A Tall Story

By calling this "A Tall Story" I'm saying this is fictional. However, it could be anything.

If you have read my blogs lately you noticed that I took a road trip with my son up to Whitney Portal, Mazanar, and to Death Valley, Spring Mountain, Las Vegas, Nevada and finally Newport Beach, California. However, you might not have noticed that I also drove past Area 51 on Hiway 95 for the very first time. The following story was inspired by this experience.

As we left Death Valley and the Sand Dunes near Stovepipe Wells and the amazing remoteness and uniqueness of Titus Canyon I wondered what adventure was next for my son and I. We had wanted to drive the 37 miles through Titus Canyon with my 4 wheel drive Lexus SUV. I thought since it was now 10 years old it might be okay to do this. However, when we drove up the two way rock road to the entrance of Titus Canyon and we walked up the Canyon from the Death Valley side not one off road vehicle came through. As I looked up at the 100 to 300 feet high or more cliffs on either side of the one lane one way road through the canyon I thought I saw why. Though I did not see rock fall while I was there it seemed like every other rock was about to come down from rain, wind and snow working its way into the cracks and crevices from all the storms already this year. So, since no one came through I didn't like the idea of getting stuck by a rockfall after driving 35 miles from Nevada to get to this side. So we decided walking up a few miles was enough for us from the Death Valley side of Titus Canyon.

By driving from Lone Pine into Stovepipe Wells near sunset we had had a really amazing journey that reminded me somewhat of the Grand Canyon in the amazing scenery. However, that road is not for the faint of heart or inexperienced drivers because of very steep dropoffs and 8% grades up and down. However, for the competent downshifters and those not afraid of heights and dropoffs it is wonderful.

My son said to me, "I feel like I'm alone on the moon!" I said to him, "I'm not alone. I'm with you, son. The loneliest place on earth for me is my living room when everyone is gone. No matter how remote one is not alone with a good friend or relative there." He looked at me because he just graduated with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Nursing. He was having trouble being out of college for the first time in many years now. I was trying to reattach him to his "nature roots" and his natural intuition. He had been to many sweat lodges and had even been to India and Nepal with me when he was 10 and had been initiated into the Kalachakra Tantra by the Dalai Lama in Bodhgaya, India along with 500,000 others there when he was 10 or 11. So, reattaching him to his nature roots and intuitive abilities seemed the most powerful and useful thing I could do for him. By the end of the road trip he was amazed how much he had changed and re-empowered himself.

When we reached Stovepipe Wells we had a reservation waiting for us with a Dune view. However, there was no phone in the room, our cell phones didn't work at all(no cell service there) and the internet we had been promised was down. So the only communication out to our wives was through the hotel office phone or a pay phone. This left only a cable tv in our room and it sort of pitted us against each other because I didn't like what he was watching on TV. I finally got him to turn it off and go to sleep so we woke up the next morning at 6 am. It had been blowing sand outside all night so we could here the howling wind. It still blew pretty hard the next morning but we decided to drive over to the nearby sand dunes. It's the largest group of sand dunes I've ever seen in the U.S.

So we walked about 2 miles from the car through the sand and increasingly high dunes and climbed one of the larger ones about 5 stories high. The sand was blowing periodically so we had to time our ascent so our eyes and mouths and ears didn't fill with a lot of blowing sand. The timing worked so as we walked along the crest of the dune all we had to worry about was not falling down the steep edge away from the wind as sand in a dune has very different characteristics than sand on a beach especially under these blowing conditions. I noticed that a literal "Sand River" was being caused down the face by the wind so we were witnesses to the changing faces of the dunes. We also looked closely at Mesquite bushes that must in reality be 20 to 30 feet tall all the way to the tips of their roots reaching down into the salt flats under the sand dunes.
http://www.terragalleria.com/parks/np-image.deva32546.html
Here is a picture of some mesquite bushes in the dunes at above url that you can type or paste.

It is really a completely alien landscape and my son and I marveled at how "ANY" life could survive under such hostile conditions. And yet, these Mesquite bushes have been found to be thousands of years old and some are the oldest living things on earth. Yet they live in the desert where rainfall is likely at most ever 3 inches per year and normal is probably 1 inch or so. So, we found ourselves marvelling about Mesquite bushes and kangaroo rats which seem to be the main course of diet for the coyote we saw loping down the road while we were driving to the dunes that morning.
Note: quote from wikipedia under heading "mesquite":  being quote.

Wild animals also eat mesquite bean pods. In places like Death Valley and much of the Sonoran Desert coyote feces consisting almost entirely of mesquite beans and pods can often be seen^{[c end quote.}


Since, after climbing the dunes at about 6:30 am and then after having breakfast at about 8:30am or 9, we set off for Titus canyon and were finished there by about 11 and since we had checked out of Stovepipe Wells because we needed more communication with our wives and families than was available there we moved on. As we drove up to Furnace Creek Ranch I moved into Culture shock because it had become to me like a Mini Carmel and a hangout for the rich to get away from the winter storms of rain, snow and ice throughout the U.S. and Canada. So, while it was below zero in many northern U.S. and Canada places, it was a very pleasant high 60s or low 70s Fahrenheit with full sun there in the Furnace Creek lap of luxury. Since I hadn't been to Furnace Creek since 1956 the only thing the same were the antique Borax horse pulled wagons on display and a steam engine pulled borax wagon of the same kind of era. Everything else had been changed beyond recognition for me and I felt completely lost with my memories of 1956 when I was 8 years old and climbing the dunes and driving through Titus Canyon with my Dad and Mom.

