The Great Silence

So It Ends!

2011-12-31T00:34:00.000-08:00

I ended up blogging every day of this month, but the current daily blogging streak went back to mid-November. This blog will end the streak, and I do not intend to do anything like this every again. I did want to end with a bang so the total for the year is 117 blogs. For me that is insane and ends up being almost 33% of the days this year I had a blog entry up. There was a point about the middle of this month I started to get tired of doing this and felt a lot of what I was trying to say was "mental mush", but once I got close to Christmas I was almost over the hump.

Like I usually do at the end of the year, I want to take some time to reflect on some of the high and low points of this blog this past year. Then I will mention a little of where the blog goes from here.

Speaking of which, I started out in the beginning of January of this year announcing that this would be the final year of me blogging as I have been doing. I am going to skip this for now and come back to it at the end of this blog entry. I will say that had been in my mind for how I went about doing every blog this year. That is part of the reason I had 117 blog entries this year is because I wanted to cram as much as possible into this year not knowing what the future would be like.

Of course, the big theme of the year was what I did with my Ramona series and a big reason for the amount of blog entries. I said all I really want to say about that series in the blog entry for yesterday. That started off in January and just ended yesterday.

In February, I did my Return to Lago and added some more blogs about that area. One of the main things my stats have shown over the years is people really care about where High Plains Drifter was filmed at. I can understand that. So, it was important for me to get an updated video and to show what "Lago" looked like on a different type of day with those pictures.

In March, I was finally able to show one that I had waited for years to do. That one had to do with the snowslide that was northwest of Mono Lake near the entrance of Lundy Canyon. That took place on March 7, 1911. I visited the cemetery there and wanted to have it up on the anniversary of March 7, 2011. Goal accomplished!

Also during that month I finally got to post my first time at Rancho Camulos. This was special for the California history involved with that one, but also the oldest film location that I will ever find was filmed there. Interesting enough, I did find another movie made during that same year that has the potential to be an easy location hunt. I like the old silent film location challenges because those are the most difficult to find traces of after all these years. That silent film I am referring to is on the list of things to do, but I do not know when I will get around to that.

In April, I showed my "Mammoth Mountain Hike" which was partly a joke because that was a just a ride to the top using the gondola. The real treat was my Yellow Sky Series that I had waited and waited to post over the years. I was not too thrilled with the morning light conditions I had for the video, but it was one of those I waited so long that I just got tired of waiting anymore. I think I did the best I could do with what I had on that one. If I were to be able to pick just one thing I think you should have seen this year that I did, then that series would be it. I just love that movie, and along with the Boetticher films, I would list it as one of the top films made at the Alabama Hills.

The highlight of May was the Devil's Playground Cave from that Hopalong Cassidy movie. I knew a lot of people would like that one just because of the title. I do have other Hoppy locations and footage I am sitting on right now. I am not sure when or if I will put those up, but since Hoppy did half his movies out in the Alabama Hills there are tons of those one can show.

In June, I spent most of the month showing my hike up to the top of Mt. Wilson and then my time at the observatory. I love astronomy, at least from an amateur perspective, and it was important for me to hit the holy ground of astronomical discovery for the 1st half of the 20th-century. Let me tell you something new. I re-visited the observatory in November! This time I was driven up to the the top. The great thing is we got to go inside some of the places I showed from the outside in the June blogs. So, at some point in the future I hope to show you my "Return to Mt. Wilson" pictures and footage.

July was an okay month, but nothing super special. It was more of a turning point for my Ramona series.

During August I spent some time identifiying some spots in Temecula that most people would walk by and not understand the significance of for the Ramona series and the history of California. Then I covered some things in Long Ranger Canyon like the Gun Smugglers Rock and Hoppy Rocks that I should have had done a long time ago.

During September I spent some time showing how the Palm Springs Tram was used in a Dean Martin film. I then showed my hike to the top of San Jacinto Peak. Another hike that I had wanted to do for years and finally got to do it as a part of my Ramona series.

In the case of October I knew there was no way I was going to outdo my Halloween series from 2010. You can see what I did there if you missed it, but basically I went back and updated some new videos during that month as part of that Halloween 2011 series. I spent most of my time with my Ancient Monsters series that dealt with the new dinosaur exhibit in Los Angeles. I know most people can turn on the tv and see something related to the dinosaurs all the time, but I really liked how I edited those videos with the music. The T-Rex one was the highlight. I had to laugh when I showed that video to some kids, and one of the girls had to walk away from the screen as the big "Thomas" model skull was looking down on her. You had to be there for that because it was projected on a wall.

During November I had my "Murder of Juan Diego" series that was one I really loved and the basis for the whole Ramona series. I love those hikes where you are out in the middle of nowhere and you come across some artifact/sign about the past. The mountain hike was fun. Then, the cemetery was VERY important to me too! Of course, my Reflections at Conness Glacier was the essence of what this blog has been made of. The silent beauty of it all! Many care about that Huell Howser Glacier episode, in some ways my blogs regarding that were a tribute to Huell, but I put my own spin on how I presented it to make it more in line with what I like to do.

The crazyness started in November and I continued it into December every single day. Aurora Ghost Town , then East Pine Street, and R.I.P. Aurora was a major project that I am proud of, but I can understand people not really liking that one. It some ways it is a case of, "nothing to see here!" I just love the history of what was once in that town. That was one that I sat on the footage for quite some time until I could edit it to make it work.

Of course, the big project that offered something I suspect you probably did not have any clue about is the one I just finished up about the movie Nightfall that I called "Out of the Past Too" and "Out of the Past Too Two". There is a tendency to think of my blog primarily dealing with westerns, but that is not really the case. The reason I love westerns is because they were primarily filmed in the rugged outdoors away from civilization. However, if I can find any movie that was filmed outdoors then I am there! So, it is somewhat rare to find a noir-ish movie like this filmed partly outdoors. Not to mention the same director using the same spots in a movie 10 years earlier. There was a time that I really meant to show more noir movies that were filmed in Los Angeles. I started to do it, but because of the dramatic changes in Los Angeles, and the fact that it is so public, it just did not fit with what I had in mind with this blog. I just do not get the same amount of satisfaction walking around the big city for location hunts as I do in nature.

So, those were the highlights of the year. Let me go back to my original post in January and where I go from here. I have been battling the motivation to keep doing this for the past three years. There was a time somewhere between June and July that I really had to ask myself why I keep doing this. I was that burned out.

Of all the years I have been doing this the feedback was a lot more negative too. It was really strange in this regard because not only was it negative, but many times it was irrelevant to anything I have been doing on here or the video sites. In some cases it was people expecting me to do things for them that I have never done during my whole time blogging. Then they would get irritated with me for not giving them exactly what they wanted. Those of you that have contacted me via e-mail in the past know that I have usually written back eventually and given as much information as I could if you had a specific request that I could help with. That changed this year. I got to the point that if something was not relevant or someone just wanting to advertise their site then I just ignored or hit delete. I just did not care anymore. At the same time, not everyone who reads what I have done on here or watches my videos has done this, but more did so this year than in the past.

As of right now, I am taking some time off. At some point I hope to have a short series called "The Nature of Silence" which will cover a hike and help explain some things that if was not obvious about what I have been doing since the beginning it will then. I then hope to have my own version of a FAQ which will be a blog that will go into a little more detail about how the blog will be from now on and why I am will not be doing as much blogging compared to what I have done over the past six years.

I am holding myself to what I mentioned in that first blog this year. There will be future projects, but not to the extent that I put something up once a week. Those days are over. Since I started this blog I have had something up every few weeks or so. In fact, I have never missed posting at least once a month since I started doing this back in 2006. That is going to change now. There will be many months that I do not post anything.

So, at this point, the blog will be in read only mode for the time being as I take an extended vacation. I will make the corrections I promised I would do at the beginning of this month, but I really do need to get away from this blog for a while. Get my life back I guess you could say. However, if you are concerned then have no fear because I just got a new video camera for Christmas that blows away my old one! A big wide angle lens, 1080 60p, and the zoom goes on and on and on and on! :)

With love, sincerity, and thanks from me please be safe, be healthy, and have a Happy New Year!

The Silent One is checking out!

P.S.

Buster Keaton's Bathtub (Youtube Version)

Buster Keaton's Bathtub (Vimeo Version)

Hell Bent for Leather Rocks (Youtube Version)

Hell Bent for Leather Rocks (Vimeo Version)

Ramona Epic #40: It's Been Fun!

2011-12-30T20:33:00.001-08:00

(GPS: N33 54.470 W118 18.585)

Here we are at the end of the series. Let me talk about todays location and then I will give you a few thoughts on how I thought this all turned out.

I wanted to lighten things up at the end so I went to a place that was another partial inspiration that began that series. I was out walking one day, and I noticed a truck that went by with a Ramona Mexican Food logo. I went home, did a quick google search, and saw that this place originates in the Gardena and Torrance area. Since I lived there when I was a very young kid I asked some family members about this: "Oh, that's been there forever!" Well, that was news to me. So, it was another place that started to make me think more about doing a whole series dedicated to how the Ramona name has influenced California.

I thought it would be a good place to visit and eat to end the series.

It's basically a take out place. I think there are places to sit outside of it. I ended up just eating my food in my truck.
Ramona Epic #40: It's Been Fun! (Youtube Version)

Ramona Epic #40: It's Been Fun! (Vimeo Version)

Let me give some closing thoughts on how I think this series turned out. Years ago I had considered doing a Ramona series, but I was never really enthusastic about the Ramona concept. I did have Delyser's Ramona Memories book in my hand at one point, but decided it was not for me. Then as I started to burn out of the things I was doing on this blog I knew I needed something to do that I did not know that much about. The further I examined Helen Hunt Jackson's Ramona I realized it was a lot closer to what I normally do on here than I thought. In many ways the book is a traveling novel.

The thought of committing myself to a year long series was something I felt I needed to do. There were some down sides to it though. First, I knew it would drain me some in trying to keep it going over the year. There would be times where I would put up some things that I was not as eager to talk about than others that I had more enthusiasm to blog about. Second, for many people it is very difficult to follow something like this over a long period. I knew beforehand that putting it up as episodes would be problematic for some due to the patience one has to have to get through some of the parts. I did put this series up in a way that one can read the book and follow what I did on here at the same time since it did go in chronological order with the book. However, one could jump in at any time thoughout and just pick up the parts one cares about.

I really was doing this for the long term. Now the project is at the point where it is done so the whole series can been seen as a whole. The only thing I really regret for the series as a whole now that it is done is how I started the opening of the videos. That was important while I was making each video and putting them up during the year. Although, now that it is done, watching all 40 videos with that 10 second introduction to each video is something I wish was not there. I had thought of changing the intro about midway through the series to something else, but just decided to leave it. So, it was a necessary evil that I hope does not drive someone crazy if they watch all the series at one time.

At this point, I consider this project finished. However, I do have extra footage, and there are some places I could go to in the future that might show up on the blog or in video at some point. That will not be anytime soon, but if and when I do that it would be like adding an appendix to the end of a book. For all practical purposes, my "official canon" of blogs is done.

BTW, occasionally I get an e-mail mentioning the city of Ramona in San Diego Co. I guess if there was one place many people thought I was going to visit it was that place. While it is true that the city was named after the main character, it is relatively close to some of the places that Ramona lived in the novel, but I never encountered anything in my research that made me feel I had to go there. Maybe there is something connected to the novel? Will I ever visit there? I do not know. For those who care, there was a town of Alessandro that was located at where March Air Force Base is now. It never really grew into anything, and then the Air Force took that area over. However, if you do research the history of the base you will encounter the Alessandro name at some point.

So, I hope you have gotten something out of my epic journey through the world of Ramona. If you are just seeing this then hopefully you will go back and view the series at some point. If there is something that represents cultural history of California then the book does it.

That is all I have to say about my Ramona series, but I will have some thoughts on some of the individual places I visited for this series as I review the highlights of everything I did for the blog as a whole this year in the next blog.

FIN

Ramona Mexican Food Products

At some point I will eventually come back and a link to every entry in this particular blog, but for the time being all the videos can be found on either one of these links:

Ramona Epic Playlist (Youtube)

Ramona Epic Album (Vimeo)

Ramona Epic #39: Applause

2011-12-29T08:14:00.000-08:00

The players come out for a round of applause:

Ramona Epic #39: Applause (Vimeo Version)

As you see in the video, the posse "captured" Farrar. So, the play is not a total downer in that regard. As I mentioned back in the blogs at the end of October and November, both the fictional Jim Farrar and the real historical Sam Temple were never brought to justice like this. Even though a casual viewer of the play might think that this capture represents a step toward justice it really should not be thought of in that way.

Ramona Epic #38: "Let Silence Reign"

2011-12-28T06:51:00.000-08:00

Juan Canito gives the final narration as the play ends.

Ramona Epic #38: "Let Silence Reign" (Vimeo Version)

This blog and the next two are the wrap up blogs of the series.

Out of the Past "Too Two" (The Ending)

2011-12-27T05:47:00.001-08:00

This will be the final blog of my Nightfall series. This blog in some ways is a let down because I am not going to get to the exact final location, but I just want to give you an idea of where it took place. I'll try to get some GPS coordinates for this one later today or tomorrow.

After I saw this movie for the first time I kept trying to figure out where the ending took place. The main thing you always start with is where the background is. If you can identify that then you start looking for whatever is in the mid-range, and then what is up close. It depends on what you are given. In this case, I kept looking at the mountains knowing I had seen them again and again, but I could not place them. At first I thought Mammoth was being used, and it is at some points in this movie. In fact, one of the scenes they have the bus drive through is literally right across the street from where the Legend of Deadman plaque is that I covered on here a few years ago. That was not it though. One day I was traveling to Carson City, NV, and as I looked up it was a case of, "Bingo! That's it!"

On HWY 395 there is a monument that is often passed that is called the Fremont Trail 1844. It is difficult to read even when you are there, but you can click the picture to make it bigger. Basically, John Fremont, Kit Carson, and their men came through here with a howitzer during the winter. They were trying to cross the Sierra to get to Fort John Sutter. They had to leave the howitzer in the deep snow, but eventually crossed over to get there.In the video I show a little more of what it looks like around here, but this is across the street from that sign. I zoomed in on a certain mountain to the north side. To get to the final spot of where I ended we need to drive a little further toward this mountain.

This is in the movie as the bus drives by, but at this time I do not know exactly where. I have some ideas. In any case, that is our mountain in the background.Here is going to be the final spot I wanted to show. This is not the final location of the movie, but it is a good reference point to show you what I think went on here. See where that building is on the left side? My location intuition says that the final scenes were done just past that over the hill there. I scouted this area and a road further on down beyond it that leads to a campground. From what I can tell the final scenes of the movie were done on what is either private property or government property that the public is locked out of. In Nightfall, the detective takes Aldo Ray and Anne Bancroft back to the camping spot where the murder took place. Then they head to where Aldo Ray left the money which was only supposed to be a few minutes away from where they camped. In reality, the drive is about 30 minutes away. There in a shack that the money was left, they encounter Brian Keith and Rudy Bond who had also been waiting for the thaw of the winter to come back here. You can see the movie to figure out how they knew the money was here. At this point Rudy Bond is going to kill the three of them. However, in a desperate move, Aldo Ray jumps out of the shack and is able to get a rifle.

If you look closely in the above movie picture you will notice there is a drop off in the middle of the picture that heads down somewhere. That was the other area I mentioned above that I went to. There is a road down below there that heads to a campground. In my picture below you should be able to compare the above movie picture mountains with these.

You will have to watch the movie to find out what happens.

This wraps up my Christmas edition of my blogs for this movie. This is one that I had been working on doing for this blog for the past few years since I did the original Out of the Past Locations. Even when I was doing those I knew I would have to come back, but decided not to mention this particular movie at all as my little secret to be revealed at a later time. Then I had to delay this because the pictures and footage were never to my expectations due to the conditions at the time I was at these places.

For example, the very last time I was at the movie's campground spot I was doing the introduction video. It was during this last October, the non-tourist season, and I was doing a great job narrating what I wanted to say at the beginning. In fact, it was a much longer introduction than what made the final cut. Just as I was about to turn and show where the campground was some overweight lady came out of nowhere right in that spot I was going to turn to! Then she just started to hang out nearby. I did not say anything, but I was so angry! Of all the bad luck! During the tourist season one gets lots of people fishing there even though they usually do not catch anything. I was so convinced no one would be there at the time I went that day in October. That was how typical that area was during the past few years. I would either get there too early in the morning, have bad light, bad weather, or someone would be parked nearby and fishing there. I can't tell you how many times I walked here only to realize I would have to come back. I meant to go back one more time at the end of October or November, but never did.

All the areas you see in the pictures and video I came to more than once. I was not totally satisified with what I got, but it just got to the point that I decided to present this now or never. Otherwise it would be an endless cycle I would never get out of. So, the final product you are seeing is good enough. I don't intend on doing anything further on this one.

So, please see the movie. As I began with, it is not as good as Out of the Past, but it is worth seeing once because of how the director came back to almost the exact same locations for this movie. This is one of the rare movie locations that I know of that no one I have encountered knew about this movie being filmed here. So, I hope you enjoyed something I did during the past few days for the Christmas season as the best I can do for a Christmas gift that is a little out of the ordinary.

