Highways 395 & 95 And High Weirdness

Another road trip to southern California, the kid and I set off down highway 395. It's pretty sparsely populated with a series of small towns threaded the length of the Owens valley.

One of these is Lone Pine. Lone Pine is apparently home to several wits. Their 'welcome' sign routinely 'gets damaged in the weather' (wink, wink) and ends up looking like an opening scene from a Blumhouse movie.

LOTS OF HARM. LOTS OF IT.

This time, the 'Welcome' sign was, sadly, intact.  But never fear, some wag had set up a bit of public art!

Lone Pine has a special tree, grown from a seedling sent from England in 1900. You can see it behind the sign, on the left.

OK, cool little public interest thing...

Then we see what's lurking under the tree. It scared the Hell outta the kid at first, she thought it was a real person.

 

Haha. OK, we walk past the sign for the tree to check it out...

But wait...under the sign for the tree, people have hung...things.

You know...things.

The kid spots this hanging junk and slams to a halt, her instincts perfectly in place. She's already unhappy with the fake frozen guy, and this weird shit isn't helping. "Mom...why is that stuff hanging there...?"
I don't know, I tell her.
"But...wait--is that a ROCK?!  Why did someone hang up rocks?!" Sounding decidedly freaked out. I turn, and her eyes are practically spinning around in her head.

I still don't know, but I'm thinkin' next time we go by, I'd better be ready and leave a fetish of our own. I'm sure I can come up with something... 

Meanwhile, we skirt the tree to get a closer look at frozen guy.

It was marvelously creepy and we heartily approved.  As we left, some people in a van screeched to a halt and exited their car laughing and pointing at the thing. We left them to discover the weird hanging junk display.

On the way home, weather on 395 demanded we detour up through Nevada on highway 95, which is wonderful and chock full of desert weirdness.
When you leave Bishop and fling yourself out on highway 6--the gateway to highway 95--they *warn* you.

Gas up, babies.

From there, you cross the White mountains, say a prayer to the gods of your choice and get on highway 95, traveling up through Nevada. There is *very* little out there...except mining towns and brothels.

 Hey, here in Nevada we have STANDARDS.

Sue's motel. I looove this sign...

Sadly the motel is derelict.

LIVING UNDER POWER LINES CANNOT HURT YOU OR AFFECT YOUR BRAIN.

Again, Nevada.  Weird is kinda what we *do* here.


Among other things Hawthorne has a military museum. A dog park adjacent is home to these wind sculptures made from surplus military bombs and other cool stuff.

These flowers turn in the wind and are a real eye catcher.

Some day when we have more time (and it isn't either the dead of winter or height of summer) we'll go back for a more extended trip to explore!

Three Months To Go...

With the new year clicking over, it's nearly official--Pong, our bantam Cochin/Belgian d'Uccle Frizzle mix whom we hatched in 2003 will turn 16 in March, becoming the World's Oldest Chicken! At that time I'll contact Guinness to make it official.

Because she's gotten so frail and our icy winter weather is here, Pong has been living in the dining room for the last few months in an enclosure I made for her--it's just like our springtime brooder boxes, complete with a hardware cloth window. When the dogs are outside Pong gets the run of the house, though. Not that she does a whole lot of running.  Mostly she likes to sit in the sunny spot in the living room, because old ladies do love 'em some sun.

 And mealworms. Here she is irritated with me for interrupting Mealworm Time.

Yup. Busy, mom--can't talk, MEALWORMS.


Pardon the dirty face fluffies, she'd been eating grapes before the mealworms and chickens do not do such things neatly. She also needs a pedicure, because she hasn't been able to scratch around in the dirt as much as she should.

Such a cutie! She's almost 100% blind in her right eye, but gets around just fine.

Hang in there, Pong. March is almost here!