Day 10, Part 1: Monday, May 1st, 2006
Beatty, Nevada to Death Valley National Park and back
I wake up bright and early on Monday morning in Beatty, Nevada, in anticipation of visiting Death Valley again, after being away from it for nine years. Even though I went to bed the night before not knowing exactly what I could accomplish there--after having seen so much of it in my first visit--I am inspired upon awakening to drive down to Badwater Basin, the lowest point in the western hemisphere, and throw my frisbee through the negative space over the empty, salt-caked flats at the bottom of the valley.
On the way to Death Valley, I take care of some more unfinished business by visiting the ghost town of Rhyolite. I had planned on coming here nine years ago, but decided against it at the last minute after an encounter with a washboard road and an unspectacular something called the "Lunar Crater" in central Nevada. Sometime between then and now, I learned that the road to Rhyolite is paved the whole way, and so I drive into it without fear on a bright and sunny Monday morning.
Rhyolite boomed in the early twentieth century with the discovery of silver in the surrounding mountains. It quickly grew to the size of about 10,000 people--becoming one of the largest towns in Nevada in the process--before crashing in the Panic of 1907. All that's left of it now are the gutted ruins of some of the sturdier buildings. This one happened to be the bank.
Across the street is the HD & LD Porter building. Apparently it was built in 1906.
In the broken-down foundation of one building are hundreds of rusted-out cans--grim souvenirs of a rough-and-tumble lifestyle that no one's lived for a hundred years.
This building appeared to be all that was left of what used to be somebody's house. I walked over to look inside of it and was startled by a bird that flew out from one of the rafters inside.
Another desert bird soars silently overhead, waiting for something to die.
Maybe even waiting for me to die.
Beyond the ghost town ruins and the scrubby Amargosa Desert, I can see the snow-capped pinnacle of Telescope Peak, beckoning me on towards the valley of death.
