77 F/ 25 C

An arty display
and a ghost town - all within
just a few miles here

~carliewired

My daughter has come down with a miserable cold since leaving Yuma with me last Thursday, so today we're having a very slow pace. 

Just a few miles south on the way to Death Valley National Park, there is a side road to the west that is worth the venture. Our first stop was the Goldwell Open Air Museum which features outdoor sculptures. I walked around with my camera then I stepped into the Visitors Center. I met an artist working on a canvas with palette knife. He was looking out to the display with the version of The Last Supper and creating his own version on canvas. We had a lovely chat about painting and what a gift it is to be able to paint. He's a vet carrying a lot of injuries so he can lose himself in his art and ignore his pain. 

We moved up the road just a mile to the ghost town of  Rhyolite, Nevada, It began as a big mining investment in 1905 and soon the town sprang up with piped water, electricity, telephones, newspapers, banks, a hospital, a school, an opera house and a stock exchange. The town declined as fast as it had arisen. By 1911 the mine was closed and the population diminished. After 1920, Rhyolite became a tourist attraction for its ruins and was used as a setting for movies. 

We're going to have a low-mileage day with a nap in the afternoon. Tomorrow we're back on the road to home.