Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Hawthorne, dithering, tomatoes

Yesterday I went to a temp job in Hawthorne. It's 140 miles from my house!

View Larger Map

It's a tiny little town very far in the middle of nowhere. It's incredibly patriotic, much more so than the other military towns I've been in - but there is literally no other reason for Hawthorne to exist, so I guess it makes sense. :) According to Wikipedia, I have now seen half of the towns of Mineral County - Hawthorne, Walker Lake, and Schurz. (Schurz is an Indian community named after a white politican - cultural sensitivity fail.)

I also saw the castle outside of Yerington. I had no idea it was there, so I just gawped as I drove past the small but very real castle. I am going to Yerington again next week, so I'll be ready to snap a picture when I see it again.

Pics!
Walker Lake is huge, endorheic, and is just now turning too saline for fish, sadly.
Walker Lake

El Capitan is The Casino. I don't remember what the red white & blue building is - at least half of the buildings in Hawthorne were RWB, and the main street had RWB bunting, and there were RWB-painted missiles in everybody's front yards... I'm telling you, very patriotic.
Patriotic building & bunting

Schurz had a lot of falling-down vacant buildings - a few were really interesting!
Schurz

These hills were stunning! They really were brilliantly colored - copper-green, white, ochre-red, bright gold.
More calico hills

I am not sure what these large white signs were for. I think maybe an emergency airfield, but that's really just a guess?
Some kind of emergency airstrip?

Lahontan Valley is so huge, so flat, and so green. It makes me feel at home :)
Green

Looks kinda like Mississippi.
Sooooo greeeeeeen!

All of the small towns of Nevada have those Small Town Signs, the ones listing off all the churches and community organizations.
Fallon

****
I don't know what to do about the EHV-1 neuro outbreak. I guess if Wild West gets cancelled we'll go to Owhyee. It's a lot further - more drive time, more gas. I dunno. Trying (unsuccessfully) to not think about it.


So last weekend I bought tomato plants. (Costco had 3 one-gallon plants for $8!) I was too lazy to plant them the day I bought them, which was good because the next day it was windy and blowing snow. I had to bring the poor things inside. Today the weather finally seemed decent so I got them in the ground. A couple hours later it started sleeting. My poor plants!

7 comments:

  1. hawthorne: this is what the germans say when they see a map like you've posted. "It's a chessboard!"

    yes, our city engineers had other things on their minds than defense against the romans. like, order. logic. numbering systems that help people find their way.

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  2. Grid cities are SO ugly, but they're so easy. Memphis is laid out extremely poorly and you have to memorize how to get places. I like grid cities :)

    Update: I hear WW is probably going to get rescheduled. Decided to go to Owyhee, but then G offered to come home. Yippie, bonus G! Everybody wins :)

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  3. Nifty castle, but you have to wonder why there?

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  4. "job in Hawthorne. It's 140 miles from my house!"

    Endurance riding, and now endurance commuting.

    It's all about the journey, not the destination.

    ;)

    Bill

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  5. Terry, I asked around and one guy thought that it's owned by a ranching/casino family. They went to Europe, saw a castle, decided they wanted one, and began building it. It's one of those things that's been slowly in progress for decades, apparently!

    Bill - it was only for one day. There's no way I'd regularly drive that far!

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  6. I was behind here but got caught up. I can understand you wanting to put MY TRAILER in caps for months. I felt the same way when I got my first one and it was an old clunky thing.

    I see Bandos is up to his usual cat tricks. Cute checking out the trailer. Mine do that whenever I leave the door open. They especially love investigating my tack room.

    Those people getting lost is why I don't want to travel to nationals alone. I have no sense of direction and no luck so I'd be lost somewhere for sure. But I have to admit after the couple that got lost in Oregon doing much the same thing, you'd think they'd have had a clue. That man died leaving his wife and the vehicle behind as I suspect this one did too. Very sad.

    I like grid cities too. I can usually find my way around in those. LOL

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  7. I have several tomato plants I started indoors from seed, waiting to get into the ground. I'm planning on picking up some more at either Sam's Club (6 plants for $9.99) or a bunch of roma tomato plants at HD soon. Then, I'll be canning sauce this summer like it's going out of style!

    Our sense of direction does not work here in the South at all. Perhaps it has something to do with crossing the Mississippi, or just the South in general, because it worked just fine out West!

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