Out of the Past "Too Two" (Youtube Version)

Out of the Past "Too Two" (Vimeo Version)

Nightfall (The IMDB link to this movie)

Out of the Past "Too Two" (The Church)

2011-12-26T06:34:00.000-08:00

Happy Boxing Day! Happy 2nd Day of Chrismas! The family broke tradition yesterday without gift giving by going to church to see the Burchfield Brothers perform, and then had a big feast. I've never heard The Little Drummer Boy done like a western movie soundtrack so that was cool. Today, is gift giving day. I kind of like the idea of Christmas continuing a few days rather than where I am at where the media quickly goes on to something else.

This is phase two of my Nightfall series of blogs about this movie. Much like Out of the Past the same director used flashbacks in this movie as well. He also used some of the same locations. BTW, most of the movie takes place in the city, but the flashbacks and ending take place in the setting of Wyoming. Which in reality is the Eastern Sierra.

Since the last blog Aldo Ray has been living on the run since he hid the money he found and took off. The authorities are now after him in the belief that he killed his friend. After meeting up with Anne Bancroft they flee back to Wyoming. Something Aldo does not realize is that a detective is now following him and is on the same bus as they are on.

Now in the original Out of the Past Locations blogs I did some years ago I was down on the corner in the background looking back this way toward where the school is.In both movies you can see the old school. In Nightfall we get to see it close up as the church Aldo Ray stands by.From my picture above I just turned around to show you this one which is the new school that is here these days. In the Out of the Past video I showed you where the old school is now located on the other side of town as the Mono County Museum. In this video for this series of blogs I inserted a picture of the old school being transferred to its current location when they did that, so you can look for that in the video.The detective reveals himself to Aldo Ray. At first, Aldo gives up, and is relieved that it is over that he has been caught. The detective gets irritated by Aldo mentally giving up, and just tells him he wants to hear his story. He then tells Aldo something about the gun that must have killed the doctor. Aldo realizes the detective is on his side, they decide to go back to the murder site, and then to the where Aldo hid the money. Btw, in the movie you get some nice looks at where Dunderberg Mt. and that range are. I can't remember if you get a good look at Excelsior Mt. (I climbed that one that is why I care about this) since the clouds are really covering that area in the movie. My video for this part does have the clouds almost doing the same thing.So, they would have been just standing over there.I should have the new video up by tomorrow with the final blog of this series. For this portion of the video I decided to use the footage from November that I took. So, it kind of matches the mood you see with the clouds.

Out of the Past "Too Two" (Youtube Version)

Out of the Past "Too Two" (Vimeo Version)

Out of the Past "Too" (The Murder)

2011-12-25T06:31:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas! How can I talk about a murder on Christmas Day!?!? Have no fear, things get dark here, but things are not as bad as they seem. You can thank Hollywood for happy endings. :)

In the movie Nightfall, Brian Keith and Rudy Bond take Aldo Ray and the doctor (Frank Albertson) back to where they were camped. As pointed out in the first blog on this, this is the exact same area Robert Mitchum fished in Out of the Past (OOTP), and I covered this before in my Out of the Past Locations blogs. I am going to show you what it looked like on another day I was there so you keep getting different looks of how this is during different times of the year. BTW, that is one thing I love about this movie is they filmed it when the lake was partially iced over.Dismayed as to why these men want to kill them after they tried to help them, Brian Keith and Rudy Bond explain they just stole a lot of money. This is a way to make sure their is no witnesses against them. Also, setting up a murder/suicide situation helps our bad guys in the story as it will place the blame on Aldo Ray. This is close. To get it right I would have to go a little further to the right, but as I remember I did not like the angle I had the times I went there. So, I went with this. Something to note is in this picture, and the ones I did before it in the previous blogs, the tree looks a lot bigger in the movie pictures, but that is because I was further away in my picture.Rudy Bond gives the doctor a count to run for it. He then shoots the doctor in the back. Now, it is Aldo Ray's turn. They give him a gun, and Rudy Bond gives him a shell to put in the rifle. All he has to do is turn around and Rudy would shoot him to make it look like a suicide. There is some thought in this scene that Aldo might challenge Rudy with a gunfight, Aldo is uncertain about this, and as he turns around Rudy fires the shot that looks like it kills Aldo. What happens is that a shot hits a rock and that bounces off of Aldo's skull. He appears dead. Rudy looks over him and then he and Brian leave the scene. The problem is not only is Aldo Ray still alive, but they left the money behind. When Aldo Ray gains consciousness later he finds the money, hides it in the snow away from this area, and then leaves.Here is that spot. The two red trees are the same ones from the previous blog. The red tree on the right is the same one we have been dealing with in this blog. The gray tree on the right is a different type of tree. It is interesting looking at the types of bark in all of these trees here and then seeing how they were back then. Again, usually I don't like using trees in comparing with old movies or pictures due to their unreliability, but these seem to be them after all these years.For me, all my life I have been walking right by these trees as I do my exercise walks around the lakes which usually takes place during the summer. For a while I would think of Robert Mitchum fishing here, but I never thought of this place being associated with such sociopathic evil until after seeing Nightfall. Although, I should mention that sometime over a 100 years ago an actual murder did take place near here. Not here, but I would say within about a five minute walk. It is hard to believe this place would have anything like that, but sometimes remote places can have their dark sides.

This ends this phase of this series, but I will continue this movie's locations starting tomorrow. The video gets you to this point in the blogs.

Out of the Past "Too" (Youtube Version)

Out of the Past "Too" (Vimeo Version)

Out of the Past "Too" (The Accident)

2011-12-24T05:48:00.001-08:00

As Aldo Ray and his friend the doctor are reflecting on their lives at their campground they see a car go off the side of the road. They do show the car go off the road nearby, but the actual site they end up on is really about 20 minutes or so away off HWY 395. To get to this site you have to be heading south to Lee Vining/Mono Lake.

I need to give my brother credit on this one since he fine-tuned this one for me. Basically, the scene was done very close to the entrance to Virgina Lakes. My brother decided this #5 sign right here is a good marker for this scene. This was done sometime in October. In this scene you see the car down below. In the following picture I am looking more to the west. The car would have been close by down below. Dunderberg Mt. is the one in the back that appears to be apart of two peaks that look like twins. Just as an aside, one of the early seasons of The Big Valley had a perspective close to this at the beginning of every episode. It was further south. On the other hand, Ansel Adams took a picture in this direction, but he was a little further north. I did something on that one, but I kept it out of the video so maybe some other time.

Aldo Ray and the doctor help bring up Brian Keith and Rudy Bond. Something is wrong with Brian Keith's arm. So, they attempt to make a sling for him so they can get him to a hospital.

The viewer is never really told what caused the accident, but you can tell Rudy Bond is upset. Both Rudy and Brian start asking questions about the car and where they are camped. They do not seem to care as much about Brian's arm or the accident. Our good Samaritans start to realize they have encounted two very desperate men. Rudy Bond goes over to Aldo Ray's car and pulls out his gun. He intends to kill Aldo and the doctor right here. Brian Keith tells them not here because the sound would be too loud.

This is just past the sign that I showed in the first picture above. It was done during the middle of summer. Interesting enough, what I liked about the movie picture is it actually shows another area I hiked to that I have not shown yet. I will sometime in the future because it leads to an old mining area.

So, in the next blog I head back to the campground for the evil scene.

Out of the Past "Too" (Youtube Version)

Out of the Past "Too" (Vimeo Version)

Out of the Past "Too" (The Camping Spot)

2011-12-23T05:48:00.000-08:00

The time has come for my little secret to become public. Let me preface this with saying that this is one I have been promising a number of you for the past couple of years. I have hinted about it on this blog at some points. I have equally anticipated and dreaded doing this one. I really have wanted to present this on the blog. However, the problem is I was never satisfied with the pictures and videos I took at the locations for this one. I have literally been back to the same places over the years many times at different times of the year. Sometimes the weather would not be the best. Other times the lighting would not be that great. Then there would be people sitting, parking, fishing, etc. in the exact places I needed to take pictures or video. So, my attitude was that I would have to come back the next day, the next week, or the next year. The result is I really burned out on doing this one.

When I first starting doing videos online I used to just improvise as I went along. As I started to take the process a little more seriously as a long term venture, I started to "script" things a little more. I would watch the movie or read up on where I was going. I would plan out in my head what I needed to do and approximately what needed to be said. Inserting videos within videos takes some planning too in order to make sure how much time I need while shooting the video. So with this in mind, with me constantly going back to some of these places, saying the same things, shooting the same type of video over and over...I got really sick of it. The nice thing though is I will show some of the same spots at different times of the year so it gives you different looks at the scenery.

During the next few days through Christmas I will be showing my sequel to the Out of the Past (OOTP) locations I did a few years ago. However, this series of blogs has really nothing to do with that movie. Or does it? The deal is that the director, Jacques Tourneur, came back to some of the same spots ten years later to film a movie called Nightfall in 1957. It stars Aldo Ray. Much like OOTP, this movie has flashbacks that take place. Although I would not consider Nightfall as good of a movie as OOTP, but I do think it should be seen at least once.

A key spot in Nightfall is this one:Now in the above picture, if I walk down about 10-15 ft. and look to my right I get the place Robert Mitchum was fishing at in the beginning of OOTP.In Nightfall, Aldo Ray and his friend the doctor are on a hunting and fishing camping trip. BTW, the setting is in Wyoming, and just about everyone that I have seen write something about this movie seems to think that is where these scenes were filmed at. In fairness, they are just going along with the setting given in the movie. Many years ago I saw a picture of this movie. Not this exact one, but one like this that showed the background. I knew it was an Eastern Sierra location, and I knew it was quite familiar. I could not place exactly where it was at though. Then it came to me, "Oh! The director just came to the exact same area and shot it at a different angle. A 'totally new location'". It took me a while, but I did finally see the movie to verify everything.From the Robert Mitchum fishing spot, I just continued moving another 15 feet or so and I encountered these trees. Normally, I do not like to use trees because they can be unreliable. Especially in dealing with movies that are over 50 years old where new trees can come up. I have had some luck in the past using them instead. This is one of those cases. I was very surprised to see the exact same trees are still around here. See how the tree on the left does not come straight up, but is slightly tilted. The angle of that tree is exactly how it was in 1957 movie. I was amazed when I originally verified this one. I will be coming back to this spot in an upcoming blog since an important event happens here in the movie. In the meantime, I just wanted to show a different look on how Sawtooth Ridge was on this day. In the movie, if you really pay attention, you can see Sawtooth Ridge. Unfortunately, the mountain that I use in the picture at the top of my blog can't be seen from this angle in the movie. In my pictures you really can't see Sawtooth Ridge because of the clouds blotting them out that day.
A close-up of a another ridge that you can see in the above picture.
Just a note, the video for this part of this series will be entered here in the next few days. Let me apologize now for any mistakes I will probably make during this series. Give me some time to edit and correct whatever typos and the way I word things. BTW, "Too" in this context is not typo. lol! ;) During the next few days I have a bunch of family Christmas events I will be going to. I do intend to be on the blog each day to enter something new, but I will be doing them rather quickly and then coming back to them when I finish up this series.

Out of the Past "Too" (Youtube Version)

Out of the Past "Too" (Vimeo Version)

Ramona Epic #37: Rancho Christmas (Festivities Cont.)

2011-12-22T06:36:00.001-08:00

After thinking about it over the past few days, I decided to add a few more pictures of the rooms of the adobe in this blog as I wrap up my time at the Rancho Christmas. I am starting out with rooms near the main courtyard in the middle of the adobe structure, but then I get to the carriage courtyard.

The following picture is the horno. It is the oven that is connected to the bakery.
Now moving around to the other side you can see the bakery room and see how the horno connects to it.
The pantry is another room right next to the bakery. There are a series of other rooms that connect the kitchen to another pantry nearby. Some of those are shown in the previous R.E. #36 video.

Heading into the carriage courtyard one can find many people over here during this event. There were a few exhibits of different things on this side. Later during this day it started to get colder. There was a woman making tortillas. So, I waited in line to get mine. When she gave it to me it was hot, and at first I thought it would be a good thing to keep me warm. However, it was much hotter than my cold hands. So, I ended up playing "hot tortilla" with it until I ate it. It was very good!

In the carriage courtyard there is the blacksmith shop so I went into there. They have a museum of items in here.

On this day they had a few people actually show how a blacksmith would work here.

Overall, it was a fun and relaxing day going here. Very family oriented with lots of different activities going on. If you are ever around the San Diego area near the end of November then I would suggest going to Rancho Christmas at Rancho Guajome.

Ramona Epic #37: Rancho Christmas Festivities (Youtube Version)

Ramona Epic #37: Rancho Christmas Festivities (Vimeo Version)

If you would like to see the previous blog entries on Rancho Guajome from way back in R.E. #11 then go HERE. It goes along with what I did here because I show you more of the courtyards themselves rather than just the rooms like I did in the past few blog entries.

The previous part, R.E. #35, of the Rancho Christmas blogs covered some of the rooms if you did not see those then go HERE.

Feliz Navidad!

A little on the music for this video. The very end background song is called Laid Back Guitars by Incompetech and can be found HERE. The other thing I should mention is that all the other music you hear is nothing I added, but what was being played at the event. In fact, a lot of that I have no clue who or what the titles are for those.

Ramona Epic #37: Rancho Christmas (Festivities)

2011-12-21T07:09:00.000-08:00

In the last two blog entries I noted that the adobe was decorated for this Christmas event. There was a Christmas tree and a person playing Christmas tunes inside. On the outsides of the adobe they had all sorts of things going on. I'll touch on a few of these in this blog and the next.

The first thing I did that morning is watch a local dancing studio have their kids dance to Christmas songs behind the chapel. When I say "kids" I am talking really young. Mostly elementary school level kids. I put a few snippets of this later in the video, but no need for pictures here about that.

Next a mother and son that are Luiseno Indians gave some traditional stories that came from their tribe. I took some video of that, but cut it out of the main video since it would have made this video way bigger than it is. If I am ever in the mood somewhere down the road after the series is over I might find a way to make a video that.

In the following picture you will notice a few things they were doing on this side of the rancho. If you look closely on the left side you will see a tractor getting ready to pull some people around. They were giving people rides in my direction and then behind me. I wanted to do this near the end of the day, but I ended up leaving before that. In the background right by the adobe, they had things like free popcorn being made and art for kids. Just to the left you can see how they fenced off the area for the horse riding.If I remember correctly this horse was in the process of being trained by this man.He was trying to motivate him to bow and other tricks. He ended up walking the horse around and then doing it in a faster pace. The video shows parts of this.This group of young ladies compete in competitions. They were riding back and forth by each other without touching.One of the horses a little closer.One of the other horses and rider close up.So, the horsemanship was enjoyable. This is probably the closest I would get to having vaquero culture in this series. One thing not seen here, but seen in the video is some of the guys do some rope tricks. They had one act as if she were a bull, and they roped her up.

I'll continue the festivities in the next blog going to the other side of the adobe to the carriage court where they had somethings going on over there. I'll also show a few more parts of the insides of the adobe from that side.

Ramona Epic #37: Rancho Christmas Festivities (Youtube Version)

Ramona Epic #37: Rancho Christmas Festivities (Vimeo Version)

Ramona Epic #36: Rancho Christmas (Inside the Adobe Cont.)

2011-12-20T07:48:00.000-08:00

I'm continuing from last blog where I started to show some of the insides of the adobe during the Rancho Guajome Christmas event that takes place at the end of November. The purpose of this is not to show every single room they have because there are way too many, but to show a few of them.

Here is a child's room decorated with Feliz Navidad signs and symbols.
Another room to sleep in.This is the school room the kids would have been taught. The teachers desk is by the chalkboard, Christmas stockings over the fireplace, and a students desk. BTW, one of the math problems on one of those chalkboards was wrong. lol!One of the living rooms.This is where the paperwork and business was done.I am going to stop here with the rooms because it would take me another week or two to present every room in the adobe, and I do not feel the need to do that. The video does cover some of the other parts of the adobe like the dining room, the rooms food was prepared, etc. In #37 I will show some of the festivities they have during this event.

Ramona Epic #36: Rancho Christmas (Youtube Version)

Ramona Epic #36: Rancho Christmas (Vimeo Version)

If you want to see the previous blogs on Rancho Gaujome (R.E. #11) go HERE.

The music used in the background is called Laid Back Guitars by Incompetech.com and can be found HERE.

Ramona Epic #36: Rancho Christmas (Inside the Adobe)

2011-12-19T15:25:00.000-08:00

The next couple of blogs are about my return to Rancho Guajome during their Rancho Christmas event. What dictates what number I am on in this series is the video I am on. Since the video I had for this one would have been too big I decided to split it up into two parts. This means that this blog and the next one will be dedicated to video #36 which covers some of the insides of the rancho. The two blogs about some of the festivities at the adobe will be in #37.

During the last time I presented this adobe I dealt with what you can see on the outside. This time I want to show you just some of how the insides of what the adobe looks like. There are many rooms at this adobe. It would take too many pictures and video footage to show them all. So, I will just show a few rooms and let it go at that.

Rancho Guajome is a California Historical Landmark, and the following is the CHL marker for it. In the previous blogs on this place I mentioned how the Cout's family were the ones who built the adobe here. For our purposes this adobe has been the chief rival of Camulos as far as being thought of as the "Home of Ramona". There was some thought that Helen Hunt Jackson visited this place, that it was an influence on the novel, people came here as a tourist spot because of the novel, etc. No one really knows though. You can click the following picture, make it bigger, and read if you want to.

