Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes – Splattered Brains

Weekly Photo Challenge: Lines

I personalized this week’s challenge in its interpretation – to try to find pictures from various recent travels that derive a significant part of their character from the presence of lines in them. I was moderately successful, I think!

This is a picture from the window of our hotel room in Reno, NV, during a trip early in 2017. OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA This is a picture of a hotel in Mammoth Lakes, CA. The lines on this hotel came to life in the early morning light.The lines on the sand dunes of Mesquite Flat in Death Valley, CA, are the only natural ones that I have in this collection of pictures. You will notice that these lines are the only ones where there are curves that are obvious. (There is probably a lesson somewhere in there!) OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA A couple of months later we visited the New England area. This picture shows the lines on one of the trains on the Mt. Washington Cog Railway in New Hampshire. The engine is at a different angle than the carriage because it is stopped at the edge of the slope.Lines and angles dominate the picture of this covered bridge over the Ammonoosuc river in Littleton, NH. OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA The lines on the Icefields Parkway dominated my six day bike ride through the Canadian Rockies in the later half of 2017.This picture was taken in St. Louis, MO later in 2017. It should not be difficult to guess what the subject matter of this picture is.This picture was taken at Middle of the Earth, just outside of Quito, in Ecuador on the equatorial line in November 2017.This picture is of a corridor in the Design Hotel in Chennai in India at the end of the year. This is considered a “boutique hotel“. OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA I love the lines on the Boeing 787-9 that we saw at Charles de Gaulle airport on our way back from India.The lines of the roof at this gas station in Effingham, IL, caught my eye during a road trip earlier this year. Yes, we had some late-season snow in our part of the world, but it is all over now! OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Death Valley Views

Ever since the days of my youth, I used to imagine what the great open expanses of the wild west would look like. (Some of my visions may have been a result of seeing too many Westerns!) I felt the urge to visit those places some day. I was not disappointed during the trip to Death Valley.

Driving into Death Valley under partly cloudy skies

Death Valley from Dante’s Peak

Death Valley from the Beatty Cutoff road

View from Zabriskie Point (early enough in the morning that the shadow of the structure on the viewpoint is visible)

Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes

Death Valley, The White Man Cometh

Death Valley was the home to the Timbisha Shoshone group of Native Americans for a long time (about a thousand years) before the White Man made his appearance. They called the land Tüpippüh. It was not an easy place to live in, but the Timbisha did not think of it as a place of death. They adapted to the region and found a way to live off the land using whatever natural resources were available in a sustainable manner. Indeed, if you go to the desert, it is not really devoid of life. There are hardy plants that have found a way to survive in the tough conditions, and even flowers during this spring season which has brought an excess of rain to California.

On the road to Dante’s View

Near Rainbow Canyon

Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes

On California State Highway 190

Ubehebe Crater

Dante’s View

Beatty Cutoff Road

Salt Creek

Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes

Beatty Cutoff Road

Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes

On California State Highway 190

Beatty Cutoff Road

There is even flowing water in the desert (this picture is from Salt Creek) OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA and animal life that has found a way to survive.

Salt Creek

Badwater

Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes

One of the wonders of this desert is the endangered pupfish,

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA a fish that can survive in the saline waters of Salt Creek. You can see literally thousands of these tiny fish in the clear water.

The White Man was the one who named the place Death Valley. Their initial passage through the desert on their way west in search of gold was not an easy one, and life in the desert has not become that much easier since then.

But the fact that the White People had such a negative impression of the place did not prevent them from eventually trying to exploit the resources of the area. Borax, talc and silver were mined. The Harmony Borax Works was known for their 20 mule teamsthat were used to transport the Borax out of the valley. Development in the desert got to the point where they even built a resort (still in operation as a high-end hotel, The Inn at Furnace Creek), and a railroad line to bring people into the area. OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA But the only things that survive today in the desert from the non-Native American perspective are for the tourist, a tourist who is interested in experiencing the natural wonder of the place, and perhaps even learn something, while willing at the same time to tolerate the extreme weather conditions.

The only places of commercial operation remaining are at Panamint Springs, OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA Stovepipe Wells, and Furnace Creek.The once thriving mining towns are now ghost towns that are only visited by the tourists. We went to the ghost town of Rhyolite just outside the park boundary across the state border in Nevada.

Ruins of the Cook Bank building in the background

A caboose, formerly used as a gas station

A Joshua tree next to a remains of the old train station

The National Park Service manages the park out of a location very close to Furnace Creek, with a Visitor Center at Furnace Creek itself. It is good to note that the Visitor Center has been upgraded over the years to operate in an environmentally conscious manner. OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Death Valley was declared a National Monument, i.e., a protected area, in 1933 and became a National Park only in 1994. While the coming of the White Man and the mining operations in the 19th century began to change the Timbisha’s way of life, the designation of the place as a National Monument actually hastened the loss of their land. The small numbers that remained finally ended up, unofficially, on a little patch of land near Furnace Creek for many years. It was only in the 1980s that they finally were officially recognized as a tribe. They continued to occupy the small space they had near Furnace Creek, but also continued to battle the federal government for more of their land in the courts. It was only in the late 1990s, well after the formation of the park, that they got additional land for their use in the park. These days the park service has formed a partnership with the tribe when if comes to running of the park to ensure that resources within the park and the Timbisha’s traditional homeland are protected and enhanced.

You can read more about the history of the Timbisha Shoshone here or here.

The struggles of the Native Americans is an ongoing story. Consider recent news from South Dakota. I cannot help thinking that because of our greed we are not good at learning our lessons from history.