2023 Reading Challenge Completed!

In 2023 I set out with a reading goal of 39 books.  If that seems like an odd number, I set my goal to be one book higher than what I read the previous year.  So in 2022, I read 38 books.  This year, I surpassed my goal, with 43 books!  Those 43 books had 16,155 pages.  Not bad!  I have a few other books that I started but haven’t finished, so maybe I’ll wrap those up in the new year! And yes, I read an eclectic mix of books, with literary fiction, thrillers, memoirs and non-fiction history all thrown into the pile.  Plus this year I read some poetry and a book of short stories too!  Do you track your reading?  How many books did you read this year?

1. Before We Were Yours, by Lisa Wingate (342 pages)
2. Black Count, by Tom Reiss (414 pages)
3. Immoveable Feast: A Paris Christmas, by John Baxter (270 pages)
4. The Reading List, by Sara Nisha Adams (368 pages)
5. Love and Ruin, by Paula McClain (389 pages)
6. Housebreaking, by Colleen Hubbard (368 pages)
7. The “Unholy” Apostles, by James M. Keller (160 pages)
8. Middling Folk, by Linda H. Matthews (384 pages)
9. The Little Old Lady Who Broke All the Rules, by Catherina Ingelman-Sundberg (393 pages)
10. Extreme Prey, by John Sandford (406 pages)
11. Undaunted Courage, by Stephen E. Ambrose (521 pages)
12. An Affectionate Farewell, by Trudy Krisher (32 pages)
13. Bodega, by Su Hwang (96 pages)
14. Long Bright River, by Liz Moore (482 pages)
15. Florence Adler Swims Forever, by Rachel Beanland (309 pages)
16. This Tender Land, by William Kent Krueger (450 pages)
17. The Monuments Men, by Robert M. Edsel (473 pages)
18. Mistress of the Art of Death, by Ariana Franklin (400 pages)
19. Call Us What We Carry, by Amanda Gorman (228 pages)
20. Women Talking, by Miriam Toews (240 pages)
21. The Teahouse Fire, by Ellis Avery (960 pages)
22. Harlem Shuffle, by Colson Whitehead (342 pages)
23. A Gentleman in Moscow, by Amor Towles (462 pages)
24. Two in the Far North, by Margaret Murie (376 pages)
25. A Death in Vienna, by Daniel Silva (424 pages)
26. Locked On, by Tom Clancy (592 pages)
27. The Colony, by Audrey Magee (384 pages)
28. The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, by V.E. Schwab (448 pages)
29. The Taken Ones, by Jess Lourey (332 pages)
30. What Strange Paradise, by Omar El Akkad (256 pages)
31. The Burning, by Tim Madigan (343 pages)
32. Never Play Dead, by Tomi Lahren (256 pages)
33. The Dressmakers of Auschwitz, by Lucy Adlington (400 pages)
34. Read This and Tell Me What it Says, by A. Manette Ansay (160 pages)
35. Band of Sisters, by Lauren Willig (544 pages)
36. Explorers of the Nile, by Tim Jeal (510 pages)
37. The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek, by Kim Michele Richardson (320 pages)
38. The Last Van Gogh, by Alyson Richman (320 pages)
39. Hester, by Laurie Lico Albanese (352 pages)
40. The Four Winds, by Kristin Hannah (480 pages)
41. The Haunting of Alma Fielding, by Kate Summerscale (368 pages)
42. Still Life, by Sarah Winman (480 pages)
43. The Overton Window, by Glenn Beck (321 pages)

16,155 pages total.

So Long 2023 – I’m Done with You!

What a whirlwind year – I can’t believe it is time for my year in review!  Oh dearest 2023 – what can I possibly say about this year?!

2023 marked the first year in my entire adult life that I haven’t “worked.”  That is, I haven’t worked for pay.  I quit my job and retired over a year ago on September 20, 2022 and it has been nice!  Honestly, the only thing I miss about working is the friendships and social connections.  I don’t miss the stress and the drama.  Well, I suppose I miss the higher paycheck too, but I’m doing fine.