That up there is the sewing room that was added much later. It is fun to go up there since you get an overlook of the area.What they do here is at the end of November they have a special family event called Rancho Christmas. The place is decorated for Christmas and they have a bunch of festivities here. When the weekend is done then the rancho is closed to guests for the next few months. In the above picture you can see the door entrance, and you can see the Christmas Tree below as you enter.Continuing past the tree, taking a left, going down the corridor, then turning around will get you to the next picture. Most of the rooms are decorated in some way. This following picture location I have shown before. It is decorated, there are people down the way, and there was a man playing Christmas songs on a piano/organ behind me. There were lots of people moving back and forth through this way. It only took me two takes to get the necessary video footage here which was pretty good considering the amount of people that had the potential to get in my way. When I went upstairs I had to delay moving where I wanted to because of the family up there. No big deal. So, I ended up cutting there, then I got footage that I decided to use at the beginning of the video. The following is a quick stich of two pictures just to give you an idea of what was going on outside at the time I was upstairs.

In the next blog I will show you some of the rooms they lived, slept, and did business in.

Ramona Epic #36: Rancho Christmas (Youtube Version)

Ramona Epic #36: Rancho Christmas (Vimeo Version)

Christmas Trains (at the Nixon Library)

2011-12-18T15:51:00.000-08:00

I did something like this a few years back showing an old low quality video at the Nixon Library. Almost every year the TCA (Train Collectors Assocation) puts out a model train exhibit in one of the big rooms at the Nixon Library. I say "almost" because last year I was there and they did not have it because the room was being used to show some gifts Nixon had received (or were on loan) from a few foreign countries. This year they were back in business with The Holiday Festival of Trains.

The video will give you a better idea of how the trains work since there is a lot of movement involved with them. These pictures will give you an idea of the different models they used for each.

In the first picture I wanted to get George Washington crossing the Delaware. That is always there. The train model here is supposed to be Parkerville, USA. It is named after John Parker the TCA historian and veteran model railroader. It is supposed to represent the trains of the early 1900's.Many of the buildings and scenery pieces are collectables from 1910-1930's era.

This is New York, New York. The trains featured in this one are supposed to be part of the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA). Which is one of the oldest subway systems in the world.

There is a little Christmas-like village here.

As one of the trains passes it:

This is supposed to represent the 1890's American West. Like something you would see in Monument Valley. I tried to take this picture as the train above and the one below came through about the same time.

About to come around the corner. They had a bunch of model buildings like you might see at a train station in an old western.

The north pole. This is based on The Polar Express book and movie. There are a couple of different levels of track on this one. The trains come out and then back in tunnels on each side. You might be able to see Santa Claus with his reindeer flying around at the top.

I took tons of pictures, but I think these few gives you an idea of what they did this year.

Christmas Trains (Youtube Version)

Christmas Trains (Vimeo Version)

Ramona Epic #35: Return to Camulos (Part 3)

2011-12-17T08:42:00.001-08:00

For this final part I just wanted to show some of the insides of the rancho. I really didn't do that during my first time I presented this rancho many months back. This is the south veranda. In the tradition of our fictional world of Ramona a lot of the story took place here. Ramona's room is on the other side, but the priest's quarters would have been behind me. I moved around rather quickly in the video because of the people near by, but you do get to see all of this.

If you were able to do down the stairs in front of the picture above and turn left, then you would be able to see this furnace as you open the door. This is not from that perspective because I came to this a different way, but it is what is down there.Turning around from the above I was in the living room.
This is further north of the adobe. The Cocina (kitchen) consisted of three rooms. My memory is a little weak here, but it seems to me they washed clothes in one of the rooms here. Looking at the walls. Again, my memory is weak here, but I think there was some oven connected that would have lead any smoke up this opening and then outside.The Northride quake of 1994 did serious damage to much of Rancho Camulos. I have seen pictures of how badly it was damaged here. There have been serious repairs to this place, but they did do the repairs with adobe materials to keep with how it was originally made.

The video shows a lot more of what is around these areas. I put it together a month or two ago and cut out a lot of things in the editing. As I watched it recently there were a couple of parts I think I could have fine-tuned a little better. In any case, it should give you an idea of a small part of what you might see at the Ramona Days.

Ramona Epic #35: Ramona Days at Rancho Camulos (Youtube Version)

Ramona Epic #35: Ramona Days at Rancho Camulos (Vimeo Version)

A few links:

My original Rancho Camulos Blogs.

Ramona Days at the official Rancho Camulos site.

Santa Clarita Valley in Pictures. This links to some of the old pictures of the place.

The background music used in the video is called Modern Jazz Samba taken from Incompetech.com and can be found HERE.

Ramona Epic #35: Return to Camulos (Part 2)

2011-12-16T10:54:00.000-08:00

In the previous post I showed how they reenact parts of the play. This is a continuation of that, but do you see the window on the far right?This window became part of the Ramona tradition in that it is now considered where her room was.Peeking into the window.Where she would have slept in the fictional world. There is an old anecdote that says that some uninvited tourist came into the house and laid down on the bed claiming something like, "I am at where Ramona slept." Some of the dancers that perform at the play showed up to do a few dances.I have one more blog on this place that shows some more of the insides of the adobe.

Ramona Epic #35: Ramona Days at Rancho Camulos (Youtube Version)

Ramona Epic #35: Ramona Days at Rancho Camulos (Vimeo Version)

Ramona Epic #35: Return to Camulos (Part 1)

2011-12-15T19:15:00.000-08:00

Earlier in the series I presented my original trip to Rancho Camulos. After that original trip I came back during their annual Ramona Days event that takes place at the beginning of November. They celebrate the rancho as the "Home of Ramona". Everything from people portraying characters fictional and real, vignettes of the play, viewings of the 1910 film, tours of the rancho, Ramona experts give talks, dancing, food, venders, etc. Since I think I did an okay job of covering the rancho last time I just want to give you an idea of what it is like being there during this celebration.

The day I went the weather conditions were not as good as I would have liked. The sun was out, but there was some wind and clouds in the air. It was just a time of the year that I did not like the lighting I was getting from the sun. The following picture is actually later in the day right before I left.I came in and parked. At that moment there was a tracktor set up to take people from the parking lot in to where you can get tickets to go in. It was a nice ride in and I got to see other parts of the rancho that I had not seen before.

The interesting thing is I heard a man talking about the filming locations of the 1910 film with other people I was riding in with. I was actually kind of shocked to hear someone talking about that. I was thinking, "There are people here that are really into that?"The guy that is cut off to the left is the one who talking about that. I did not know it at the time, but that is Hugh Munro Neely. He is a filmmaker and is on staff at The Mary Pickford Institute for Film Education. He gave a great introduction to the screening(s) of the 1910 film. When I finally heard him speak I then realized, "Okay, that makes sense". See, even though I talk about film locations all the time, I realize that this is something that most people in the everyday world have very little interest in.
This is the restored carriage from the Del Valle family. There was a "Mr. and Mrs. Del Valle" around talking about the past. I talked to "Mr. Del Valle" briefly.
Of course, the water fountain and the chapel. You will notice the venders were all out there selling a variety of things.
Another look at the fountain and chapel.
As I mentioned, parts of the play are shown. This is a scene with Felipe and the Senora. The guy playing Felipe is Dennis Anderson who actually played this role in the 1970's. He is the artistic director for the play these days. In the real world, he is married to the woman you see, Kathi Anderson, who does play the Senora in the play. I'll continue this in the next blog.

Ramona Epic #35: Ramona Days at Rancho Camulos (Youtube Version)

Ramona Epic #35: Ramona Days at Rancho Camulos (Vimeo Version)

Ramona Epic #34: Exodus From the Rancho

2011-12-14T16:09:00.000-08:00

As we wind this series down I have a few parts on how the play ends and a few events I want to cover that I will list below. If all goes right then I should be done with the "essential canon" of the series by the very end of the month.

When we left off of the play Alessandro had just been murdered. Right after that scene the play shifts back to the Rancho when sometime later Felipe reveals that he has received a letter from Ramona.

Ramona Epic #34: Exodus From the Rancho (Vimeo Version)

In the book Felipe has a much more heroic role. The book spends a lot more time showing how he spent much of time, since Ramona and Alessandro left the rancho, trying to figure out where they were to help them. At one point he is misled by someone who knows where they are at because of the fear he will do the wrong thing. When he attempts to find them again he does finally find Ramona after Alessandro is murdered. He takes her home with him. Realizing they can no longer live in California with the political situation the way it is for Californos, they head to Mexico. They are married and have other kids, but the book ends by noting that Ramona's (and Alessandro's) child that is still living at the end of the book was the most beautiful and most loved. The name of Ramona daughter...Ramona.

I split the ending up here, and that might seem a little silly. There is a final narration coming that sums it all up. The reason I did that is I want to take this time to go back and explore the two ranchos that I covered earlier on in this series. Each has a special weekend each year that I went back and visited on. So, the following blogs will cover both those events.

Aurora Ghost Town (Odds and Ends)

2011-12-13T07:20:00.000-08:00

(AKA R.I.P. Aurora!)

It is time to wrap this whole series up on Aurora. I began this whole thing by mentioned that I absolutely love Aurora. It has a great history to it. It is somewhat difficult to get to these days because it is out in a remote location. I enjoy the times I have been there. The problem is there is very little there these days. That made it much more difficult to present because I do not like just showing open fields. Once in a while someone will e-mail me telling me I should do something at someplace because some movie was filmed there. Then when I look into it there is nothing left so it makes it difficult to motivate me to do it. There has to be some trace left of what was once there for me to want to do it. Since Aurora has been reduced to open fields it gets close to this, but at least I have some background mountains and roads to guide me. Some of the foundations and debris is helpful, but I can only wish it were not like that these days. So, that was the challenge of trying to show what Aurora was once like in this series of blogs.

I spent most of my time just showing what the main street of town would have been like since that is where most of the action of the town would have been. Much more of the town can be explored. It is interesting to point at that it was only in 1999 that a tin can was found in the foundations of the schoolhouse that was a time capsule of events 135 years earlier. When this can was opened they found newspapers from Aurora and Massachusetts (many Aurorans were from there) and notes from that time period. Those items are now preserved in the Nevada State Archives in Carson City.

Speaking of the connection between Aurora and Massachusetts, in 1845 a 50 pound piece of gold and silver ore was exchanged for a piece of Plymouth Rock in Massachusetts. That piece of Plymouth Rock was attached to the Aurora Courthouse. Since that time many searches at the courthouse have taken place to find that rock. In fact, the story of Plymouth Rock at Aurora was made into a story for the tv show Death Valley Days. No one knows where the rock is. It could have been stolen a very long time ago, or it could still be there, but that is very unlikely. The book by Shaw I will list below spends a few pages on this in discussing the courthouse.

There is one engraving that I mentioned in the last blog that goes way back to the boom years of the town. It is the oldest engraved sign in the whole Eastern Sierra region:

You may recall that I was on the Wide West Street a few blogs back as I was walking near Last Chance Hill. The Wide West Mining Co. was by that street and owned a mine on that hill. In fact, that is where Mark Twain said he and his friends failed to make the claim in his book.

It turns out that the above engraved granite sign is not found at Aurora these days. You can see it at Bodie as a stepping stone right in front of the museum. How many people in Bodie each year have stepped on this stone and had no clue what it represents? If for some reason they have examined it they probably thought it was a Bodie relic. No, it has Aurora written all over it. BTW, if you want to see it on video, I show it briefly in one of the videos I did on Bodie last year; it should be the second one.

Like most mining ghost towns, Aurora had a few years where it boomed and then it declined. It was estimated the town made a total of 16-30 million dollars based on the recollections of people that were there. However, Shaw notes in his book that records indicate that only 2-3 million were made during these years. That is really dramatic because towns like Virginia City made 300 million dollars in its 20 years of boom, while Bodie made around 15-18 million in its 10 years of being a boom town. Shaw concludes, along with some older writers, that so much was invested into this town during that time that the reality is Aurora ended up being one of the biggest scams in Nevada mining history. Possibly, one of the biggest scams ever. That was typical of the Gold Rush Era before it. Tons of people came out west hoping to make their riches, but only a smart few who sold out quickly made their money. There are a few stories of people making it rich, but those were rare.

So, to sum this one up, everyone always talks about Bodie and I understand why. They can have it. They can keep taking pictures of the exact same things from the exact same spots that were done by others decades and decades ago. They can keep paying the rising entrance fees that were not there a few decades ago, and the rates that have gone from per-car to per-person. Like the boy that cried wolf, each year the state threatens to close that park and the one at Mono Lake until funds are restored. Then new fees are created instead. Funny, there was a time when these "fees" were not needed. That was a different time though. As for me, I love and prefer Aurora. It was because of what happened at Aurora that the preservation of Bodie exists today. On one hand it is sad what happened to Aurora, but on the other hand there are things one does not have to put up with when going there.

Let me give an annotated bibliography of the essential books about Aurora:

1)McGrath, Roger. Gunfighters, Highwaymen, & Vigilantes (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984). This is the one you want if you want to read about the violence involved in Bodie and Aurora. It also covers the Paiute Indian War of the 1860's that took place in the Eastern Sierra. As a university pressed book it is scholarly with many footnotes from a variety of primary sources.

2)Stewart, Robert. Aurora: Nevada's Ghost City of the Dawn (Las Vegas: Nevada Publications, 2004). This is a good book that gives you an overall understanding of the town. Everything from the mining to historical issues to Mark Twain. This is the main book about Aurora that I have seen in most of the gift shops or books stores off of HWY 395. Stewart had a much smaller earlier book. I own that one too, but this one corrects some errors of the previous book and is longer book. So, be sure you get the 2004 book. Note: Amazon.com currently mixes both versions when people try to sell it used. Ask before you buy it anywhere used because you might end up with the shorter 47 page 1996 version. The current 2004 book has twice the amount of pages and information. I have read that he might be doing another edition with more information.

3)Shaw, Clifford Alpheus. An 1864 Directory and Guide to Nevada's Aurora. (Create Space, 2009). This one is really good. It gives you a good description of all the places that existed in the town and where they were located at. It can stand on its own, but you might want to have the above two books before this one. If I were prepping myself to visit the town again this is the one I would take. Funny thing though, I had seen this at a store and expected to buy it before visiting Aurora the last time. They did not have it when I went! So, I got it after visiting Aurora.

After reading it there were things I wish I knew going into the trip the last time. In fact, it was probably over a year ago when I was reading through the book I read about the Exchange Saloon and saw that it was different than the Merchant Exchange Hotel that also had a saloon. For all these years with McGrath's book I was using "Exchange Saloon" as a synonym for the same place when they are actually two places. I forgot about that, and last week after writing up the blog I realized something was not right. I double checked Shaw's book and looked at his maps. The blog was quickly changed, and an annotation on the video was needed because of this. So, each time I go to Aurora I learn something new and these books have been extremely helpful in my studies of the town.

The books I mentioned a few blogs ago about the Marden family are very good too, but they are not primarily about Aurora. There are some mentions of the boom years in them, but the family lived there later. The family tragedy with the four children was over a decade after.

Other books about ghost towns in Nevada sometimes have chapters dedicated to Aurora. You will have to look at those. Sometimes old library books like this can be found. Really to get the best and current information you want the above three books.

All my Youtube videos on this series can be found here (along with my Bodie "Christmas" Videos).

My vimeo versions of the same videos are found here:

Aurora Ghost Town: West Pine Street

Aurora Ghost Town: East Pine Street

R.I.P. Aurora

The title of the music I used for all the ghost town videos is called Smoking Gun by Incompetech which can be found HERE.

The title for the background used in R.I.P. Aurora is called At Rest which can also be found at Incompetech right HERE.

Aurora Ghost Town (R.I.P. William Carder)

2011-12-12T19:43:00.000-08:00

One last blog on the cemetery and then I will wrap up this whole series tomorrow.

William Carder was from Tennessee, came to California, then eventually ended up in Aurora. He developed a reputation as a gunman during this time. It appears that he worked on both sides of the law. In one instance, while he was living in Columbia, CA he tracked down and captured the person that murdered the town's city marshal. At one point he was a candidate for being a city marshal of Aurora. Yet, while living in Aurora he was arrested for highway robbery. It was alleged that he and two friends wore masks, pistol whipped three Chinese miners giving them severe injuries, then proceeded to take a few hundred dollars from them, but Carder and his two friends was released when there was a lack of evidence.

In the newspaper article that Roger McGrath quotes from that time period, The Esmeraldo Union mentions that Carder was very deadly with firearms. It was said that he was beyond quick, accurate, cool, brave, and a terror of the town. He "could push his hat off the back of his head, draw, and put a bullet through it before it reached the ground." (McGrath, p. 82) He would get into contests they would have in town with targets.

McGrath quickly points out that during a poker game Carder got in a verbal fight with John "Three-Fingered Jack" McDowell of the Daly Gang and others at the table. It was a fight over the money at stake, and Carder basically put out a challenge. McDowell quickly got up and told Carder to make his move. Carder backed down. So, maybe he wasn't as much a terror to everyone in town as the newspaper suggested.

