¡Que Dicha!

posted by Christopher James

It's cliché to say that the high desert country is a land of extremes, but clichés contain some measure of truth. Yesterday we stood at Badwater, Death Valley, the lowest point in the United States, and we could see the peaks of the Sierra Nevada, at more than 11,000 ft. They're only a few miles apart, but separated by dozens of ecosystems and temperature zones. The two places are totally alien to one another.


We made a short detour into California to visit Death Valley National Park and the Amargosa Opera House, two of our favorite places. The boundary here between Nevada and California is oblique, so it was difficult to survey. Before the definitive survey came through, the residents in Aurora voted in both California and Nevada to hedge their bets. The landscape, however, has never recognized the boundary. It's all the Great Basin.

The emptiness of the area excites me. It feels good to see some broad, slanted valley stretching out all around me, with nameless mountains and sometimes-creeks as the only residents. I imagine myself to be that surveyor, applying arbitrary geometry over nature's own zig-zag order. This, however, is a complete fantasy. The Great Basin is full of people, and we've been lucky to meet a few of them.


Outside of Death Valley lived the curious clan of Albert and Bessie Johnson and their con-man buddy, Scotty. Albert was a fabulously wealthy businessman, Bessie was his zealous wife. They built the wondrous castle in the canyon, but Scotty made it legendary. When tourists began exploring Death Valley in the first part of the 20th century, they came to see Scotty, his castle, and his prosperous gold mine. It was all a ruse, of course. There was no gold mine and the castle belonged to the Johnsons, but that wasn't the point. The three friends amused themselves by pulling one of the biggest pranks ever.


At times it feels the places themselves are pulling a con. Leaving Las Vegas we drove down the Strip. The gentle curve in the street and the towering heights of the casino-resorts made the different themes stack up against each other, like the geologic strata of a broken mountain range. Venetian–Paris–Mirage. Paleozoic–Mesozoic–Cenozoic. All distinct, not necessarily in the right order, deceptive.


When you visit the ghost town of Rhyolite, you'll see the beautiful casino, the mercantile, the Bottle House, all kept safe from our abusive natures by the fatherly caution of the Department of the Interior. But you'll pass the Goldwell Museum, too, a contemporary installation. The cutting-edge artists were inspired by the lost town's rotting skeleton, but they claim they're commenting on something older than Rhyolite and bigger than the desert.


We've all got our own pranks to play on the world as we go on our respective journeys. They help pass the time. A sort of motto for this way of life is carved into a beam at Scotty's Castle. ¡Que dicha! What a tale!

Location: Beatty