This year ended up being really busy.  My mom had been planning her move to be closer to me in Minnesota, and I flew out to Washington for three weeks in February to go to a friend’s 60th birthday party, and to help mom with the long process of downsizing her life.  Since I had made major achievements in this area of my life the previous year, I consider myself an expert!  Haha – not.  But I did my best.

Mom ended up finding a house here that she liked in March, and she made an offer.  When it was accepted, the race was on!  I flew out to Washington in mid-April to really get down to the business of mom’s move.  Of course, because things don’t always go according to plan, that house ended up having water in the basement when the spring thaw came; the basement mom wanted to use extensively for storage.  So we backed out of that deal.

Mom had already scheduled movers and made the decision to list her home in Washington, so we now had to see if we could find her a different house.  It’s a very unique experience to do a walk through of a home on video chat, and buy it sight unseen (in person anyway).  I know people have been doing business moves this way for ages, and even just based on photographs, but it is a strange concept for sure!  Luckily mom found a home that actually works better for her needs, and is closer to me to boot!  It has been nice having mom only three miles away; it makes popping over for dinner or a movie, or to borrow something fast and easy!

I ended up spending close to two and a half months in Washington on that second trip.  It was super busy.  We were purging and packing every day, with the exception of a brief respite when the house first listed.  And I was trying to fit in as much time as possible with friends in the evenings.  I was definitely burning the candle at both ends. 

Mom and I departed with her loaded car on June 21.  We had four days to make the trip in order to meet the moving van, and we made some stops along the way.  We saw the Cataldo Mission near Couer d’Alene, Idaho, and walked the streets and shops of Wallace, Idaho for an hour or so.  We saw the incredible mineral museum in Butte, Montana, at the Montana Tech campus.

In Bismarck, North Dakota we visited Keelboat Park, to see a replica of the keelboat designed by Captain Meriwether Lewis on their famous expedition.  We also visited Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park in Mandan, North Dakota, to tour the reconstructed On-A-Slant Mandan village and the commander’s home of Lt. Colonel George Armstrong Custer. Custer lived here from 1873, until his death at Little Bighorn in 1876.  Of course, we also made brief visits to some impressive giant statues!  Salem Sue, the world’s largest Holstein Cow, received a sunset visit.  And Sandy, the world’s largest Sandhill Crane, got a brief stop on a rainy last day of driving.

The next month was a flurry of activity at mom’s house, as we unpacked, arranged, and tried to create a sense of order in the chaos.  Once that was done, it was time for me to take a vacation!

I returned to Washington at the end of July; I spent a week touristing through North Dakota and Montana and then spent a glorious five weeks with my friends, and enjoying summer in the Pacific Northwest.  I had only one chore while I was there; to clear a couple of last pieces of furniture that remained in mom’s house.  With the help of a friend who was furnishing a new place, and another friend with a truck, it didn’t end up being too burdensome!  Get the tape measure!

I spent my time reading, exploring, seeing friends, beachcombing, and capped it off with almost a full week on the Oregon Coast.  The weather was cool but dry, about as good as you can expect for the Oregon Coast in August.  I found tons of agates, revisited some of my favorite restaurants and camped at Beverly Beach.  It was glorious!

Roads End Driftwood

It was time to return home in early September, and I went back to Minnesota by way of Eastern Oregon and Idaho.  I saw some new to me places, including John Day Fossil Beds, the Polka Dot Agate mine (where you can dig for thundereggs!), the Idaho potato museum, and Virginia City and Nevada City in Montana, and the Enchanted Highway in North Dakota. 