That is McGrath's inference, and perhaps he is right. Let me add something from different chapters of his own book on this. This is not so much to defend Carter's pride, but just to give a little more context. From what I can tell, this poker game took place at Porter's Saloon during the morning of February 2, 1864. During this exact same time members of the Daly Gang were getting friendly with and trying to get Johnson drunk. You may remember this was all a big setup to murder him from my blog on the Daly Gang. In fact, the whole reason we know about this little spat with Carder and McDowell is because they committed that murder in the morning hours of February 2, and the newspaper was recounting what happened that night. So, there is good reason to believe Carder was probably severly outnumbered by the members of the Daly Gang because even John Daly was nearby that night. For Carder, it was foolish to do what he did, but I would hardly blame him for backing down this time. From what I can see from the newspaper accounts, it would not have been a one on one fight that night. it is interesting to speculate what would have happened if that gunfight went down that night. Maybe Johnson would have survived that night and escaped the Daly Gang due to all the commotion. As it was Carder backed down, Johnson was killed within hours, and members of the Daly Gang were hanged some days after. Just as an aside, in the book I mentioned in a previous blog that contains newspaper articles from Horace Marden, he reports that after Johnson was killed Carder took the lead at the courtsteps with a bunch of gamblers and tough guys trying to form a protection group. However, the more respected group of citizens which met over the hill at the armory were the ones that formed the vigilance group that ended up protecting the town and hanging the Daly Gang.

Skipping to end of the year, Carder had been doing some business with a Moses Brockman at the Montgomery mining district. They came back to Aurora separately. Carder was furious that Brockman did not bring back a horse that he wanted. Carder started making threats of whipping Brockman. This is the point over the next few days that Carder started acting very erratic. He attempted to start verbal spats with peaceful people in town. The newspaper said he was slapping them in the face, kicking them, pulling their ears, etc. Then Brockman was told that Carder threatened to kill him.Brockman, realizing that his life was seriously in danger from a real gunfighter, decided he would have to use surprise to his advantage, or he would be dead in a fair fight. When he learned that Carder was in the Exchange Saloon, Brockman planted himself in an unused doorway near the entrance of the saloon. He got out his shotgun and waited. When Carder walked out Brockman shot him with both barrels in the neck which left a gaping hole and killed him instantly. Carder never knew what hit him.

The townspeople knew both people in this incident. Brockman was well known as peaceful, hard working, liked, etc. Carder on the other hand was well known for his use of firearms, his aggressive behavior, etc. Of course, during the past few days Carder was acting like a complete public nuisance. The town ruled that Brockman acted in a case of justifiable homicide.

The most famous gravesite at Aurora is that of Willam Carder. In fact, it is on the cover to Roger McGrath's book. Here is what it looks like these days:

There was one person that disagreed with the killing of William Carder. That would be his wife Annie E. Carder. She had this tombstone made which states:

William E. Carder
Native of Tennessee
Aged 33 Years
was assassinated
in Aurora on
the night of
Dec. 10, 1861
I will avenge saith
The Lord

Erected by his wife Annie E.

Unfortunely, the grave is right next to a tree that usually casts a shadow over it. I tried to clean the picture up a little in photoshop, and I might try to do more when I have more time at a later date. Someday I might go back to Aurora at a different time of the day and see if I can figure out a way to get a better picture.

If you want to see an older picture of it that shows it standing then go HERE.

My brother once asked me if Carder was avenged due to what it says on the tombstone. My response, "Well, the guy who killed him no longer lives. So, I guess so!" ;)

I should note that most of the information I have seen about Carder is from McGrath's book. I haven't bothered to do much Carder searching on the web because I suspect that almost everyone that talks about him is using the McGrath material. Most other sources either refer to McGrath or are just small tidbits that are not really that significant.

McGrath, Roger. Gunfighters, Highwaymen, & Vigilantes (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984)

This is one of the oldest inscripted items in the whole Sierra. However, it is not the oldest. I will show that one in the next blog as I wrap up the whole Aurora series.

R.I.P. Aurora (Youtube Version)

R.I.P. Aurora (Vimeo Version)

Aurora Ghost Town (R.I.P. Elijah Butler)

2011-12-11T19:33:00.000-08:00

The previous two blogs dealt with the "new" or more recent cemetery. Now I will be showing some graves from the older cemetery which is outside what I have previously shown. It is the part of the cemetery that would have been used during the boom years, but as you will see it has graves that go beyond that time period.

The first thing to point out is there are a lot more graves like the following. Someone was interred there, but no names are given. Many graves back during that time probably just had a wooden stake, or something like this with the name on the wood. With that it is just a matter of time before the weather wiped it out.
There are a few tombstones around, and I suspect something like the following tombstone was added at a later date. In the video I state the guy on the left was the husband of Mary Fredricks, but I am not so sure about that. That was something I inferred from one of the books I own. I assume it is, or at least a close relative of her. From what I got out of this is that Mary Fredericks died due to complications from the child birth and then the child died around 14 days later.This one is an interesting and sad story that I only realized while I was looking at this gravesite this last time I was there. I remembered the name Butler from a book I had in my backpack, so I did a quick check. It was definately him!Elijah Butler was a native of Wisconsin and served three years in the G Company of the Wisconsin 3rd Cavalry regiment.After the war he moved west to meet up with all his family. His relatives were living in Bodie and Aurora at this time. In early January of 1868, he left Bridgeport in pursuit of some of his oxen. He was found frozen to death about a mile or two away from Bodie. He was well liked by all the people of those towns, and was 25 years of age at his death. BTW, the engraving is just as hard to read there as it is in this picture. This is William Horner's grave. July 26, 1845-November 14, 1875. The name Horner is one I know of from that era, but I haven't tried too hard to find anything else on him.
Finally, another example of one of these.
I should note that guys like the Daly Gang, their victims, Lee Vining, and other persons of that era would have been buried around here. No one knows where though. BTW, I do not know if I have ever mentioned this before, but Lee Vining supposedly died when his gun when off in his pants. He could have been murdered, but it seems like it was an accidental discharge that made him bleed to death. In some ways, if you have ever been to the town of Lee Vining, that makes sense. ;)

Just as an aside, there is a tv movie called Roughing It (2002) that was very loosely based on Mark Twain's book. James Gardner plays an older Mark Twain as flash backs are use with another actor as Mark Twain. The funny thing in that movie is they have the younger Mark Twain arrive in this prarie type of area called "Lee Vining". No Mono Lake nearby. I got a laugh at of that when I saw it.

The book that mentions Elijah Butler and his relatives is mostly about Bodie, but did quote the short newspaper article and have a picture of him:

Wedertz, Frank. Bodie 1859-1900. (Bishop: Sierra Media, Inc., 1996)

One more blog on this cemetery and it will be time to wrap this one up.

R.I.P. Aurora (Youtube Version)

R.I.P. Aurora (Vimeo Version)

Aurora Ghost Town (The Cemetery Cont.)

2011-12-10T19:59:00.001-08:00

This area that is fenced in and just outside of it is called the recent or "new" cemetery. Most of the people interred here had some connection to the town beyond the boom years. Continuing from the last blog, I went through the entrance:Some of the tombstones or markers are broken or have been stolen. Some that were made of wood are long gone. There are a bunch that were solidly made like this for Mary and Henry Williams. They were natives of Ireland. who died in the early 1890's.This is Edwin Wood. He died in the late 1890's at the age of 50. His daughter Lurie Wood who died when she was six in the 1887.The following graves are some of the sad ones of which I am sure there were many more here . These graves were the children of Horace and Lizzie Marden. Hoddie Marden died in 1884. He was 18. The marker on the left is for James Marden. He was 7 years old and died of typhoid fever at Twin Lakes outside Bridgeport in 1865. As I mention in the video, I have probably walked by where he lived and died a great many times through my life since that is near the summer home. Horace did some lumbering there, and I have an idea where they would have lived. The following represents four children that died within ten days here. There was a diphtheria outbreak here in Aurora in 1878. Originally, there was a marker for each child's grave. I show a picture of it in the video. However, these days this marker has each name on each side of the marker. I kind of regret not taking pictures of each side now, but during the time I was more concerned about getting to another gravesite that will show up in a few blogs.

Just as an FYI, originally, I did not intend to do a video for the most of the cemetery. I was only going to show a few gravesites on video. Since I already had an old camcorder video of most of the graves, I decided to quickly go through the cemetery with my HD cam and do quick indentications mostly for my own use. When putting together this series I changed my mind. So, to make up for the transitions of me moving from grave to grave, or if I did not like the way I moved the camera I inserted a few pictures at points. That is the why I moved around rather quickly with most of the graves you see in the video.There are more recent internments. Some just go back to the 1980's or 1990's. For example, this one is for Clayton and Elsie Davis who died in 1987 and 1995. These more recent internments are of people that have some connection to the town.Anna, wife of J. G. Booker, was 27 years old when she died in 1896.There are more graves here, and I show some of the same and others in the video. The next two blogs will deal with the graves that are outside of this cemetery. They are part of the older section of the cemetery that was used during the boom years.

If you want to learn more about the Marden family and their tragedy then please get the following book:

Lee, Peggy Knudsen. The Mardens of Aurora: A Gold Rush Family (La Crescenta: Mountain N' Air Books, 2007)

A follow up book is a series of columns written for the Inyo Register by Horace Marden. Mrs. Lee adds essential annotations to the articles:

Lee, Peggy Knudsen. Tales of Aurora, Bodie, & Columbus: Written in 1915 & 1916 for the Inyo Register by Horace Marden (Crescenta: Mountain N' Air Books, 2010)

R.I.P. Aurora (Youtube Version)

R.I.P. Aurora (Vimeo Version)

Aurora Ghost Town (The Cemetery)

2011-12-09T07:01:00.001-08:00

(N38° 17.475 W118° 54.080)

The irony of Aurora is that although the town has been completely wiped out the cemetery is a lot more preserved. In the next few blogs I will be covering the cemetery. I will survey a few markers of the ones you can find there. This one will be different than the one I did a year ago with Bodie. With Bodie I had a small pamphlet I purchased years ago that gave some notes with most of the graves. With Aurora I only know the stories of a couple of people.

Back at where we parked is that sign on the rock about Aurora that I showed in the first blog. From there the dirt road that heads north one can be walk a few hundred feet to get to what was known as St. John's Cemetery at the time. From there one starts to encounter the tombstones just off the side of the road.

This is one of the first markers you see. It is for W.M. Boring who was a Nevada State Senator. A native of Tennessee, he died in Aug. of 1872 at the age of 43 years.

Just turning to the right gets you to the tombstone for Mrs. Mary Ann Reid who was 25 when she died in Nov. of 1879. Some markers like this are very hard to read even when you are there.

Incidentally, in the video about the cemetery I made an inside joke regarding one of my relatives. When he was here with me years ago I sent him investigating near this grave. I have old lower quality camcorder footage of him regarding this, and that is why I mentioned that. For the time it was a silly thing I would show to my extended family and is why I made mention of it in the current video. Other than that, it has nothing of importance to this cemetery or anyone else...unless you know Ervin...in that case ask him. ;) Netta Pfeifer, who was the wife of F.C. Pfeifer, 1880-1906. It simply says at the bottom, "Rest".Many fenced in areas do not have any markers at all. As I get to the older section of the cemetery there would have been many graves with just wooden markers for the time. Those have long since gone. Here is one of those fenced in graves that has a tree growing right in the middle of it.Here is the main section of the cemetery. It is easy to spot, and it is fenced in. You can see there is a sign there.I'll be heading into this cemetery and showing some of the markers in the next blog. Since I am "connected" to the "silent majority" let me translate this sign by saying, "respect the graves and cemetery here".At this point I just want to mention that there has always been a "catch-22" situation with this blog that I have known from the beginning. I enjoy showing these types of places on the blog. Yet, I know that there is some danger in doing so because there is always someone that does not have the same type of respect. There are some places I have never mentioned and will not because of this.

Once in a while I will get someone that will contact me that feels the need for taking home souvenirs, or the, "I can take this home and sell this on e-bay" mentality. This irritates me to no end. Some guy contacted me a while back and thanked me for showing where a movie took place. Then he proceded to tell me that he found something from that movie's set to take home. That is NOT the point of me showing or going to places like this. Take pictures, take videos, but leave whatever you find there for others to see. Fortunately, the guy was totally clueless, and what he found had nothing to do with any movie.

If there is ever an example of the tragedy of people scavenging and leaving nothing behind then the town of Aurora is it. Of course, the town and cemetery are protected these days by Federal Law.

R.I.P. Aurora (Youtube Version)

R.I.P. Aurora (Vimeo Version)

Aurora Ghost Town (Mark Twain)

2011-12-08T15:17:00.000-08:00

Heading back to the the fork in the road I headed off to the left side this time. This was still considered Pine Street.Further on down. Back in the day the sides of these roads would have had small cabins people lived in.

I was just checking out this interesting crag here.The most famous resident of Aurora, although very temporary, was a young Samuel Clemens. The future Mark Twain. He came here seeking riches in mining and milling in Aurora. He only stayed for a few months in 1862. This is because he soon realized that the physical labor and investing in mining was a little too demanding for him. He was remembered for being a good story teller, and it was during this time he started to transition into his real talent: writing. He eventually moved to Virginia City to start writing for the newspaper.

In the above picture I turned around. While at Aurora, Mark Twain lived at a few place, but one place he lived at was the cabin of Tom Howland. From what I can tell, that cabin would have been really close to here.

A lot more could be said about Mark Twain's time in Aurora. He did write about his time here in his autobiography titled Roughing It. His big story in that is how he and his friends should have made big money on a claim at Last Chance Hill, but they failed to register their claim in time. Another story that was fun to read was how he got stuck on one of the islands at Mono Lake. Something to keep in mind while reading his account, Twain loved to tell a great story and was not above exaggerating to make a good story. If I have some time at the end of the month I will show something he mentions in his book that was a few miles away from Aurora.

This marks the end of the second phase of this series on Aurora. The third and final phase deals with the cemetery back at where I started in the first blog. That will be next.

Aurora Ghost Town: East Pine Street (Youtube Version)

Aurora Ghost Town: East Pine Street (Vimeo Version)

Check out this PDF map of Mark Twain in Aurora by the Nevada Geographic Society HERE.

Aurora Ghost Town (The Daly Gang)

2011-12-07T18:06:00.000-08:00

The long one. But, if you like westerns or western history this is it.

Something to keep in mind with Aurora is that it did have it's "Wild West" moments during its boom years and beyond, but those were for a limited time. It was usually peaceful with respectable citizens. In the Roger McGrath book which I have referred to before on here, and will list below as his book as the best on this part of Aurora history, only lists 17 persons as the victims of homicide that can be verified. He does note that records are incomplete, and the number could be in the 30's based on a grand jury statement found in a newspaper at the time. Those homicides would have been during the boom years of the town, but it was during the period of about a year that a group of professional gunmen were hired that were the cause of a bunch of killings. They were known as the Daly Gang.

The following picture was taken around 1890 from a highpoint overlooking the northwestern part of town. The highpoint peak (Lover's Leap) was shown in earlier blogs, and the road I came down to the town from had a road that splits of to the west that leads to it. One of the things I wanted to do is take an identical shot of this picture from that highpoint, but ended up not doing it. There is always next time. :) In any case, this picture only reflects about 1/4 of the amount of buildings there were during the boom year period. The structure at the top is the Real Del Monte hoisting works building. It is on top of Last Chance Hill which is an important mining location for history in this blog entry.Continuing from the last blog, I headed east along Pine Street until the road forked. I took the road to the right that was actually known as Wide West Street in Aurora. The next blog will cover the road to the left.

In the distance, up on what is part of Last Chance Hill, is a mining type of mound that is where the Real Del Monte Mining Co. hoisting works was at. I mentioned this above with the historical picture.As I show you this mining area in the following pictures I want to give you some of the history of the Daly Gang. A young man in his mid-20's, John Daly, arrived in Aurora sometime early in 1863. He was already known as a gunfighter from Sacramento before arriving here. One of the key events that was already on his mind that played a big part in his downfall later on was that a friend of his was killed in Sweetwater Valley outside of Aurora. His friend stole a horse and was killed by a man to get the horse back, but the station keeper, William Johnson, would not tell Daly who killed him. Daly was very angry about this and wanted to avenge his friend. He would not forget about this incident.

Meanwhile, there was a dispute between the Real Del Monte Mining Co. and The Pond Mining Co. over claims on Last Chance Hill. A legal battle was going on, but both sides hired gunmen to protect their interests. John Daly and his friends were hired as the gunfighter enforcers for the The Pond Co. Not only were they to protect The Pond's interests, but to intimidate witnesses and the opposing company executives. They were known as the Daly Gang.

To achieve more power, Daly had one of his men voted in as the City Marshall during the election. This created an interesting situation. Daly and his men were now running around as law enforcement marshals. The criminal element of town had taken over as the law, but the average citizen was relatively safe. As was fairly typical of old west towns, as long as the rough crowd fought against each other no one cared, but if someone respectable was killed then the town would rise up against the individuals.

The Daly Gang had pretty much taken over the town. Although I like to compare this to the situation in the movie High Plains Drifter being as it was filmed not too far away, most of the citizens continued their daily lives without fear. While the average citizen was safe from criminal activity, the vices of an old west town did increase during this period. This is because the Daly Gang began collecting protection fees for themselves that allowed for more gambling, prostitution, public drunkenness, and fighting. So, they were acting more like gangsters than law enforcement officers during this time.

The above picture is looking at where the Real Del Monte hoisting works building would have been that I mentioned earlier.

Eventually, in the early part of 1864, a second trial between the two mining companies reached a hung jury. It was then that a settlement was reached between the two companies. Because of this there was no longer any need for hired gunman. So, the Daly Gang was no longer employed by the company. Meanwhile, while John Daly was protecting his clients during the trial in Carson City, a new marshal was elected. This new marshal fired all of Daly's men and created a new police force.

