurely by late afternoon.

More blog posts forthcoming to catch up on some missed spots. Charlie the RV will get a new home after being on the road 5 months. She will be close by and we will begin to consider next adventure.

Approaching Mojave Town.  Snow in the Tehachapi pass area.  Windmills busy.

Monolith Cement Plant near Tehachapi

Eastbound Train near Tehachapi Loop

Trains, Planes and Automobiles...(and a ferry)!

We are in Arizona at present and I behind in posting. Was speaking today with a good friend who reads this blog and he mentioned that, while all the photos are wonderful he was wondering where were the trains?  I reflected on this and realized I haven't posted any train shots either of real trains or of model trains during this trip.  Mostly because I haven't been photographing trains on this trip.

I have driven 2/3 the way across USA in motorhome,  thousands of miles in the jeep, flown in airplanes from Corpus Christi through Dallas to Sacramento and back.  Not one train pic.  My main excuse is that most of the time I was driving when the big trains passed by but really it hasn't been a focus.

Until we reached Houston which was the major reason to visit the area, well, possible birds along the beach areas, but you already knew that.

Morning Fog at Bolivar Ferry Terminal

Anyway, I met up early one morning with a friend, Rich, who lives in the Houston area.  I departed the RV about 6 AM in deep dark coastal fog.  About 35 minute drive to the Bolivar ferry which connects with Galveston.  30 minute ferry ride and I snapped this photo as we departed the dock.  Morning fog and the lights made it very eery.

UP Hump yard

We met on south side of Houston near his home and as we drove north to the railroad area, the sun burned off the haze.  We toured an engine maintenance facility and headed up to the main hump yard where inbound freight cars are sorted or classified into trains bound for new destinations.  4 engines were moving a string of cars over the back end. One was a plug with no cab.  Of interest is there is no engineer riding on train.  They copy model railroaders and run it remote control from the tower.

Mainline North South.  This train headed south

The track underneath is actually a north-south track running up Atlanta and south into Mexico.  This intersection used to be a bottleneck back in the 90's during the merger of the Union Pacific RR with the Southern Pacific RR.  Then more track was laid to smooth out interchange of trains and cars.  We saw about 4-5 trains per hour going through this area in all directions.  What a busy intersection.





Next step was a model railroad where we spent the afternoon running tiny trains.  Gordon Briggs has built a beautiful model of the old ATSF, or Santa Fe line between Los Angeles and Chicago.  His era is 1953 where the passenger train was king and trucks and airplanes were still mostly localized.  His scenery is very close model to the real thing in northern Arizona and Midwest.  I spent the afternoon running trains in his Winslow, Arizona yard while mainline trains zoomed by.  What fun.  Below are a couple photos I shot with iPhone and here is a link to a 4 minute video I posted on You Tube

Long day but fun.  Got my railroad fix for the trip.

Santa Fe Freights

El Capitan Eastbound across Arizona