Later in September, mom and I took a whirlwind road trip down to Knoxville, Tennessee to go to her jewelry-making workshop again.  We didn’t really sightsee this time, but instead I signed up for the workshop and actually made some jewelry!  It was fun, but I have a long way to go before I would consider myself anywhere near competent at jewelry-making.  And in a strange twist of fate and timing, I got to see my cousin and her husband for lunch in Louisville, Kentucky!

One thing about getting older is that I’m not willing to deal with other people’s drama and bad behavior; I’m just no longer willing to allow people to mess with my peace.  I left my job last year because of my toxic boss.  This year continued that theme.  Sadly, there were a few people who I had to remove from my life; they were simply creating too much chaos.  With that, I restored my peace, and I’ve been a lot happier since.  Word of advice – you are the one who has to live your life.  So, if you feel that toxic people need to go, don’t fall prey to the guilt trips that they try to throw in your face.  Your peace isn’t worth it! 

Since I’ve been back in Minnesota I have been nesting, doing some home maintenance, and relaxing.  I have been rearranging my house, and unpacking things that I now have room to put out.  I have also been reading and writing more here!  I’m almost done writing about my big road trip back in 2018 (where have the last 5 years gone!?), and I’m excited to move on to more recent adventures.  With a couple of minimal travel years, it shouldn’t take nearly so long to catch up.  The 2018 trip was unique in that there was almost four months of daily adventures, and often visiting more than one place in a day!  You can be sure I’ll be blogging more about the places I went this year! 

Cora, Yellow and the chickens are all still hanging out, living their best lives.  Unfortunately Yellow’s kidney’s are failing, so I’m giving him supplemental fluids every day to keep him feeling better.  I’ve been down this road before, and I know the eventual ending, but for now he’s tolerating the fluids, and still enjoying life. 

 

All I have to say is that life throws some curveballs.  I didn’t expect some of the things that happened this year, and it certainly changed my long term outlook and plans.  Some were good, some were bad, some are still in the planning phase.  I’m proud of myself for standing my ground and standing up for my boundaries.  I am hopeful for 2024, in more ways than one.  Life is what you make it, and although sometimes you can’t control what happens to you, you can control your reaction to it.  Enough said.  Bring on 2024!

 

Book Review: The Haunting of Alma Fielding

The Haunting of Alma Fielding, by Kate Summerscale

I was perusing the books on the Libby app when I saw this one and was intrigued.  The true story of a poltergeist haunting in England in the 1930s, that was researched at the time!  What better way to finally figure out whether ghosts are real?

I checked it out, and eventually learned that I was not going to come any closer to learning whether ghosts are real.  But it took this book a while to get there. 

As it turns out, Alma Fielding was a 34 year old English housewife who began experiencing poltergeist activity in 1938.  Knowing the police would not do anything about it, she decided to turn to the media, and invite other readers to share their stories of the supernatural.  This led Nandor Fodor to Alma; he was a psychical researcher as they were known at the time, and he forged a friendship with Alma for the purpose of studying her and the phenomenon.

Over the next several months, the activity increased to include glassware and other household objects, jewelry and other items, even small live animals, manifesting themselves, flying across the room and appearing in her clothing.  Jewelry disappeared from stores Alma visited, and appeared later in her purse or pockets.  But was it a ghost or was Alma just a talented showman?  Fodor came to believe that Alma’s past trauma, as well as her husband’s experience in World War I, were also having an effect on her and impacting the poltergeist activity.

Alma was a sport though, and agreed to appear at seances, subject herself to various experiments, and allow nude searches and specifically fitted garments to prevent any ability to fake the manifestation of objects.  However, the original investigation, and this book, never truly settled the question of whether the haunting was real or an elaborate hoax, and at the end I was no closer to learning the truth.  It seems I have to be satisfied with a maybe.

The book had a lot of interesting parts, and I was interested in the information on seances and the increasing in “hauntings” during the period after the wars.  But it often felt like simply a list of the objects that Alma manifested, and the experiments they subjected her to, rather than a more engaging story of her experience. 