John Daly and his gang really had no reason to stay in Aurora anymore. However, there was one vendetta that had not been resolved in Daly's mind. That was the issue regarding William Johnson not telling him who killed his friend a year earlier. Since the name was never revealed to Daly that meant Johnson was going to have to pay for the killing since he was the one covering it up. He was now the target of the Daly Gang.

Johnson showed up in Aurora selling some potatoes that he had grown near his station. Members of the Daly Gang noticed him in town and started stalking him. That night Johnson was befriended by members of the gang at the Merchants' Exchange Saloon (part of the hotel). Note that this is the incident I was thinking of, and the place I refer to, in the previous video when I mention they committing a murder here, but this is just where they met up with Johnson. By the time the saloon had closed, Johnson had been drinking and gambling with the men. They took him to another saloon.

After 4:30 a.m., Johnson started walking down the street. As he was walking up Antelope Street near the post office, he was attacked by William Buckley, Three-Fingered Jack, James Masterson, and John Daly. Daly shot him through the head clearly killing him, but Buckley made the deed absolutely certain by slashing his throat with a bowie knife.

In one of the first blogs on this I showed a picture of Antelope Street heading south. I am going to say that the incident took place maybe 50 feet (?) or so down the road of where I was standing. You can right click and open in a new tab to see this picture HERE.

As I mentioned earlier, when the gunfighters killed fellow gunfighters no one cared, but once a respectable person was killed then the town rose up. That is what happened here. The town went into a panic and quickly formed a "Citizens' Safety Committee" at Wingate Hall.

A few complications arose during all of this, but the main one was that William Buckley escaped the town. Two posses were sent out after him. Four days later he was found near a cabin where Rush Creek enters Mono Lake. For you movie fans, yes, this is very close to where Lago was in High Plains Drifter. Also, Rush Creek is connected to that Gem Lake hike I did last year in November.

Back in Aurora the town was now under marshal law. Fearing that Daly and the men would escape justice if they were sent to Carson City to be judged in court, they decided to act. The four men were hanged on February 9, 1864 in front of Armory Hall above town. The next day Governor Nye, a U.S. Marshall, and a few others arrived. They were disappointed to see vigilante justice had happened, but the town was very quiet and orderly.

Summing this one up, the Daly Gang rose quickly and then had a quick decline in about a years time. After they were over with, the town went back to being a peaceful. At this point, the Aurora was beginning to decline as the final year of its mining boom.

Most of what I described here is based on the Roger McGrath's book which covers the violence in the towns of Bodie and Aurora. Chapter five is the one that details the history of the Daly Gang. Obviously, he goes into a lot more detail. It is highly recommended:

Mcgrath, Roger. Gunfighters, Highwaymen, & Vigilantes (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984)

In the next blog, I will cover the most famous resident of Aurora.

Aurora Ghost Town: East Pine Street (Youtube Version)

Aurora Ghost Town: East Pine Street (Vimeo Version)

Aurora Ghost Town (East Pine Street)

2011-12-06T20:44:00.001-08:00

For the next couple of blogs I will show you what the other side of Pine Street is like these days and give you more of the history of the town. This is looking toward the east side of what would have been the main street of Aurora.Near the point I am at there would have been a flagpole with the American flag. On the left side closest to me would have been the Gem Saloon. Further on down would have been places like the Wingate Saloon and the jail. Just to my right would have been the location of the Exchange Saloon.

Keep in mind this is different than the Merchants' Exchange which also had a saloon. One correction that I think I need to make here is that I think the gunfighter William Carder was actually killed here and not where I say in the video about the Merchants' Exchange. Although, the irony is I was probably standing a lot closer to where he was killed with my back within feet of the Exchange Saloon site. There is some ambiguity on this in the books I have. Then you have other saloons with similar names too. Carder will come up again in this blog at a later time. I'll explain a little more as to why I made this mistake at that time, and if I find out anything different I will re-edit this.

The superintendent's house would have been in the background near where the road forks...we will get to that...for now you can see it in the background in the historical picture I put in this one:

Moving to the east and then looking north is what I was referring to in previous blogs as the craggy cliff. The armory I was referring to in earlier blogs would be above that, but I think it is more to the right side of the picture. Again, it was overlooking the town in order to protect it.

Moving more to the east, but then turning around and looking west gets us close to the courthouse. That would have been close to my left, and that is the courthouse remains for that time on the left side in the historic picture below. The courthouse actually turned into a hotel later on.

Let me say this now that in the video for this part that I was really close in mentioning where some of those buildings were by the courthouse, but had I done that video now I probably would have had it a little more fine-tuned than how I describe it. It's nothing that most people would care about, but the depth of how far things are away is a little more complicated here. It is not like the Alabama Hills where I have the background, rocks about half-way, and then close-up rocks. Aurora does not give me much to work with. This is mostly using a background and then an annotated map. Maps like the one I was using just give you some guidelines at a place like this. I am not saying it's impossible. It's just more complicated compared to something like the Alabama Hills.

This following picture is looking more to the left to show you where a lot of people would have been living. Again, it drops and has short inclines. Most of the other roads of the town would be over that incline. The remains of other homes, the schoolhouse, stores, and churches can be found out there, but I decided to stick with the mainstreet for this one. There is always another trip. :)

After walking a little further to the east one comes across this shack.

This shack seems a lot more "modern" than the era I have been talking about.

In the next two blogs I cover each road of where the main street forks into two.

Aurora Ghost Town: East Pine Street (Youtube Version)

Aurora Ghost Town: East Pine Street (Vimeo Version)

Aurora Ghost Town (The Stamp Mill Remains)

2011-12-05T15:57:00.000-08:00

From where the Merchants' Exchange Hotel would have been I went down to one of the remaining artifacts you could see in the distance. I then turned around and took a picture of where I was just at:Then I wanted to show how far I was from the other reference point, the wall, in the distance.This is part of an old stamp mill that was used here. On the metal parts down below it states, "Risdon Iron Works SF CAL 1896". So, this was much later than the mills used during the 1860's.

There is one thing I should add to the above that I did not mention in the video. The actual site was used as a a foundry, blacksmith shop, and a stamp mill. It was owned by a G.W. Coffee going back to 1863. So, the remains below go back to 1896, but the site itself was used for one of the mills going back to the boom years. There were around 17 stamp mills at the time in Aurora.I went back close to where the Exchange Hotel would have been and tried to get close enough to where the main street, Pine Street, would have looked going east. The next blogs will cover the east side of the street.

In the above picture you will notice some other trucks came down and parked at the main crossroads. They certainly had the right to do that, but it was disappointing that they arrived just when they did. I meant to take a longer alternative video than what I used at the crossroads. However, since they parked right in the spot to do that it was not worth doing anymore. I am okay without it, but it was frustrating at the time to be out in the middle of nowhere and people come to take my obvious picture and video spots.

From the above picture I moved forward heading back to the main crossroads. I encountered a brick foundation. I mentioned in the last blog that brick was the primary material used in Aurora and not wood. Unlike Bodie's remains of wood, Aurora's downfall for the modern historian was because it was made of brick. Way after Aurora became a permanent ghost town in the 1920's, sometime around the WW2 era of the 1940's, companies and other people came to this ghost town to scavenge it for the bricks. That material could be re-used elsewhere. While tourists did come and take things, the main reason nothing is left today is because of the valuable brick it was made of.So, you can find the remains of bricks like this around. A good reason we have a good portion of Bodie remaining these days is because of the lesson learned from what happened at Aurora. It is one of those things that, for me, hurts to think about. I have read one or two accounts of people that had once lived here, had no idea what was going on after they left, only to be very shocked when coming back to visit.

What would have happened if no one took anything? Well, the brick material was still a product of its time. Over time the weathering forces of nature would have had an effect on the bricks and other structures holding up the buildings. So it would not be the case one could come to a 21st century fully intact Aurora. More than likely, they would have decayed and come tumbling down. However, we will never know exactly what would still be remaining. We still would have had something more than today. If the historical concerns of today had been around then much more could have been preserved. It's too bad, but in many ways the Bodie tourist has much to thank for the Aurora legacy. Yet, most people that visit Bodie have no clue about Aurora.

Aurora Ghost Town: West Pine Street (Youtube Version)

Aurora Ghost Town: West Pine Street (Vimeo Version)

Aurora Ghost Town (West Pine Street Cont.)

2011-12-04T07:42:00.000-08:00

(GPS: N38 17.200 W118 54.145)

In the last blog I pointed out where the Merchants' Exchange Hotel would have been and in this one I get very close to where it would have been standing. As I approached where the road would have continued you will notice the slight rise in elevation.I went down the side and looked back toward the east. You can see the wall in the distance.This pile of wood remains is nearby. It turns out that many of the buildings used brick and not wood. I'll get back to this in the next blog because it is the main reason why none of the buildings are still around.Looking back to the east again from the higher elevated area near the wood.Looking toward the west. Keep in mind there would have been many cabins and homes built all around. I am just focusing on the main street where most of the action would have taken place.

More to the north. There is another artifact that is a good landmark that remains. I'll get to that in the next blog.

Aurora Ghost Town: West Pine Street (Youtube Version)

Aurora Ghost Town: West Pine Street (Vimeo Version)

Aurora Ghost Town (West Pine Street)

2011-12-03T09:08:00.000-08:00

(GPS: N38° 17.200 W118° 54.055)

Imagine a square grid with roads and that is the way Aurora was mapped out. However, most of the roads within that grid are at different levels. So, back during the time of this town you would have to gain or lose some elevation traveling around town. Maybe not too significant, but trying to imagine where buildings were on some of these roads is a little different than what you see at Bodie.

In the next picture I am at the main crossroads of the town. I would say it is slightly north of the center of town. I am looking south here, but the main street of town, Pine Street, intersects the road running east and west here. In the next few blogs I will be covering the west side first and then the east side.

Now turning around back to the north you can see the craggy cliff area I mentioned in the previous blog. The armory would have been up there on that side overlooking the town. You can see a vehicle parked on the left. Most people park there when they come here. Oddly enough, that person came alone and was looking for birds from what I could tell. At least he was making bird calls for them. It was kind of annoying because we had to purposely evade him so he would not show up in the pictures or video. He was still there when we left. This is the wall that I showed some of in the previous blog. I think I have read that it might have been part of the bank. I can't remember right now, but its importance is it makes a good reference point while exploring the area.

Turning a little more to the left from the above picture will give us where the west part of Pine Street would have been. The sagebrush has completely covered the road, but you can see traces of where it once was. In fact, if you use above GPS coords with satellite maps you might be able to make out this part of the old street.

In this direction the Merchants' Exchange Hotel would have been. It was used as a hotel, a saloon, and a restaurant. There were a bunch of saloons in this town. The Daly Gang got into a bunch of gunfights that usually started and ended at them. The Merchants' Exchange played a part in one of the killings. I will comeback to the gang in a later blog.

In the above picture you can see the remains of the Merchants' Exchange Hotel. It is the last building on the left in the background. The original caught on fire, and this one you see decaying was the rebuilt one. It is difficult for me to describe where it was, but it is important to notice in the artist's depiction that Pine Street runs right next to the second level of the building.

In my picture below, you will notice the dirt road heads to the right. However, Pine Street would have been very close to continuing straight into the middle of the picture. Again, the sagebrush overgrowth now covers that up.

I'll head out to close to where the Exchange would have been in the next blog.

Aurora Ghost Town: West Pine Street (Youtube Version)

Aurora Ghost Town: West Pine Street (Vimeo Version)

Aurora Ghost Town (Overlook)

2011-12-02T16:45:00.000-08:00

(GPS: N38° 17.435 W118° 54.010)

This begins another series that has been a long time in coming. I've been sitting on the pictures and footage of this for quite some time. I guess you could say that it is a sequel or prequel, depending on how one looks at it, to my Bodie series of blogs I did a year ago. In this blog I just intend to give you an introduction to the next few blogs on this.

Aurora Ghost Town is in Nevada. It is not too far from the California state border. That was one of the early disputes they had in the town because at one point it was thought to be in California until they did a surveys of the California and Nevada borders. As one enters from the north side of where the town was there is a rock that has a sign. You can right click and open in a new window if you want to read what it says about this on the sign:

There is another sign not to far from the rock. This one tells you to not to take anything you find at this ghost town. The sad truth is that sign is really too late.Aurora is my favorite ghost town based on the history it has and its remoteness. The problem is there is nothing really there these days. Most of the materials the town was made of were ransacked long ago. I'll get into why this was the case later, but I think what happened here was rather tragic. From what I have seen in old pictures the town was very beautiful. These days it has been reduced to fields with the foundations of some of the buildings and rubble around.

Normally, I do not like to present open fields with nothing left. There are some traces of how the town was, but in some ways it is disappointing. However, since I love what this place once was and it is fun to go there, I am going to do my best in giving you an idea of how the main part of this town was.

The truck we came in on was parked by where the above pictures were taken. The trick to getting to Aurora is you really need a 4WD or a high clearance vehicle. A word of warning on this, Aurora is a remote place and there are a couple of dirt roads to get here. Some are easier than others, but you do not want to get stuck out here. Civilization is NOT in walking distance, and you run the risk of not seeing any other person while you are here.

One can take your vehicle into where the town would have been, but from where we parked we just walked down the dirt road until we started to overlook the town.This is panorama getting close to overlooking where the town would have been:

The road you see in the middle of the pictures intersects what would have been the main street of town which I will be showing in the next few blogs. Just to the left the of road in the above picture there is an area that has a cliff that overlooks the main street; if you look closely the cliff starts to connect into the middle of the picture. This is where the armory would have been. I'll get back to this in a moment. In the above picture and the one below, we are looking toward the south from the north side. As you can see, there really is nothing here. That wall and a few other structures are all that is once left of this town. In the above picture, just down below and right in front of that wall is where the main street would have intersected the road we were on.

I'll give some of the history as we go along, and will mention some books at the end of the series that go into a lot more detail. Aurora, like Bodie, was a mining town. In August of 1860, a few men found gold and silver in a rock outcrop in the background of the above pictures which was called Esmeralda Gulch. Esmeralda was the name one of the men used because he had just read Victor Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre Dame. In the years that followed Aurora quickly developed into a major town with a population of a few thousand people. Somewhere in the range of 3-4,000 people, but some would say more than that. For an area like this and at that time, that was a lot of people.

The boom years of the town were really during the years that the American Civil War was going on. Really it was from 1861-1864 that the town really grew with many coming to make their riches here. The bulk of the gold and silver were produced in 1863-1864 when the mills were in full force. Thereafter the boom was over and the population dwindled until it reached less than 200 in 1890. There were some revivals of mining, but by 1920 Aurora was a permanent ghost town.

I mentioned the armory that overlooked the town. A militia group was maintained for the posibility of any hostilities. There was the possibility of issues relating to the Civil War that could cause a conflict in the town, but the more obvious issue was the possibility of Indian attack. The Owens Valley War between the ranchers and the Paiute Indians was going on around the same time as the boom years and the Civil War. Nothing ever happened regarding that, but the militia was used once in an infamous incident which I will get to.

Aurora Ghost Town: West Pine Street (Youtube Version)

Aurora Ghost Town: West Pine Street (Vimeo Version)

December=Obsessive Blogging Month

2011-12-01T17:54:00.000-08:00

Well, here we are on December 1st. This is going to be a month where I have four major projects to blog about in a series of entries. Then I have a few minor things that I hope to get to as well that are not as important. I have most of the major work done for them, so it is just a matter of trying to present them all this month.

Two of the projects are things that I have promised on the blog and some e-mails in the past year or two. Those are a long time in coming. The other two major projects deal with the ending of the Ramona series which for all practical purposes should be done by the end of the month. So, how many blog entries will there be? I have no clue right now!

So, I do intend to be blogging most of the month to cover all of these things. This assumes there are no technical difficulties which I have had in the past regarding computer issues, internet connection problems, or even issues with blogger.com. I had an issue the other night with the blog where I could not log in, but it was resolved in a few hours.

I probably will have a bunch of mistakes that I will have to correct as I do this. I usually throw up a rough draft, publish, and then make necessary corrections over the next few days. Most of the people that have been around long enough know how I do that. It's the price I pay for trying to do too much after a long hard day at work. However, combined with work and the holiday season it might take me a little longer to make corrections even though I intend to be on the blog most of the days this month. That's what January will probably be for. ;)

Natalie Wood Death Tidbit

2011-11-30T21:40:00.000-08:00

(N33 26.940 W118 30.020)

Yesterday marked the 30th aniversary of Natalie Wood's death. I did not really commit the exact date to my memory, nor would have I really cared enough to bring this up had it not been for the recent news about the case being re-opened. The recent news did trigger a few memories both old and new.

I do remember watching the news near the time she died. My response then, as it would be for anyone that drowns near Catalina Island, was "really?!" My response 30 years later that the case is being re-opened is "really?!"

What I remembered most about that time period was it was another six months to around a year later that I visited Catalina. On the boat ride over my friends and I brought up that she had died recently near Catalina. That day we went to Avalon and was the only time I had ever been to Catalina.

Fast forward 30 years later. Last summer I decided to visit Two Harbors which is on the other side of Catalina. On that day I visited a bunch of areas in a few hours time. My adventures on that day will have to wait for quite some time, but they will come out eventually. However, oddly enough, Natalie Wood's name did come out of my mouth again that day.

