Let's Go For A Drive!

So today we decided to go out and find the kid some snow to play in, since yesterday's storm kinda skunked us here on the valley floor.  We tossed the sled into the car and off we went, decided today to aim for the Pine Nut range across the valley--we hadn't been out there yet and wanted to explore anyway.

Unfortunately, the storm hadn't cooperated and there was no snow to be had.

But we had a nice drive anyway and got to explore a bit, which is always fun!  Down one of the roads we found a cool old barn--around here you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a cool old barn--that was tantalizingly close to the road yet fenced off.

Just as well it's fenced off since the dry stone walls were falling apart.  I *think* this was a dairy barn with animals below and hay storage above--note the hay loft carrier arm sticking out on the left side and the lack of windows in the second story.  There is also a very small house to the left of the barn, it was so overgrown with trees I couldn't get any shots of it.

But the barn was fascinating!

 There is some kind of machinery on the left, it appears to be a large green tank. The entire lower floor almost looked house-like.

On the top of the barn is this decorative vent.

Down the road a little ways and we come upon this massive old cottonwood tree.

It honest to God looks like something out of a Tim Burton movie.

Haha...naw, it doesn't have eyes.

it's got eyes it's got eyes it's got eyes--!

I think this tree had a starring role in 'Poltergeist'.

Alongside cool old tree was a nifty, but puzzling, bridge arrangement over a creek.

There are a total of THREE bridges over the creek--the wooden one, the fixed metal one and the metal two-part drawbridge. The area was fenced and posted against trespassing so I couldn't go over to get a better look, so I can't for the life of me figure out why three bridges are needed--I could see two, if you needed to lead an animal over one bridge while you used the other--but the wierd low-mounted drawbridge is perplexing.

It's actually probably gonna kinda bug the crap outta me until I get it figured out, truth be known...
Oh well.  Back down the road...

Where we suddenly come across some cool yard art!

This guy had a gigantic steel dragon, bottle trees, old farm equipment, metal sculptures...

All kinds of cool stuff!

I liked the dragon best.

The artist was smart enough to guy-wire the thing down so he wouldn't fly away in one of our epic Nevada windstorms. I can just imagine the frantic 911 calls if that happened...

I especially liked the dragon's head.

Great, now *I* need a giant dragon for *my* yard.

Despite the snow in the background of all these pictures, we couldn't get to it in the amount of time we had, so instead we stopped off at the park around the corner from our house to visit the resident ducks and the non-flying Canadian Goose (he has a wonky wing) who lives at the pond.  For some reason the goose looked like a 'George' to me, so that's what I've decided to call him.

We hadn't thought to bring any bread so they pretty much snubbed us.

After this it was time to get home and feed the chickens before they snubbed us, too.

Yerington, Future Ghost Town

Today we went out to look around Yerington as a possible place to live. I remembered it from years ago as a cute, small community tucked back out of the way.

It still is today, but since the HUGE, old, open-pit abandoned copper mine got designated a SuperFund cleanup site years ago, Yerington has been slowly dying since then. It's a shame too, since it was a lovely valley with agriculture all around--mostly cattle and alfalfa fields. It struck us as so odd the day we were there, and the home prices so low, that we checked it out online.

Wow. Literally every superbad, toxic thing you can think of is polluting Yerington. Right down to about 6 different kinds of radioactive horrors. It's in the ground, water and air. They even have to have bottled water shipped in for some of the residents.

Move there with a 12 year old child? Thank you, NO.

But our trip there wasn't entirely wasted, we got to see the town in it's not-so-arrested decay and the few people still there, and at least it gave us information on where NOT to look for a home.

The city water tanks...

The old drive-in...

One of the doors of the concession stand was kicked open, we didn't go in but I stuck the camera in and snapped a couple of pics. My guess on the age of the popcorn maker and freezer unit would be about mid-1960's.

Further into town was this awesome old abandoned brick building with two old gas pumps still standing--we were astounded some jerk hadn't made off with them yet.

People had even carved their names into the old, soft brick on the front of the buil--

HEY! Now that's just plain uncalled for.

We were puttering around, checking out this cool old building and telling the kid how the old gas pumps worked (marveling at 49 cents a gallon), when a man in the little park across the street called out to us, "Don't forget to check out the lady in the window!"

Huh? We looked up. And damned if there wasn't a lady in the window!

She is a happy accident, formed by the way the window broke. Very cool!

The corner sidewalk, still with it's street name inlaid.

We wave our thanks to the man and continue down the street.

Nothing on this old place is square anymore.

The last thing we see is one of those houses where the people have created weird and wonderful yard art. I can't decide if I like SpiderTurkey or RailroadDeadGhostCow best.

All in all, a fun day, even though it left us sad for Yerington.