Unfortunately, an audiobook narrator with a horribly monotonous tone made the audio version of the book somewhat painful to get through, but he was remarkably successful in lulling me to sleeping when I listened in bed at the end of the day.

I really wanted to like this book, but sadly, it ended up being a dud for me.

2 stars.

Circus Trip 2018: Manzanar NHS

Day 88, Thursday, October 11, 2018
Manzanar National Historic Site, Independence, California

After my visit to Death Valley, I began my trek north on the Eastern side of the Sierra Nevada mountain range in California.  I stopped to visit Manzanar National Historic Site in eastern California.  Manzanar has a sad and interesting history as an internment camp for Japanese Americans during World War II.  In a shameful event in American history, Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942, which forced Japanese-Americans and those of Japanese descent into concentration camps for the duration of World War II.  Pearl Harbor had occurred just over two months before, and anti-Japanese sentiment was running high in the United States at the time.

 

The first internees arrived at Manzanar War Relocation Center in March 1942, and worked to set up their new homes.  “Home” is a bit of a stretch, as the prisoners lived in wood and tar paper barracks, with almost no privacy and very little protection from the elements.  Manzanar is at an elevation of 4,000 feet, and temperatures in summer soared above 100 degrees and went down below freezing during winter nights.  Within months, the camp housed more than 10,000 people, mostly from Los Angeles, California, and some from coastal areas in Washington.  Over 11,000 people lived at Manzanar during the period that the camp was open. 

The camp was intended to be self-sufficient, with residents working in the camp.  There were gardens, chicken and hogs raised for eggs and meat, schools, recreation, and even a camp newspaper.  People did their best to continue on with their lives, and make the best of their imprisonment. Many of the prisoners worked for the war effort, with women weaving camouflage netting.  I’m sure the irony of helping a country that considered them enemies of the state wasn’t lost on them.

When I visited, I arrived about 4:20 in the afternoon, and the ranger explained that the visitor’s center was closing for the day, but he gave me a map and let me know that I could stay later to do the driving tour.  I was alone at the site, and took my time wandering.  The 3.2 mile auto tour route takes visitors by the Block 14 buildings, which included a reconstructed barracks, the reconstructed women’s latrine, and a 1942 Mess Hall that was relocated from Bishop Air Base and restored.  Unfortunately these buildings were closed for the day, but I would like to return to see them.

I also was able to see the original sentry towers, uncovered Japanese Gardens, and the Cemetery Monument.  Over 150 people died at Manzanar, although many of them were cremated and returned to their families.  Fifteen prisoners were buried in a small cemetery outside of the camp’s perimeter, and nine families removed their loved ones’ remains after the war.  Six people remain interred there.  There isn’t a lot there now, so it takes some imagination to envision a camp that housed so many. 

During the war, over 120,000 citizens and permanent residents of Japanese descent were held prisoner in ten camps in the United States; Manzanar was one of the smaller camps.  They were finally released in November, 1945.  Now it is a remote, quiet place, but it is easy to see how hard life would have been there for the internees, especially without basic conveniences and appropriate housing.

Sadly, once they were released, their lives did not return to normal.  Many prisoners went home only to find their property had been sold, their possessions stolen, and their businesses closed.  There were some internees who had friends in their communities who protected their homes, businesses and belongings, but those were few and far between.  Most families had to start over, and some never returned to the communities where they lived before the war. 

It was a humbling, somber experience to visit Manzanar, and I hope more Americans learn about what happened here.  97,382 people visited Manzanar in 2019, and I hope you consider seeing this important place in American history. 

Retirement Diaries 2023: Merry Christmas to All

It’s a snowless Christmas here in Minnesota.  In fact, it is raining, which reminds me of many a Christmas in Washington.  There’s has been a drought here this year, so the rain is probably a good thing, although it is not so fun for a Christmas morning walk.

