Delightful surprises
One of the lessons we learned from our recent trip to Death Valley was that it isn’t worth saving money on accommodation by staying outside the park. The time and petrol/gas used going in and out of the park each day would have been better spent on accommodation in the park, for possibly fewer nights, and we would have been able to enjoy the early morning and evening light right there in the park as a result. Hey ho: live, learn, and tell your friends!
However, using my glass-half full perspective, we did discover some interesting and ‘glad we found it’ places outside the park that we never would have enjoyed if we had instead been hiking in the early morning cool light, or relaxing under the dark desert skies within the park. 🤷♀️
One of the most unexpected places we stumbled upon was the Museum of Western Film History in Lone Pine, on the Western side of Death Valley in California. The museum “honors the men and women of the silver screen who interpret the lives of the American Cowboy”. Lone Pine, by the way, has a population of 2,035, so it’s not a huge place. However, due to the proximity of Lone Pine to the Alabama Hills National Scenic Area, where an enormous number of Westerns and other movies and TV shows were filmed, the location of the film museum makes sense.
The first movies to be filmed in that location were in 1919. Since that time, the Alabama Hills have been the location for filming hundreds of movies and US television shows, including:1 Gunga Din, The Walking Hills, Yellow Sky, Springfield Rifle, The Violent Men, Bad Day at Black Rock, How the West Was Won, Joe Kidd, Saboteur, and Django Unchained, Tremors, and The Monolith Monsters. Television shows include the The Gene Autry Show, The Lone Ranger, Bonanza, and Annie Oakley.
The museum features exhibits on numerous stars from the early movies and television shows, including any related paraphernalia they have been able to collect. For example, the car used in the movie High Sierra is displayed in the museum, along with an accompanying cardboard cutout of Humphrey Bogart. His role in this film transformed his career from a supporting actor to a leading man. I also learned that Richard Farnsworth (who charmed me in the TV series Anne of Green Gables) started out as a rodeo rider and stuntman in the early Western movies. His son is following in his footsteps.
From a more recent movie, you may recall the opening scene of Iron Man, which was filmed in the Alabama Hills as well. Those are the glorious Sierra mountains in the background, not Afghanistan.
As an aside, we discovered a food truck in town that served amazing meat, shrimp or vegetarian tacos with fresh tortillas and house-made salsa toppings for $3 each. Dinner sorted!
We then spent a few days on the East side of Death Valley, in another small town called Beatty in the state of Nevada. Similar to Lone Pine on the West side of Death Valley, Beatty is a small town with a major North-South Interstate highway running through the town. For those of you not familiar with modern rural desert interstate highways, that means there are huge trucks carrying all kinds of freight on the two or four lanes through these small towns 24-hours a day. And yes, as you can guess, probably 30-40% are Amazon trucks. On the West side we were between Reno and the Los Angeles Basin, and on the East side we were between Reno/Northern Nevada and Las Vegas. All of these are big freight and Amazon hubs for the West Coast.
What that meant in practice was the sound of trucks roaring by constantly. And in Beatty, they had a full stop and a 90 degree turn to make, just outside and around our motel. Amazingly, we didn’t hear too much truck noise and at any rate, slept right through the constant dull roar. We were quite tired from our hiking and driving into and out of the Death Valley each day, so that helped. We also discovered a few surprising local treats here too, thankfully.
The first was the Happy Burro Chili and Beer bar, located across the street from our motel. The beer was refreshing and well-kept, and the local clientele ‘colourful’. The proprietor was a petite former vegan tattooed motorcycle trail-rider who you really wouldn’t want to mess with. And also as kind as can be. When I said Pete would love to try their award-winning chili but there was nothing for me, a non-meat eater, she said to go down the block to the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) Post. Ask for their vegetarian special, and bring it back to eat here. Apparently the VFW is open to everyone since, according to our new friend, there aren’t enough local veterans to keep the place going, so they welcome everyone.
Following up with the ‘burro’ theme, after our beer and a Mexican dinner at Gema’s cafe (saving the VFW for the next night), we walked around the small town as the sun was setting. The light on the hills was lovely for photos, so we were moving around to find a good angle with the least amount of foreground clutter. After a few minutes the sun had faded, and we turned around to find these three chaps (see photo below) watching us intently. As we moved away the burros followed us, trotting along until we eventually shooed them away. Apparently the burros roam wild around Beatty, descendants from the original ones brought here to support mining early in the 1900s. In case you are wondering, they seem to be doing just fine.
The rest of our trip was in places we frequent more often. But still, we never discount the opportunity for new surprises. In Ventura we discovered a whole new topic of delight and worthy of further inquiry: Tiki Bars! As an outcome of our lengthy visit to a local Tiki Bar, we have befriended a number of people with whom we have exchanged phone numbers and emails for future contact and opportunities. But, that, as they say, is a story for another day.
We try to go new places each trip to the US, but we also have found that it isn’t too hard to uncover new activities in familiar haunts as well. And the surprises when we do make the effort provide a rewarding feedback loop to encourage us to try something new again the next time. And so we will!
Thank you so much for reading!
What kinds of activities do you try to do when you go someplace new? Or when you visit someplace you go often? Do you like to try new things, or stick to the things that you know bring reliable happy results? I’d love to hear!
Until next week,
xx Sabrina
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Movie and TV list from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alabama_Hills
Thanks for that. When in California, we also cannot get enough of the Mexican food. Nowadays we can make our own here in NZ, but for many years many key ingredients (even tortillas) were not available. South of the equator, Mexican restaurants used to be a travesty. Not so now, but nothing like you find in CA. Happy travels
Lovely post, and brings back fond memories of the trip Sonya and I took down 395 to Death Valley in February 2023 - just a few months after we started dating, because nothing says romance like Valentine's Day in Death Valley - which included stops to hike around the Alabama Hills and explore Manzanar. (We spent the night in Bishop on our way back north, because Sonya had fond memories of the hot springs there, but the temperature was about 10º F when we arrived, so we took a pass.)