Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Scotty's Castle and Moving rocks

Bev asked in an email this morning if we have seen the rocks that move on their own.  It is unexplained how the rocks move and remains so. The geologist in the family, Garry, cannot explain them, so ....

The tracks have curves and at places they are almost right angles.  The rocks vary in size and I have placed the photo of the car in front of the field to show scale. I thought they were much bigger rocks but they are quite small.  Bev, now we have seen this interesting place.

We visited Scotty Castle and the NP Ranger told us to forget visiting Racetrack (where the rocks can be seen within the park). He said that we could see them better if we left the National Park and drove into Nevada. His instructions were specific, drive a few miles into Nevada and at a SOFT EDGES sign there is a track onto the playa.  Sure enough there was the track and at the edge of the field, the moving rocks.
Photo: Garry Karner

SCOTTY'S CASTLE
What did I get from visiting this place? I saw a roadrunner up close and the Ranger gave us great directions to see the moving rocks. That was the good, then came the bad. We learned about Scotty. I would dislike Scotty if I met him (he is dead as are all the players in the story). This is a rather bizarre story of the friendship between a millionaire and the con-man who had swindled him. Scotty was a liar, cheat, rogue and story-teller, the type who sells mining rights to land he does not own. The greedy millionaire was aware of Scotty's lies but continued to fund him, was something else going on here? Sure, had to be. There again, the millionaire made his millions selling life insurance .... enough said!
The clock tower visible from the road.
The roadrunner in the parking lot.
The millionaire built the home on government land .... go figure!
Although she never visited Spain Mrs Johnson liked all things Spanish.  Some tiling comes from Spain but most tiling is imitation, made in the USA - same with the furniture. Ceiling beams are fake and on it goes - they were all about showing off their wealth.
I like the mining weather vane.
I do love the color of this plant.
See what I mean? Most of this is not real, not antique and not from Spain. I bet they these folks believed that they had class. Hmph!
Looks nice, but really .... fake!! The Johnson's were cheats just like Scotty. This was hard for me to hear the guide talk about. Just a month before I had been visiting Kees y Vicente in Madrid looking at an authentic Spanish mansion decorated with antiques - it was hard to wrap my head around these fakers.


MOVING ROCKS
We stop at the edge of the field of moving rocks.
The rocks in front of the car are the ones photographed on this page. Small aren't they?
Can you see the right angle turn? The track starts bottom right of the photograph.
Follow the forward rock's track back over to the right then up to two sharp right angles.


COYOTE
Well if you see a roadrunner then it follows that you would see a coyote.
Cotote catches Road Runner

UBEHEBE CRATER
To complete our day in the northern section of the park we drive to Ubehebe Crater to see hopefully and extinct volcano.



... and back at the ranch to moon comes up later tonight.

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