Where I am standing is what the GPS coordinates are referring to. All the boats you see mooring are in Two Harbors. The point you see in the distance is Blue Cavern Point. It was off the coast there that Natalie Wood had her untimely demise.

On a lighter note, my old blog about where Audie Murphy and Natalie Wood ended up at the same location for different movies can be found HERE.

Reflections at Conness Glacier (The Glacier)

2011-11-29T20:27:00.001-08:00

(GPS: N37 58.795 W119 18.310)

Time to wrap this one up. When one thinks of glaciers they are usually thinking of something much bigger than this. The Sierra Nevada does have its share of glaciers as small as many of them are. I have seen pictures of some going back to the early 20th century when they were a lot bigger compared to now. If things continue like they have, then they will eventually be gone.

When I went there you could still see a lot of snow or ice on the mountain side. So, it is hard to differentiate between the glacier and the temporary snow connected to it.
The glacier part is just under the mountains you can see in the above picture and next one. It would be a lot bigger in person if you were near one, but you don't want to be because you do not want to get stuck in a bergschrund (crevasse) up there. Of course, a few years ago I was on top of Mt. Conness looking down at the glacier below me and these lakes. I added a little of that perspective in the video.Finally, I was trying to get a one shot of the turquoise water without reflections, but I can live with what I got on this one. Basically, the color of these glacier lakes or tarn is created by the glacial sediment that flows into them.

BTW, this lake was COLD! I accidentally dropped my monopod into the lake, and I had to wade a few feet out to get it. I was lucky it did not go out that far!

I did a panorama stich of the pictures I used in the blog yesterday to combine for the following picture. It is good, but this area is a lot more curved like an amphitheatre (cirque). This makes it look like everything is out in front of you, but in reality you would have to rotate or turn to view it all like this. This one is on Flickr, so click to get to flickr to see the biggest version of it.

I mentioned on one of the earlier blogs on this that to traverse that patch of snow by the falls would be a very bad decision to come back down it. With an hour of more sunlight it probably got slicker where it would be really easy to take a fall and slide down for a really bad injury or much worse. I had two plans I was thinking of while I originally climbed up it. One, I could come back down, but really hug the solid rocks or land beside the snow. Very slow and still dangerous, but I have done that before elsewhere. There was that one area at the bottom of it that I mentioned that still had me worried about trying this. Two, Just bypass it altogether. That's what I did.

It took a little longer coming down the way I did, but it was much safer. The way I came down was slightly north of the use trail that goes by the falls. There were some gradual slabs of rock that I just kept going down on. It was mostly dry, but I did encounter some snow at some parts. Nothing too dramatic though. I enjoyed it though since it gave me some time to take other pictures and video overlooking other parts of the area.

Eventually, I got back to Greenstone Lake, and then hiked around Saddlebag Lake to get back to the parking lot. Two irritating things happened right at the end of the hike. Although looking back now they are kind of funny. They were both connected:

I was back near the dam near Saddlebag Lake. I saw a bag out in the distance that could obviously go in the trash can at the parking lot. It stood out, and is the type of thing that would ruin a good picture if it stayed there. Don't get me started on people leaving their trash out at places like this when they can throw it away. So, I walked out into the grass by the trees and a stream going by. I picked it up and all of a sudden I smelt it! Oh! It was terrible!

It was human feces. I was carrying the bag, and the trash can I thought was nearby was not where I thought it was. So, I had to carry it much further back to the parking lot. At this point I was not very happy about this.

Then right as I was about to throw the bag in a trash can some guy comes up to me and asks me if I was leaving. At first I thought the guy was connected with the area or the forest service. The way he approached me and was aggressively asking me this came across a little odd. I slowed down in response to him because I was trying to figure out if he perceived me as some overnight camper. Although it is very rare, I get rangers that encounter me in the backcountry that want to know where I am camping so they can check my permits...of course, I only day hike so the assumption is always wrong.

I just gave him slow response of, "yes". The next thing I knew is he turned around, yelled at his friends that I was leaving, and wanted to know where I was parked. As I kept walking he quickly told me that they would be there for four days so they needed a place to park.

What irritated me about that was I was leaving, but I had no intention of just jumping in my truck and taking off. What I was going to do was take off my backpack at my truck, relax a few minutes with a drink, and then head back to Saddlebag Lake to shoot an alternative opening video. So, another ten minutes at most. But, since I had "volunteered" my parking spot, and the guys were waiting on me, I just took off. Not too happy, but the parking lot was full, and the footage I had was good enough as it turns out.

The thing is it was a Saturday during the end of summer and lots of people do come here. I knew that, but I got there early in the morning when very few had parked there. Long story short, I have a pet peave about when I arrive somewhere early, get my seats or parking, then later on someone arrives and starts dictating orders to me because they did not plan ahead.

Somewhere down the road I hope to do the loop hike around all the lakes again and will show that when it happens.

Reflections at Conness Glacier (Youtube Version)

Reflections at Conness Glacier (Vimeo Version)

The background music used in the videos are called Transition One and Skye Cuillin.

Reflections at Conness Glacier (More Reflections)

2011-11-28T18:42:00.000-08:00

Continuing from the last blog, I moved another 100 ft. or so around the lake. There is a rock that one can stand on, and I got the following pictures. I wanted to make sure I got a couple of Mt. Conness reflecting in the lake.The rest of the pictures is just me moving the camera to my left.I have a panorama of the above pictures that I will show in the final blog entry of this hike tomorrow. I'll mention some things about the glacier as I wrap it up.

Reflections at Conness Glacier (Youtube Version)

Reflections at Conness Glacier (Vimeo Version)

Reflections at Conness Glacier (Reflections)

2011-11-27T10:31:00.000-08:00

Originally, the plan was to take pictures of the glacial tarn that gives the water that turquoise look. When I got there it was still a little too early in the day to get that without reflections so I just focused on the reflections and had fun with that.

Reflections at Conness Glacier (Youtube Version)

Reflections at Conness Glacier (Vimeo Version)

Reflections at Conness Glacier (The Final Destination)

2011-11-26T21:39:00.000-08:00

After that short snow ascent, it practically ended the hike for what I was trying to do that day. Everything flattened out. It was just a matter of walking around the few streams and ponds to get to the lake. This only took a few minutes at most from the above picture. This is not the lake, but what it drains into. The water going into it is what you hear near that point in the video.

However, the final destination was very quiet. Here is how the lake looks when arriving at it. Mt. Conness is the mountain peak in the middle. The other one to the left looks higher, but that is because it is closer to the lake.

Now I just started taking in the moment and checking out this lake.

I did not purposely go here to take pictures of the reflections, but it was still early in the morning so that is how that worked out. I am going to take a few more days to show other pictures I got of this lake.

Reflections at Conness Glacier (Youtube Version)

Reflections at Conness Glacier (Vimeo Version)

Reflections at Conness Glacier (The Falls)

2011-11-25T07:34:00.001-08:00

After a little more elevation I came across this one that had been excavated by miners at some point in the past. It is not too obvious coming up from the area I came, but I was looking out for it since it was brought up in that Huell Howser episode. In the episode they mention the miners were either after tungsten or gold.

Most of the elevation to this hike is in this section. Keep in mind this is not a major elevation hike compared to most of the mountain hikes around here. You start at around the 10, 000 ft. level near the dam, but we are only talking about 500 ft. to get you to the 10, 500 ft. range at Conness Lake. The main falls of the area are just across the way there. Mt. Conness is to the upper right side of the picture.I got a little closer to the falls.
Up until this point I had an easy time of things. Then I saw this ahead. I was wondering if I would have to turn around from here which would have been a major bummer. I was thinking, "Oh man! I am going to have to come back at another time. I should have waited another month."

The major concern on something like this is not necessarily going up on the snow/ice, which is still a concern, but what happens back down this way. All it would take is the sun melting some of the snow which would make it a lot more slippery, and it could be a really bad situation.

It turns out the only bad part was a section at the beginning of that snow patch. I almost slipped, but I was thinking that it would be a lot worse coming back down over that part. I will have to explain what I did coming down at the end of this series, but for now I just want to note that after climbing this snow patch to where I wanted to go to, the hike was basically over. It was time to just reflect on life, nature, and any other thing that would reflect. ;)

Reflections at Conness Glacier (Youtube Version)

Reflections at Conness Glacier (Vimeo Version)

Reflections at Conness Glacier (Pond Reflections)

2011-11-24T08:07:00.000-08:00

After passing Saddlebag Lake the trail continues to other lakes. This is what I normally do and loop the trail back to where I started. However, on this day I crossed over to the east. I am not sure if there are official trails to get where I was going, but there are use trails around. In fact, you don't have to take the way I did it to get there. Eventually, I came across this:

Zooming in with my camera I got this:I headed over to that area to see a few ponds or tiny lakes that I didn't recall being as big as they were that previous time I came. Of course, during that time was during a "dry" season when we had little snow that year. Off to my right, looking in the direction of Mt. Excelsior, this pond gave a nice reflection.Then turning to my left I liked this reflection as well.

Nice illusions to the eye, but the best was yet to come.

Reflections at Conness Glacier (Youtube Version)

Reflections at Conness Glacier (Vimeo Version)

Reflections at Conness Glacier (Greenstone Lake)

2011-11-23T07:48:00.000-08:00

I will be going back and adding GPS coords when I am done with this in the next few days and correcting any typos and the wording. Alright back to where I left off...

After going around Saddlebag one encounters Greenstone Lake. Actually, it depends on which side of the lake you go around on. You can go around on the other side, but it would just take a little longer to get over here.

I had hoped to show the green color of the lake, but since I came through and back during the morning hours it had a refection on it. So, I just took advantage of that.

The final destination I was heading toward is in the background. Mt. Conness is the mountain on the left side. Once concern I had was the snow way back in there. I did not bring anything to traverse snow on an incline. I was not totally sure I could get back to where I wanted.This is left of the above picture. A nice reflection there.I did a quick stich of this lake to show you what it looks like as a whole. You should be able to click it to make it bigger, or check it out on Flickr:

I will continue this one tomorrow.

Reflections at Conness Glacier (Youtube Version)

Reflections at Conness Glacier (Vimeo Version)

Reflections at Conness Glacier (Saddlebag Lake)

2011-11-22T14:27:00.000-08:00

(GPS: N37 57.900 W119 16.315)

This starts a series of blogs on one of my favorite hiking areas that I have come to every few years since I was a kid. My dad used to love coming here to fish, and I have memories of the family fishing while I would hike around the lakes. The last time I was here I intended to use the pictures and videos to show off the lakes and scenery, but that was the time the smoke was bad due to the Yosemite fire that took place a few years ago. So, I just kept telling myself to come back.

Since then I have not been able to come back to do the exact hike I usually do. Something would come up, or the weather conditions would not be good enough. Even this last summer I did not do the main hike I wanted to do. No big deal...next summer will come soon enough. However, with this area there is a window of opportunity as to when you can be here. Too early in the summer, after a good snow season, one might not be able to drive to the trailhead; too late one might encounter an early snow that gives you the same issue. What it comes down to is about two months out of the whole year where there should be no problems accessing this area. There are exceptions. During dry seasons which did take place a few years ago people were coming here early into the season.

On this short trip the goal was to reach the Conness Lakes area that has the Conness Glacier. I mentioned this one a few years ago after Huell Howser had his Californa's Gold episode here. I will link that at the bottom.

As Huell shows in the episode, one can take a small boat ferry across Saddlebag Lake. When I hike here I don't do that. Part of my enjoyment is walking around Saddlebag Lake which usually takes an extra 30 minutes or so to do.

Looking back to where I started with Mt. Dana in the background. When I was on Mt. Dana a few years ago I was looking down here like I usually like to do. I always like seeing both perspectives as part of the big puzzle at my playground here. Further away and continuing around Saddlebag.Almost around the lake where the main action will take place. I must mention that Mt. Excelsior is in the background, and it too is another area that I was looking down here to get that perspective from up there. Lundy Canyon is in the background, down, and to the right. I was there a few years back, and I hope to have something about it in the future. The reason I have delayed that one is I hope to show you the main hike I normally enjoy doing here which connects to Lundy Canyon. That is the hike I was referring to at the top.I will be heading to the left side of this picture to an area you can't see right now.

My blog on the CG episode with a few of my own pictures can be found HERE.

My Mt. Dana hike can be found HERE.

My Mt. Excelsior hike can be found HERE.

The video:

Reflections at Conness Glacier (Youtube Version)

Reflections at Conness Glacier (Vimeo Version)

Ramona Epic #33: R.I.P. Ramona and Juan "Alessandro" Diego

2011-11-21T16:21:00.001-08:00

This is the conclusion of this little "mini-series within the series" of blogs dealing with my time near Cahuilla Mt.

Let me preface this one by saying that I am going to be a little more sensative in how I present this than normal. I am not posting any GPS coords, nor any directions how to get to where I was. Although one could probably figure things out just by what I have said previously and what I will say now.

I could probably do everything as normal, but I want to be a little more respectful on this one...I hope anyone reading this blog realizes I try to be respectful everywhere I go. Technically speaking, the graves I visited are on reservation land which can be considered trespassing. On the other hand, the cemetery is literally right next to a casino that anyone can visit (yes, they want you to!) even though it too is on reservation land.

In doing my homework for this one I read a few books and articles. I then corresponding and talked to a few people about this. The main rule I found out is no drugs or alcohol in the cemetery. Other than that, I just used common sense and did not do anything stupid.

Let me also add there are other pictures I have seen of these gravesites on the web. In fact, some are better than mine because I went during the time of the year when the weeds were really growing. Also, I have been told, and read, that in the past Ramona Pageant people have come here and have acted out parts for groups of people. So, it is not like I am the first one to discover these gravesites, or done anything online about them since others have.

Without that out of the way...

The two grave markers in front of me are the gravesites for Ramona Lubo and Juan Diego. Of course, Juan's history was mentioned in Ramona Epic #31.In the above picture is the marker for Ramona Lubo. She was the wife of Juan, witnessed his murder, lived in that same area I was at for #31, then came down here, and lived out her life not too far from the cemetery.

Now below is the grave marker for Juan Diego. These markers were put in long after their deaths by people obviously influenced by the Ramona book or pageant.

Most pictures I have seen of these graves are always clean with no weeds, but forgetting about all the weeds growing nearby you can tell these graves are visited often by the items that are left for them.The woman we know as Ramona Lubo was probably not born with the name of Ramona. Helen Hunt Jackson commented as if it were a major coincidence, but more than likely the woman was given the Ramona name after the popularity of the novel.

The sad truth of the matter is she lived in poverty, and reporters would come to visit her thinking of the images they got from reading the romanticed story of Ms. Jackson's book only to be shocked by this woman's appearance. She was old and not the most attractive woman in their eyes to say the list.

Ramona Lubo was able to take advantage of her fame based on the novel by making some money from the people that would visit her. For example, some postcards were made with her. There is one I have seen that has her look as if she is crying near her husbands gravesite. The Ramona Memories book by Dydia DeLyser covers some more about her in her chapter on who the "real" Ramonas.

So is this the real Ramona? Well, Helen Hunt Jackson knew about this woman since she used the murder event of Juan Diego as the basis for her fictional murder of Alessandro. Other than that, there really isn't anything else known about Ramona Lubo that would connect her to the main character of the novel. However, with that said, she can probably be identified with the main character more than anyone else just based on that historical incident.

There are a bunch of women that have been considered candidates that came from a lot of the places I have been to in this series. More than likely, the main character is a composite of many people Ms. Jackson met, or just an ideal she came up with. At the end of the day it does not matter.

As for me, this was a fun one to come to. Ironically, it was almost one of the first things I did for the series. This one goes way back before I started really thinking about putting something like this series together. At the time I was just thinking of doing this and hiking to the areas I mentioned in the parts #31 and #32. That was all I intended to present. So, I guess you could say this was really what triggered the series. Had I not been here I probably would not have done this whole series.

As I remember from that day, I was only there for about five minutes. I got there, found the graves, took a few pictures, and I was off again. We drove by the cemetery again on the way to the hikes near Mt. Cahuilla.

When I come back to this series in December I will be putting the final touches on my official canon for the series. We are coming to the end, but I still have a bunch things I need to cover on this one before the year ends.

Ramona Epic #33: R.I.P. Ramona and Juan "Alessandro" Diego (Youtube Version)

Ramona Epic #33: R.I.P. Ramona and Juan "Alessanero" Diego (Vimeo Version)

The short section at the end samples Wounded by Incompetech.

Ramona Epic #32: Cahuilla Mountain (Part 3)

2011-11-20T22:42:00.000-08:00

(GPS: N33 34.425 W116 46.970)

Continuing along the trail, it got easy at this point.After a split in the trail that is supposed to take you to a spring which I did not go far enough to see, I continued up the final part of the trail as it started to elevate.The summit box to write my signature.The views were blocked by trees in some of the directions. Another reason this did not feel like a mountain climb, but I did get to see some of the main areas I was after.
looking down to the southeast.
Zooming in. We drove by this earlier in the morning to get to the trailhead.We shall be near there in #33 of this series.

This ends the mountain hike. While not a major one, it was a good relaxing one that I enjoyed doing.

Ramona Epic #32: Cahuilla Mountain (Youtube Version)

Ramona Epic #33: Cahuilla Mountain (Vimeo Version)

The background music for this one is called Lightless Dawn from Incompetech.com.

Ramona Epic #32: Cahuilla Mountain (Part 2)

2011-11-19T20:33:00.000-08:00

Continuing from where I left off in the last blog, this is looking toward the east. All the roads you see were what we came up on. The road in the middle of the picture that runs from the south to the north is the one we took from the highway.This is looking back at where I had come from.