Christmas is quiet here.  My mom is coming over this afternoon and we’ll have ham and fixings, open presents and maybe watch a Christmas movie.  No traveling for Christmas this year, but I still hold out hope that one day I’ll spend my Christmas hiking in a National Park! 

I worked yesterday on a photo project for my mom.  It was certainly a trip down memory lane, of travels and family.  I have been blessed with family, friends, pets and the many places I have been.  

I hope all of you are blessed with a Merry Christmas as well!

 

Book Review: The Four Winds

The Four Winds, by Kristin Hannah

Kristin Hannah has been popping up a lot in my world lately for her historical fiction books, and I have been curious to read one.  Unfortunately, you don’t run across them often in the Little Libraries or the library book sales and I had been going through a bunch of already downloaded audiobooks first.  So when it was time to start a new audiobook, I finally went on a search of the library selection to see what was available, and The Four Winds came up as available.

 

Elsa Wolcott was the plain Jane daughter of a well-do-do business owner and his wife in Texas.  She feels unloved, because her parents never really seem to notice her. She’s starved for attention when she unexpectedly meets an Italian boy, Rafe Martinelli, who lives in a nearby town.  Against her better judgment, Elsa finds herself drawn to him and soon pregnant, and her parents turn her out to marry the boy.  Elsa is terrified, but makes the most of her new life, new marriage and new family.

Years later, hard times and the devastation of the Dust Bowl falls on Texas and the Martinelli family, and things get so bad Elsa must choose whether to stay in Texas, where everything is buried under feet of sand and dirt, or make her way to California with droves of other Americans escaping the dust storms and desolation of the prairie states.

Hannah writes a gripping novel, which makes the reader feel for the Martinelli family; the anger, the despair, the hope.  She does not sugarcoat the experience of the Dust Bowl, or the migrant laborers who moved to California to pick crops and became indebted to the company store.  If anything, the reader has to look hard to find the pieces of joy and happiness in this book, but it held my interest, as I wanted better things for Elsa and her family.

The ending was shocking and not at all what I expected, and I was a bit disappointed by it; I think a different ending would have received a higher rating from me. 

3 stars. 

Retirement Diaries 2023: Frigid

Now that I’m feeling better from my cold, the weather has gotten frigidly cold.  It’s 16 degrees now, with a high of 24 today, and a high “real feel” of 16 because of the wind chill.  Yuck.  I’m getting used to having to check the temperature before I get dressed in the morning, because that beautiful sunshine outside is deceiving!  We still only have a sprinkle of snow on the ground, but I didn’t sleep well last night because of the high winds.  I never sleep well when it is windy.

This morning I got up and chopped veggies, made gravy and tossed it all into the crock pot with seasonings, a splash of white wine and a roast.  I’m driving mom to the doctor today – about an hour and 15 minute drive each way – and I’m excited to have dinner already made and waiting for us when we get home.  I haven’t tried this recipe before, so it counts as recipe night too!  Now I just have to stay awake for the drive!

I’m not ready for Christmas.  Being sick set me back on being able to do anything, but fortunately it will be low key anyway.  I have done some things, so I suppose I’m ahead of some people, although I’m not sure who those some people are.  I still dream of just traveling for Christmas, and spending the day hiking in some warm, sunny climate.  Sigh…

Of course, being sick means that I haven’t really been anywhere, or done anything, so you will have to settle for this recycled photo of my adorable kitties!

Yellow has decided he doesn’t really like his kidney food, after liking it at first.  Cats really are like toddlers.  He does still like Cora’s weight management food, so I guess that’s better than nothing, but I ordered him some wet kidney food to see if that seems like more of a treat.  He’s not all that excited about wet food in general, so we will see.  It would be nice if you could reason with cats (I’m sure people with toddlers agree wholeheartedly) and get them to do the things that are for their own good.

I surpassed my annual goal for number of books read!  I’m now at 41, and with two more weeks of the month, I’m sure I will finish at least one more!