So, we fairly quickly left Furnace Creek after taking a few pictures of the Antiques from the 1800s there. We then traveled East on hiway 190 and then North on Hiway 127 which eventually turns into  Hiway 373 when you move into Nevada. Finally you will reach Hiway 95 (also called Veteran's Memorial Hiway). If you turn right there you will drive as close as legally allowed to Area 51 of Hollywood fame. For hundreds of miles in most directions around this area are Atomic bomb craters and all sorts of interesting things the public is forbidden to see on pain of "disappearing and never being heard from again". note: I looked with my son at the Atomic bomb craters at Google Earth I believe when that first came out. I was amazed at the number of the craters throughout that area of Nevada mostly from the 1950s when the Hydrogen bomb was developed. It is said that one 100 megaton bomb exploded 100 miles above any country would destroy anything electrical from ever working again through its EMP(Electro magnetic pulse). It wouldn't destroy buildings or infrastructure just anything that moves from electricity or anything that makes electricity or uses electricity. Only certain specially designed military vehicles would still work at all. And anyone within about 7 to 10 feet of anything metal would be dead in whatever country that was.(This was how the militaries of the U.S. and the Soviet Union used to think. I'm glad those days are over at least for now).

But simply driving along hiway 95 is okay as long as you are okay with Government vehicles sometimes driving alongside (sort of like police cars) and watching your every move. If you are not comfortable with all this sort of attention then don't go drive on Hiway 95 as it is the most secure group of military installations on earth.

I knew an ex-army helicopter pilot once who told me that his group of army helicopters accidentally strayed onto Area 51 airspace. They were quickly forced to land, stripped naked by the air force and handcuffed and after several hours lying naked on the desert floor suddenly released. Private citizens are just never heard from ever again who make this same mistake.

So now we head into a fictional twilight zone.

As we drove along Hiway 95 there was much more going on in this area than I had ever really realized before. Because as an intuitive I experience things much different than most other people who are not intuitives like me. Sometimes this is a good thing or bad thing but most of the time this is more neutral sort of like breathing is for most people. In other words you don't miss it until it is gone.

So, when  a government vehicle pulled up right next to us and looked us over and then took several minutes to pass us I realized just how strange this area actually was.  So, it wasn't like we were being threatened it was more like saying, "This is our turf. If you don't watch your P's and Q's watch out."

I had never experienced anything like this ever in the United States. It was a very eye opening experience of the extreme level of security in that area of our country likely since World War II began and so did nuclear tests. As we drove on we saw the words "Correctional Facility" with very strange technological contrivances all around these facilities. We thought it strange that there was no name for these facilities also. We wondered if this is where all those who would never see their friends or relatives ever again were stored after having stupidly ventured into Area 51 on their own without government permission by air or land?

I was very relieved to turn Southwest onto Hiway 156 which is also called "Lee Canyon Rd." By following this road we wound up at a Ski Lift and at 27 degrees Fahrenheit. I shot the windshield wiper fluid on the front window as a joke for my son and it immediately froze. By the way if you are in traffic doing this it could be fatal. I only did it because there was no one on the road then and then just pulled quickly to the side of the road when he swore when we couldn't see out the front window and then we both laughed. So, I suppose be sure you are above about 33 or 34 degree if you don't have special windshield wiper fluid for below freezing weather. Also, doing this might destroy your wiper pump and plastic piping, so be careful if you want your wiper pump and piping to stay alive.

There was one thing that I found very strange. When I first look at the ski slopes there wasn't a soul skiing. However, suddenly as if on cue hundreds of people skied out of the trees. I sort of wondered if I wasn't looking at a hologram rather than the real thing. It made me think of my experiences under the mountains in Switzerland, the Rockies etc. and wondered if all these mountains had simalar facilities?

I was raised in a religion which taught us that we were supposed to go to a place (the Royal Tetons) in Wyoming and Mt. Shasta, in California in our souls at night especially in I think it was June for a spiritual conclave with people from other dimensions and planets. I wondered about all this in the context of no people skiing or visible at all and then suddenly hundreds of people skiing. I wondered if all this had some connection somehow with beings from other worlds. Maybe they were trying to find ways to keep humans from going extinct? Maybe this all started a very long time ago. The religion I was raised in started in the 1930s. So, was this all connected somehow to a greater plan to keep the human race alive for thousands of years? What is Global Warming? Is it a natural event caused by human activity on the planet? Or it is caused somehow because humans won't decide to regulate births worldwide? Is Global Climate change a way to thin out humans down to an ecologically manageable number? I don't know the answer. What do you think?