It is not too long after the above picture that the hike started to flaten out for a while. Again, this was not a major elevation hike, but it did have some uphill. It started to get a little more foresty here.

This came across as an odd site as we went through.

Speaking of odd, I thought this was so odd that I thought these types of manzanita trees had what looked like a "rubber" outside layer to them. That was my first impression of them. The outer layer of the wood had a dark red/brown look to them in such a way that they stood out as if they had just been painted. The picture does not really give you the impressions we had at the time, but it did stand out for us as we went by them.

As we continued through this area, the hike was getting easier. In the distance of the following picture you can see my brother as a small dot on the left. Originally, I thought the hike would end by climbing up to the summit just to the left of him.

That turned out not to be the case. We tried that route, but we quickly realized that was not the way. So, we got back on the path where you see him standing and continued in that direction.

I finish this one up tomorrow.

Ramona Epic #32: Cahuilla Mountain (Youtube Version)

Ramona Epic #33: Cahuilla Mountain (Vimeo Version)

Ramona Epic #32: Cahuilla Mountain (Part 1)

2011-11-17T17:49:00.001-08:00

(GPS: N33 35.785 W116 46.830)

In the next flew blogs I will be covering my hike up Cahuilla Mountain. The hike to Juan Diego's home and murder did not take that long. After coming back to the trailhead, I knew I had more than enough time to follow the trail to the top of Mt. Cahuilla. The elevation gain was not that dramatic. I'm talking of just about a 1000+ feet of elevation from the trailhead. When one thinks of a mountain hike this is usually not what they are thinking. It is listed on the Hundred Peaks Section Peak List, so take that for what it is worth.

I just enjoyed it since it was in an area I had never been to, and it was relaxing all the same. The downside was the day was very overcast to give it that gloomy look. As I stated in the last blog, this was probably for the better since it added the mood to what I was trying to portray regarding the death of Juan Diego. Still, it would have been nice to have had the sun out.

I am presenting this as part of the Ramona series because it connects episode #31 with #33 that will come after this hike. It gives you more understanding of the terrain that Juan Diego and his wife lived at. Other than that, it was just a fun hike. So, take it whatever way you want.

Back to the trailhead...in the previous entries on the Juan Diego home and murder, the hike continues off to the right. This time I would be heading up the mountain to the left of the sign.

After getting some elevation I looked back at the road I had gone on in the previous entries. I was on both roads you see, but to get to where I was last time you head down the road that looks like an "s".That is Mt. San Jacinto which I covered sometime back for this series. So, that is where the fictional story took place, but the historical mountain that the incident the Ramona story was based on was this one.This is looking into the direction that I had been at earlier. It is close to where I ended up in the previous entries at Juan Diego Flats.
Looking back to the cars at the trailhead. Mt. San Jacinto is in the distance.This begins the long part of the trail where you can see far out in front of you.It goes around like this and just keeps going. Nothing too difficult though, it just takes the time to do it.I will continue this one next time.

Ramona Epic #32: Cahuilla Mountain (Youtube Version)

Ramona Epic #33: Cahuilla Mountain (Vimeo Version)

Ramona Epic #31: The Murder of Juan "Alessandro" Diego (Part 2)

2011-11-12T11:31:00.000-08:00

(N33 35.655 W116 48.145)

In the previous blog I showed a road that continued to the final destination. In reality, it was less than five minutes to go down the road and take a left to this:

At this point, far enough away from civilization, just to the left of the above picture is this.You can click the picture (or, right click and open in a new window) to see that it says:

JUAN DIEGO FLATS
In this valley a conflict between the culture of the Indian and the White Man resulted in the death of Juan Diego (Alessandro in the play Romona [Sic]) by the hands of Sam Temple.
Billy Holcomb Chapter
E. Clampus Vitus
May 1979

The above is just looking into the open field near the monument.

What happened here is Juan Diego returned home from San Jacinto with the wrong horse. Apparently, having one of his mental spells, left his pony at a stable in San Jacinto, and then took a gray work horse back home. Unfortunately, this horse belonged to Sam Temple. Temple was a rough man that had been in fights before, and had a temper, especially when drunk. So, the very next morning, March 24, 1883, Temple went the 16 miles up into Juan Diego Flats. He got his horse back, but then killed Juan Diego with his guns.

Sam Temple claimed that it was self-defense and that Juan Diego confronted him with a knife. Juan's wife was not allowed to testify against Temple. As pointed out in the article I will link below, while technically an Indian could testify in court against whites, in practice for that time it was not allowed. So, Temple was able to get away with murder.

Helen Hunt Jackson did know of this event and wrote an article about it called, "Justifiable Homicide in Southern California". Eventually, the outrage of this historical event is what led her to use it in her fictional setting with the names of the people changed to the characters in her book that was published the very next year.

As I began the last blog, I really enjoy going into backcountry areas to find these types of tributes to the past. The area has probably not changed very much since the time of Juan Diego and his wife living there. The day I went the clouds were out to make it overcast. Due to the way schedules work out I had already committed myself to come here on the day I did it. So, I was sort of disappointed I did not have a sunny day. Then after thinking about it and looking back at what I was trying to do for this series, maybe having a gloomy day was for the best in how this worked out.

The Murder of Juan "Alessandro" Diego (Youtube Version)

The Murder of Juan "Alessandro" Diego (Vimeo Version)

The background music for this one is called Wounded by Incompetech.com.

The Killing of Juan Diego: From Murder to Mythology by Phil Brigandi and John W. Robinson (The best article about history of this event from The Journal of San Diego History)

Ramona Epic #31: The Murder of Juan "Alessandro" Diego (Part 1)

2011-11-11T20:46:00.000-08:00

(GPS: N33 35.755 W116 48.095)

When I created the Youtube channel for Ramona a year ago today I knew it would take me a year to be able to show something about this particular adventure. I had almost all the fieldwork done for the series, and it was just a matter of preparing everything at the computer. In order to do this series the way I wanted to present it, I knew that some of my favorite parts of this series would not come until about now.

If you have read some of my blog, you will know that my real favorite places are the ones where you go into the backcountry where few people go, and find something unique. Whether it is some human artifact remains or just something really beautiful to look at, I enjoy those times more than anything else I cover on this blog.

This was one of those times. I kind of knew what to expect based on an article I have (I will link it below) and a book or two. The hiking part of it was not that difficult relative to what I normally do, in fact I considered it quite easy, but the drive to get to the trailhead was a rough and bumpy ride. On this day, my brother drove me to the other side of Cahuilla Mountain seen below:

The above picture is taken near Anza, CA. Almost everything you will see in the next few blogs took place on the other side of that mountain. The picture below is very close to the trailhead. We hiked to two different areas from here. While you do see a vehicle in the distance, I would not suggest driving on these roads unless you know exactly where you are going and what your vehicle is capable of.For example, while hiking along the road we were taking I saw drops and turns that would be very dramatic for many cars.The hike was rather easy on the way because we dropped down some elevation, not much, but it would take a little more work coming back than getting here. After about 45 minutes or so, we came to the following:In the above picture, just ahead and around the corner on the left, was the final destination for the first hike. That will be in the next blog.

The whole idea of coming out here was to explore the location that was the inspiration for the murder of Alessandro in Helen Hunt Jackson's Ramona book. In this area, on the day of March 24, 1883, Juan Diego was murdered by Sam Temple in the area you are seeing. Like the fictional story, Juan Diego was an Indian (a Cahuilla Indian) that had mental lapses that would cause him to do very irrational things. He was a likeable person to everything that knew him, but they also knew he was a little nutty. Like Alessandro in the novel, he worked as a sheep shearer and other jobs for the locals. This area is named after him in that it is called Juan Diego Flats.

In the above picture, there is a short side road off to the right that goes uphill some and then stops. It was here I investigated this area for what looked like human activity at some point in the past. I am at this spot in this next picture, and it also is looking in the direction of what I will show in the next blog. Now whether Juan Diego and his wife lived right here at their adobe I do not know. The little map in the article makes it look like I would have been really close; the map is not totally to scale, but it would make sense. Then just turning around I had this behind me; far in the background is where the hike started from.

So the remains and foundations of something are still here. What it was exactly that was here I do not know. The bigger picture that I just wanted to experience on this day is to see the area of where Juan Diego and his wife lived and where he was murdered. I will continue this in the next blog.

The Murder of Juan "Alessandro" Diego (Youtube Version)

The Murder of Juan "Alessandro" Diego (Vimeo Version)

The Killing of Juan Diego: From Murder to Mythology by Phil Brigandi and John W. Robinson (The best article about history of this event from The Journal of San Diego History)

Ramona Epic #30: The Murder of Alessandro

2011-10-31T08:42:00.000-07:00

Happy Halloween! The time has come for the final tragedy of Ramona and Alessandro. When I was planning this series out over a year ago I knew today was going to be the day this video would come up. In my mind, since the time I started this series, there has been a countdown until this day. So here we are...

Ramona Epic #30: The Murder of Alessandro (Vimeo Version)

In the book, Chapter 24 starts:

"THERE was no real healing for Alessandro. His hurts had gone too
deep. His passionate heart, ever secretly brooding on the wrongs
he had borne, the hopeless outlook for his people in the future, and
most of all on the probable destitution and suffering in store for
Ramona, consumed itself as by hidden fires. Speech, complaint,
active antagonism, might have saved him; but all these were
foreign to his self-contained, reticent, repressed nature. Slowly, so
slowly that Ramona could not tell on what hour or what day her
terrible fears first changed to an even more terrible certainty, his
brain gave way, and the thing, in dread of which he had cried out
the morning they left San Pasquale, came upon him. Strangely
enough, and mercifully, now that it had really come, he did not
know it. He knew that he suddenly came to his consciousness
sometimes, and discovered himself in strange and unexplained
situations; had no recollection of what had happened for an
interval of time, longer or shorter. But he thought it was only a sort
of sickness; he did not know that during those intervals his acts
were the acts of a madman; never violent, aggressive, or harmful
to any one; never destructive. It was piteous to see how in these
intervals his delusions were always shaped by the bitterest
experiences of his life."

In the book, Alessandro returns home to Ramona with the wrong horse. He left his own horse in Jim Farrar's corral down below the mountain. Ramona questions him about this right away, and Alessandro replies that it was a mistake due to his illness. He further reasons they (Farrar and others) would see that he took the wrong horse and not think he was intentionally stealing the horse. It was too late to return the horse so he intended to do it in the morning.

Unfortunately, that is not how Jim Farrar reasoned about this. Alessandro is awakened by dogs barking, runs out the house to see what the problem is, some shots are fired, and Ramona comes out just in time to see Alessandro drop to the ground dead. Ramona calmly holds him realizing there is nothing she could do.

One thing to point out, in the play it makes sense to have a bunch of people around observing the murder and a posse that quickly goes after Farrar. That did not happen like that in the book. Ramona is all alone after the murder takes place.

In a daze, she then decides to hike during the night to the Indian village of Cahuilla. I should note that at this point of the story Alessandro and Ramona do have another child which is called "Ramona" at the end of the book. In the village of Cahuilla, she and Alessandro had friends that would help them.

When I get back to this series in a week or two I will have a few blogs that cover the real historical incident that Helen Hunt Jackson based this on.

Halloween Monsters and Strangeness 2011

2011-10-30T09:32:00.000-07:00

I thought I would review everything I did in the past two weeks and use this blog as the hub to link to everything. I realized last year that it would be foolish to try to outdo myself this year due to everything else I have going on. So, I had a few ideas and then revived some oldies. Speaking of which...

Some years back I covered the outdoor locations of Boris Karloff's The Mummy which was filmed at Red Rock Canyon. One thing I did not get quite right was the funeral procession that takes place on a cliff edge.

Unfortunately, when I went there this last time I forgot to bring the above picture with me. So, what I have is close, but not as fine-tuned as I would like. The deal is the above picture (and maybe mine too) is an optical illusion. It looks like the background is combined with the ramp area they are walking to make it look like they are on a cliff edge. The reality is there are two separate areas that have blended in together when you take a picture like this.Time to do a re-cap of my Halloween series for this year and provide the links:

1)Alien Murder at Corriganville!?!?!: this was a follow-up to something I discovered a few years ago while I was editing my Fort Apache video. It had to do with the tv show Bones having a few scenes at Corriganville that I thought was strange enough for this Halloween season. This just goes to show you that, although it is rare, sometimes modern tv shows and movies end up at the old classic locations.

a)Alien Murder at Corriganville!?!?! Blogs

b)Alien Murder at Corriganville?! (Youtube Version)

c)Alien Murder at Corriganville?! (Vimeo Version)

2)The Bridge to Nowhere: here I did a video for an area I had been to years ago. In fact, it was one of the original locations I used for my first Halloween series. The hike is rather easy (for me at least), but the trick is you have to cross the East Fork River at least six to maybe a dozen times to get to the final destination. For this video I used two different soundtracks for it. The one on youtube has the Incompetech.com background music, while the vimeo version has the main theme from an old 70's b-movie called Werewolves on Wheels. I like both versions, but when I originally envisioned this video a few years ago I just imagined it with the foreboding Werewolves on Wheels theme.

a)The Bridge to Nowhere Blogs (from 2006!)

b)The Bridge to Nowhere (Youtube Version)

c)The Bridge to Nowhere (Vimeo Version)

One thing I wanted to mention here is that I experienced a lot more trash this time around on the ground doing this hike. This bothers me. If for some reason you are in the area or doing this hike please consider bringing a trash bag with you to pack some of it out. It is a popular hike, this sort of thing is to be expected there, but it still troubled me to see so much trash out there.

3)Ancient Monsters: this was a bunch of blogs that took up most of the series this year. Dinosaurs are fascinating to most people, and with the new dino exhibit at the Los Angeles Natural History Museum I thought it would be a good idea to include this one this year.

a)Ancient Monsters Blogs

b)I did five videos for this that are both on youtube and vimeo. They are linked in each blog, or go down to the very bottom of this blog and click my Halloween video collection to find them.

4)The Mummy at Red Rock Canyon: of course, I have covered this before on a previous Halloween series. It was just time to create a new video for this one to replace the old lower quality one that was on the old youtube channel.

a)The Mummy at Red Rock Canyon Blogs (note: this blog is included with that so don't get confused)

b)The Mummy at Red Rock Canyon (Youtube Version)

c)The Mummy at Red Rock Canyon (Vimeo Version)

Finally, I thought I would link to my various October blogs where I had at least something a little strange for Halloween up from previous years:

October 2006

October 2008

October 2009

October 2010 (after clicking this one check out the blog archive on right side for the rest of the links. Not all the blogs fit on one page the way I have it set up...there were too many of them)

All my Halloween themed videos can be found on one of these:

The Silence of Halloween Locations (Youtube Version)

The Silent Halloween Themes (Vimeo Version)

Ancient Monsters: Sea Creatures

2011-10-29T20:36:00.000-07:00

To wrap this up I thought I would mention the two big sea dinosaurs they have at the museum. Both are hanging from the ceiling and you might have seen glimpses of them in the first blog I did for this because they are in the first room.

One is Plotosaurus which was around about 66 million years ago:The other one has a very long neck! It is a Plesiosaur called Morenosaurus. It too lived around 67-65 million year ago.

Ancient Monsters: Sea Creatures (Youtube Version)

Ancient Monsters: Sea Creatures (Vimeo Version)

Some external links:

Plotosaurus (Wikipedia Article)

Morenosarus (or Muraenosaurus) (Wikipedia Article)

L.A. Natural History Museum

On the day I did this I must have spent a few hours exploring and taking videos/pictures of all that I saw in the dino exhibit. I then spent an addition hour quickly going through the rest of the museum. I still felt there was more I could have spent additional time on. Even in the dino exhibit I felt I rushed at some points because I did not read signs they had out. There was much more I could have shown on here as well. So, at some point I will go back there, and if you are ever in Los Angeles I would suggest you do to.

The title of the song used in the video is Shamanistic from Incompetech.com

Ancient Monsters: Air Creatures

2011-10-28T09:20:00.001-07:00

I am just going to cover two creatures in this one, but in the video I show a few more of the airborne dinosaurs. Not everyone I show could fly, but scientists classify them together much like they classify ostrich and penguins as birds even though they do not fly.

The first one is a creature I have always been curious about. It is one that has been quite controversial as to what it actually is. It is known as Archaeopteryx:Living somewhere between 150-146 million years ago, it is theorized that it primarily used its wings to glide from trees and not fly like we think of modern birds doing. It was one of the first dinosaurs to have feathers.Right of Archaepteryx is the Velociraptor which lived somewhere between 75-65 million years ago. Got to love those claws:The Velociraptor is well known from being portrayed in the movie Jurassic Park. However, one thing they lacked in the movie that they had while they existed was feathers. However, we do know they were fierce fighting creatures like that movie! Check out the link down below for more on that. Here there are in the exhibit side by side with another bird-like dinosaur.

In the video I also show a few others like the popular Pteranodon.

Ancient Monsters: Air Creatures (Youtube Version)

Ancient Monsters: Air Creatures (Vimeo Version)

Two links:

Archaeopterxy (Wikipedia Article)

Velociraptor (Wikipedia Article)

Velociraptor vs. Protoceratops (Fossils Captured in Combat!)

The title of the music used is called Spacial Winds by Incompetech.com.