 

Book Review: The Last Van Gogh

The Last Van Gogh, by Alyson Richman

Everyone knows something about the life of artist Vincent van Gogh.  If you didn’t know that he committed suicide by shooting himself in the chest in July 1890, then you surely know about the incident where he cut off a portion of his own ear in December 1888. He struggled with mental illness his entire short life, and died at the young age of 37.

This novel by Alyson Richman is a fictionalized account of the last months of his life when he moved to Auvers-sur-Oise, north of Paris, France. While there, he was treated by Dr. Paul Gachet, an herbalist and doctor.  Van Gogh had just been released from the mental hospital after being there a year, and he was still fragile mentally.  All this is true, as well as the fact that van Gogh met Dr. Gachet’s 19 year old daughter Marguerite, and painted at least two paintings of her.

This novel is the story of a romance between van Gogh and Marguerite Gachet, a budding love story between a complicated man, and an isolated young woman.  Richman weaves in compelling motivations for each character, and draws on what is known about these people in real life.  Of course, as with any historical fiction, it is a guess about what happened, but the story-lines are plausible.

Richman poetically describes van Gogh’s style of painting, applying loads of bright color quickly, with a stylistic vagueness to his figures that still somehow captures the emotion of the scene.  As in real life, van Gogh often gave his paintings away to pay his debts, and he does so in the novel.  It is well researched, with Richman adding dates and details from van Gogh’s letters to his brother to create the scene. 

The reader can feel the hope and excitement of the budding romance, and of course the sadness and disappointment of its outcome.  I could identify with Marguerite, and could feel her joy and pain throughout the book.

4 stars. 

Book Review: Hester

Hester, by Laurie Lico Albanese

Every now and again, a book leaves you with a hangover.  You finish the story, and are left wanting more.  This one did that for me…

If you are anywhere close to my age, you probably had to read The Scarlet Letter in high school English.  Hawthorne’s works are challenging to say the least, with the 19th century language and the dark themes of Puritan New England.  But have you ever wondered about the inspiration for the story?  Have you ever wondered how Hester Prynne would tell her own story?

Hester is Laurie Lico Albanese’s imagining of what Hester Prynne would have been like.  She tells the story of a young woman, fresh off the ship from Scotland, with a useless husband and the unique gift of synesthesia.  Synesthesia is a phenomenon where stimulation of one sense activates another sense in that person.  The most common form, which the main character Isobel has, is grapheme–color synesthesia; in a nutshell it is when a person sees colors associated with letters, numbers or words.

Unfortunately for Isobel, this gift can be misinterpreted, and she has been cautioned by her mother to never “reveal her colors”, lest she be accused of witchcraft.  She uses her gift as a seamstress, making and embroidering clothes, and hopes to have her own shop in her new home of Salem, Massachusetts.  A chance meeting with writer Nathaniel Hawthorne changes her life forever, and puts her on a path to becoming one of the most famous fictional characters in American history.

Albanese’s novel tells a beautiful story of hardship and prejudice, mingling historical facts with her imaginative main character.  I was so invested in Isobel’s story, and felt every setback she had in achieving her dreams.  She was a strong woman who had to rely on her own strength, while creating relationships and learning who to trust along the way.

5 stars. 

.

Circus Trip 2018: Death Valley National Park

Day 87 & 88, Wednesday & Thursday, October 10 & 11, 2018
Death Valley National Park, Death Valley, California

I arrived at Death Valley National Park in the evening, and got a campsite at the Oasis Resort Campground.  Now, you should know that the Oasis Resort looked like an actual resort, with nice lodging and green, watered grass and a golf course.  The campground was, let’s just say, not an oasis.  It was basically a gravel parking lot, with a bizarre unisex portable bathroom (it wasn’t actually designed to be unisex, and rather was just a regular portable bathroom building that they let anyone into – UGH).  I hope they have fixed that bathroom issue by now, but that’s a story for another time.  However, for $15 a night the campground had one perk that was amazing!  The spring fed pool for the resort, with entrance included with your campground stay.  That pool was amazing!

I soaked for several hours that night in that pool.  It was a warm night, the water was warm and the dark skies made for an incredible view of the stars.  I just floated, watched the stars, and listened to the conversations going on around me.  It was one of the most incredible nights of my trip, just watching the stars from that warm swimming pool, and I would go back there just for that pool! Pictures won’t do it justice.

The next morning, I got up and wandered around the Oasis area of the park.  I had breakfast at the cafe, which seemed more like a cafeteria – the food was fine but nothing spectacular.  I checked out the equipment outside of the Borax Museum, but didn’t get to go inside because it didn’t open until 10 am.  One day I’ll get back there.  Then I went to the Visitor’s Center at Furnace Creek, got my passport stamp and postcards and headed out into the day.  I didn’t spend too much time there, as I wanted to do my sightseeing before it got too hot.

Badwater Basin

Badwater Basin is the lowest point in the United States, at 282 feet below sea level.  I walked out to the salt flats, and marveled at the fact that the walk was longer than it looked.  Keep that in mind if you walk out there on a hot day.  The salt dries into a honeycomb pattern, and it looks really neat, so I occupied myself with plenty of photos.  I was surprised that there were birds flitting about the saltwater pond.

Artist’s Palette Scenic Drive

The Artist’s Palette scenic drive was pretty, but it hadn’t rained recently when I visited, so the colors weren’t popping the way they do when the ground is wet.  Iron oxide and chlorites give the layers their bright colors.  I got out at the viewpoints and took photos and appreciated the scenery.  It was surprisingly not very busy, but they do say that sunrise and sunset offer the best times to view the colors here.

Zabriskie Point

The Zabriskie Point viewpoint was a bit more crowded with people checking out the surreal layered landscape.  It was named for Christian Zabriskie, one of the prominent men in the Pacific Coast Borax Company.  The largest peak of the landscape here is Manly Beacon, named for one of the gold rush prospectors who came through the area during the California Gold Rush; it rises 823 feet from the canyon floor.  You will probably recognize this view, parts of Star Wars: Return of the Jedi were filmed here.  This is one of the best spots for sunset in the park if you go.

I drove back to the Visitor’s Center as I was passing by and checked out the park movie.  It was interesting, as it showed the perspective of the Native Americans who had traveled and lived here historically.

Harmony Borax Works

Then I headed to see an old borax mining operation – fascinating!  The Harmony Borax Works was started in late 1883, and at its peak employed about 40 mostly Chinese workers.  It was a difficult operation, requiring extracting the sodium borate from the ore.  The ore was dumped into boiling water vats and carbonated soda was added, which made the borax dissolve and the lime and mud settle out.  Then the dissolved borax was moved into cooling vats, where it resolidified and crystallized on rods.  The finished borax was hauled by mule teams on a 165 mile, 10 day trip to Mojave, California.

On the 0.4 mile hike around the borax works, there was an old building where borax was extracted, old mining equipment, and a 20-mule team wagon.  That was so cool to see!  My mom has a Borax 20-mule team wagon model that my parents got before I was born.  It used to sit on my dad’s workbench when I was growing up, and I love looking at it.  It was neat to finally see the place where this model got its start.  I’ll have to get her to dig it out, so it can be displayed once more!

Sand Dunes

The last place I visited that day was the sand dunes.  The signs advertised that sidewinder rattlesnakes live here, but sadly I didn’t see any!  They do burrow underground to escape the hottest temperatures, and are often nocturnal to avoid the daytime heat.  I was fascinated by the fact that this park has so many different ecosystems within its boundaries.

Death Valley was an interesting place.  It doesn’t rank near the top of my favorite National Parks, due to its desolation and heat, but there are still places here that I would like to return to see.  I had to get on my way, and check out Eastern California!