Ancient Monsters: Stegosaurus and Allosaurus

2011-10-27T20:10:00.000-07:00

After the T-Rex area one can turn around and encounter two other dinosaurs. One is Stegosaurus from the late Jurassic period: 155-150 million years ago:

Right next to Stegosaurus is Allosaurus that lived at the same time:From above:In the video I show a few other things. One is this exhibit about dinosaur sounds and Corythosaurus and Parasaurolophus. I mentioned last time no one knows what dinosaurs sounded like, but scientists think they have some ideas about these two creatures. This has to do with the way the "horns" on their heads were shaped. Watch the video for the computer simulation at the end about this.
Ancient Monsters: Stegosaurus and Allosaurus (Youtube Version)

Ancient Monsters: Stegosaurus and Allosaurus (Vimeo Version)

A few external links:

Stegosaurus (Wikipedia Article)

Allosaurus (Wikipedia Article)

Corythosaurus (Wikipedia Article)

Parasaurolophus (Wikipedia Article)

The L.A. Natural History Museum

The titles of the music used in the video are called Aftermath and Unnatural Situation from Incompetech.com.

Ancient Monsters: T-Rex

2011-10-25T17:13:00.001-07:00

The next part of the exhibit is the main hall where the T-Rex's and a few other dinosaurs are. Let me hit some of the highlights in this blog. I continue it in the next one.

The first one you see is that of Camptosaurus. This dinosaur lived in the late Jurassic period. Somewhere around 160-145 million years ago. Right next to the above dinosaur is Carnotaurus. He has bull-like horns on top of his head. Carnotaurus lived in the late Cretaceous about 75 million years ago.The above two are cool, but the dinosaur I was very curious about was the Tyrannosaurus Rex fossils in the exhibit. They have a bunch, but the main one I wanted to focus on is the one they call "Thomas". He is the star of the whole exhibit and is one of the most complete T-Rex fossils in existence. Here is his skull: A different angle through the glass case they have the skull in.What it looks like they did is they keep the skull separate from the rest of his body for this exhibit. So, what you see in the next picture is a fossilized model attached the real fossilized body.They have a few T-Rex's in the middle of the main exhibit hall to show you the sizes of them compared to the ages they think they were. It goes from about two years of age to roughly around 17 years of age when it comes to "Thomas". This one is supposed to be around 14 years old.This is "Thomas" standing over the one that is supposed to be around two years old:Another view of "Thomas". He was found in Montana and lived roughly around 67-65 million years ago.

Ancient Monsters: T-Rex (Youtube Version)

Ancient Monsters: T-Rex (Vimeo Version)

A few links for you. There are enough books out there on dinosaurs that I should not do this. However, if you want a quick reference then these Wikipedia articles should get you started:

Camptosaurus (Wikipedia Article)

Carnotaurus (Wikipedia Article)

Tyrannosaurus Rex (Wikipedia Article)

The L.A. Natural History Museum

I put this in my video notes, but I should do it here too:

1)Most of the dates I give are very broad based on a few local library and online sources. I just wanted to get the periods they lived right. So, if you are a hardcore dinosaur person, and I am not as precise as you would like, then sorry. ;)

2)No one knows what these creatures actually sounded like. The sounds are just used for artistic effect.

The titles of the music used are Deep Noise, Blue Sizzle, and Interloper from Incompetch.com songs.

Ancient Monsters: Triceratops and Mamenchisaurus

2011-10-23T14:08:00.000-07:00

This blog begins a series of blogs about my most recent visit to the L.A. Natural History Museum. It had probably been a good 15 years since I was last there. What brought me back is the new dinosaur exhibit they opened during the summer.

Since we are getting close to the day when little monsters will be wandering around at night I thought now would be a good idea to share this. Even though these creatures are not the traditional ones you think about during Halloween, I am considering this part of this years Halloween Monsters and Strangeness series.

One thing that I remember about this new exhibit is that it opened on the weekend of July 16, and that was when the infamous Carmageddon situation regarding the closing of part of the 405 freeway. Everyone was told to stay home, and nothing really happened that weekend. However, I remember seeing people on the news say that whoever thought of opening this new exhibit probably did not think it through. As it was, it did not really matter as many people showed up there. I did not go because I did not want to get stuck on the freeway. ;) So, I went at a later time.

As soon as you enter the new exhibit you get to see a favorite dinosaur of many: Triceratops. Roughly around 68-65 million years ago this creature was running around. With this particular reconstruction you are seeing four different animal specimens combined into one. It is very rare to get a complete animal fossil set. So, what you see at this exhibit is usually either a few real fossils combined with a model, a lot of real fossils combined with model, or just a model itself just to illustrate what the dinosaur would have looked like. They have signs that indicate which parts of the dinosaur are the original real fossils and which are just part of a reconstructed model.
This right leg and foot were found on a dig in southeastern Montana. The skull was also found at the same dig and is part of the same animal. The other fossils you see that were used to make up this composite were found at three other spots in either southeastern Montana or northeastern Wyoming.Another look at the Triceratops (aka the three-horned face). This creature would have been living just east of the Rockies in a warm area that would have had lots of plants to eat.Now if you look at the above picture there is a tall and long necked dinosaur in the background. This is Mamenchisaurus. This one lived around 160-145 million years ago. It was a plant eater, and fossils of this animal are known to be found in China.This particular fossil specimen was the hardest to get into a picture or video of because it is just so long. Check out that neck:

Ancient Monsters: Triceratops and Mamenchisaurus (Youtube Version)

Ancient Monsters: Triceratops and Mamenchisaurus (Vimeo Version)

As I do this I will list a few links, but as you would guess there is so much out there on dinosaurs that I really do not think I have to do this. When I was preparing the videos for this one I just spent some time at a local library along with what they had at the museum.

Triceratops (Wiki Article)

Mamenchisaurus (Wiki Article)

The Los Angeles Natural History Museum (Official Site)

For this series I referred to a couple of sources at the library along with a few things online, but my basic reference was the book Dinofile by Richard Moody.

The title of the music used is the video is Invariance from Incompetech.com.

Ramona Epic #29: Eyes of the Sky is Dead!

2011-10-20T13:36:00.000-07:00

What started in the last video in the story is confirmed in this one. Another tragedy for Ramona and Alessandro...

Eyes of the Sky is Dead! (Vimeo Version)

It seems liked we just blessed Eyes of the Sky. The book explains further that the problem is the doctor could have, but did not travel the distance to help their daughter.

Alessandro has been really tortured about all of this. The death of the members of his family, the wandering from one place to another without a permanent home, and the death of his daughter has started to cause him to lose it mentally.

Ramona Epic #28: Alessandro!

2011-10-19T18:18:00.000-07:00

During this scene the mic was going in and out on one of the actors, but you should be able to follow what is happening:

Ramona Epic #28: Alessandro (Vimeo Version)

To sum up, something is wrong with Eyes in the Sky and Alessandro gets told about the man harrassing his wife. The next video should be up by tomrrow on this.

Alien Murder at Corriganville!?!?! (Corriganville Series)

2011-10-17T18:28:00.000-07:00

Well, here we are again at that time of the year where I live, that the days start to get darker earlier, strange monsters start to appear, and the locations start to get spooky looking. Usually, I try to spend the whole month of October reading Halloween stories, and watching a few old and new Halloween themed movies. Due to the overall crazyness of my life right now I am just now getting into my Halloween mood. I have two weeks for the fun and I intend to use them.

In the past, if all goes well in October, I like to put up my version of Halloween fun. Normally, the locations are not really scary, but just a little unusual or weird. I think last year was the highpoint of me doing this, and I realized it would be very difficult to outdo what I did last year. Also, I knew last year that October was going to be a VERY CRITICAL part of my presentation of my Ramona series which will still be going on as I do this.

So, what I am doing this time around is adding some new things, but also reviving some of my old classics. There are a couple that I am doing that are just videos with no need for a new blog since I did them some years back. So, if you care about those then check my video channels for the next two weeks, but I should have a summary blog up around the day before Halloween with links to everything I have done for this year. In any case, I am going to refer to this series with the tag of Halloween Monsters and Strangeness 2011. It won't be too traditional, but I think you will see it all fits.

In this blog I going into more detail over something I discovered a few years ago during the time I was editing my Fort Apache video. At that time, the tv show Bones had an episode called The X in the File that I noticed had the Fort Apache portion of Corriganville in the episode. I do not really watch this tv show, but was intrigued that a modern tv show would use this location. So, not too long ago, I decided to go back and figure out what they did.

I will link my original blog about this at the bottom, but the reason I am using this one as part of this years Halloween series is because the investigators appear to have found a dead alien! Then they think it could have been murdered!

At the start they show one of the investigators come around from the northern side (which I noted in the previous blog on this). He greets a police officer near these rocks.Something like this:As the two investigators try to figure out what happened to this "murdered alien" a lady shows up with her shotgun telling them they are trespassing on her property. The police officer tells her to put the gun down since it is official law enforcement business.My picture is not exact, but you should be able to see most of the same rocks.The camera shows a different angle.Close enough for our purposes. The "murdered alien" would have been have been lying over the bottom rock.Later on in the episode they come back to this rock formation and give you a different look:These are those rocks. I always remember that rock to the left because it reminds me of a tatooed side-face on the rock.This episode was in the season 5 of Bones. So, if you are curious about this episode then you need to watch it as a re-run on tv, find the dvd of this episode, or purchase it from Amazon down below. Note the amazon preview trailer linked below shows up some of footage of the same area when some guys encounter the "alien body" at night for the first time.

Alien Murder at Corriganville (Youtube Version)

Alien Murder at Corriganville (Vimeo Version)

Previous blog on this X in the File episode

IMDB reference to this episode (check out the picture they have)

At this time you can also find the episode preview and purchase it to watch here on Amazon.com.

Ramona Epic #27: Farrar Harasses Ramona

2011-10-16T22:33:00.000-07:00

Farrar and friend make a false accusation and then Farrar continues to reveal his true character...

Ramona Epic #27: Farrar Harasses Ramona (Vimeo Version)

Ramona Epic #26: Aunt Ri

2011-10-10T19:07:00.000-07:00

Now we get to the an important character at the end of the novel, but only has this appearance in the play.

Ramona Epic #26: Aunt Ri (Vimeo Version)

In this scene, you get to see some of Aunt Ri's concerns about the U.S. policy towards the Indians. In the novel, she ends up confronting the Indian agent bureaucrat in the story in an attempt to complain about the U.S. policy. It is thought by many that Aunt Ri represents Helen Hunt Jackson herself. In other words, this is Ms. Jackson as her viewpoints come out through this character.

Although the character is interesting, one thing Ms. Jackson did was give her an accent in the novel that is difficult, for me, to read through. Near the end of the novel many pages are written in this phonetic-type of "hillbilly" english. I read the novel rather quickly, but during the long conversations with this character near the end I really slowed down. So, I did not enjoy it as much, but she may have done this on purpose to force one to read it slowly to make sure her points were hammered home.

Ramona Epic #25: Enter Jim Farrar

2011-10-05T21:21:00.000-07:00

The real villain of the story appears:

Ramona Epic #25: Enter Jim Farrar (Vimeo Version)

The character of Ysidro is a cousin of Alessandro. As seen in the video, he did have a paper for his property, but that was signed under Mexican rule and the current U.S. paperwork needed is what Farrar had. You get the idea of the type of personality Farrar has with this video.

Ramona Epic #24: San Jacinto Mountain (The Summit Views)

2011-09-25T12:23:00.000-07:00

(GPS: N33 48.880 W116 40.765)

This continues the summit views from the top. I am looking toward the north, and San Gorgonio is in the background. There were people that went beyond the rocks you see to look down below. I had thought of doing that, but decided just to stay where I was and get ready to head back down when done with these pictures.

The next two are to the west:As you can see there was a lot of cloudy haze. The smoke was eventually coming too.One picture I had hoped to get was something to indicate where Hemet was since I have a picture of me from the Ramona Bowl looking up to here. All I can tell you is it is down there somewhere to the southwest:
Looking toward the south.More to the south where the smoke was coming from in San Diego County.
Let me give you some concluding thoughts on this one as I wrap this up:

This was not a really difficult hike compared to what I normally do. It is about a 2,500 ft. elevation gain in about 5.8 miles (11+ miles roundtrip). Getting there, getting my tickets, the permit, etc. was something I was just glad to be done with so I could relax on the hike. I did relax on the hike and my pace was not as fast as I could go since I purposely stopped for pictures and video on the way to the summit. I was just glad to be taking in the air. With that said, it only took me two hours to get to the top from the tram.

Much like any other touristy type of hike, and some of the same issues one faces on Mt. Whitney, most of the people I encountered was when I was on the way down. I knew this would probably be the case and is the reason I was only at the summit long enough to take pictures, video, and hydrate with a few drinks. Not that I have anything against people on this hike, but as the day goes on more and more people end up on a popular trail like this. What usually happens is I pull off the narrow trails to allow people through that are coming up. If I have to keep doing that it wears me down more and more from the constant stopping and starting. There is usually someone that tries to "interview" or "interrogate" me about how far they have to go, or if I saw someone ahead of them with a blue hat that they know. Most people keep these sorts of things brief, but sometimes I get people that want more details out of me, and that is when my brain starts to fade. The closer I got back to the tram the more people were starting their hikes and backpacking that afternoon. So, I ended up making really bad time getting back to the tram compared to going up. It was VERY SLOW moving on the way down!

To get back to the tram that last 500 ft. or so is going up a cement ramp. Lots of people were coming down here as I headed up it. I finally reached the point where I began the video, rested, did the beginning part of the video, took the tram down, did the video parts for the station below, and then had a relatively easy drive home.

This is a hike I had wanted to do for some years. It reminded me a lot of being in Yosemite. I can understand why people would want to come up the tram to just be up there. I have thought of going back just for that some other time. Most of my elevation hikes in So. Cal. do not give me that feeling. The forest and rocks do feel like being in a forest and not near the desert.

Finally, when I was reading the Ramona book I was very excited to see that this mountain was where Ms. Jackson sent Alessandro and Ramona. So, I knew I had to do it, and this hike was the final thing I had to do for this series. Unfortunately, due to the way schedules work, I was not able to get up here in 2010. I was a bit stressed over that because I would have been disappointed not to have been able to include this as part of the series. Also, as I write this, the tram is usually down for maintence in September, and then one faces winter conditions. There are other factors involved, but I was glad to get this done in July, 2011. When I was at the summit I was truly relieved not only to have the hike "done", but also that I had completed all I needed done for the Ramona project at that point.

Ramona Epic #24: Mt. San Jacinto (Youtube Version)

Ramona Epic #24: Mt. San Jacinto (Vimeo Version)

Ramona Epic #24: San Jacinto Mountain (To the Summit)

2011-09-24T13:05:00.000-07:00

Other than getting to the summit, the one other thing I had a curiousity in was the San Jacinto Hut near the summit. It is a storm shelter and has a registry to sign inside of it. On the way up I bypassed it completely other than taking a few pictures and video because I wanted to get to the summit.Unfortunately, I did not get to go into it. I thought I saw some people come out of it that were getting ready to backpack somewhere. I was pretty sure there were people in it while I was heading up. I then tried to enter it myself and it appeared to be locked. It was a minor disappointment, but since I had been in other shelters like this before (ex. The Whitney Summmit Hut) I was more than happy to keep on moving down.

From the hut to the summit there is a few hundred feet of elevation gain. The issue here is that this is the only part of the hike that you have to scramble over boulders. In my picture you can barely see the moon overhead, and there are some people hanging out on the right near the summit.

There were a bunch of people at the summit. Many people were having their picture taken near the very top. There is a sign that gives the elevation and a few benchmarks. Right next to it is a rock or two that gets you to the highest point. After a few people came down from the top rocks, I made my break for the high point and got out my camcorder and started to do a quick pan video of the summit. I then took some pictures in all directions. I ended up doing it really quickly since more people were coming to the spot near the sign.

This first picture is looking toward the southeast where I started at the top of the tram:

Just panning slightly to the left and still looking toward the southeast.

This is looking toward the east and into Palm Springs.More to the northeast in the following picture:

I was on the 2nd highest mountain in southern California, but San Gorgonio, just across the way on the left side of the picture, is the highest. You will notice that one never truly escapes trees on this mountain.

I will continue the summit views in the next blog.

Ramona Epic #24: Mt. San Jacinto (Youtube Version)

Ramona Epic #24: Mt. San Jacinto (Vimeo Version)

Ramona Epic #24: San Jacinto Mountain (To the Hut)

2011-09-23T11:41:00.000-07:00

From Wellman's Divide the elevation part of the hike really stars to kick in. Nothing too strenous, but I think I enjoyed this part of the hike more than the climb up from Round Valley. This is where you start heading back east more in the direction of Palm Springs.

There comes a point where there are two very long switchbacks. On the trail of the first one I looked back. You can see the hazy clouds around, but there was one in the background of concern.That wasn't a cloud. It was smoke. That was coming from San Diego County. It was not too bad that morning, but later on in the day coming back down, the smoke started to reach Mt. San Jacinto. You could smell it, and it gave the sunlight an orange look all around.It still seemed like a long way to the top from below, but in reality of the hike it was very close.This is along the second long switchback. I really did not know how much longer I had to go, but felt pretty good. It was at this point I started encountering a few people on their way down from the summit. I did not ask, but I was quite sure that I was almost done based on my prior experience of these types of mountain hikes.I did encounter a sign that said I had a .3 miles to the summit. While I was taking pictures, a man with a backpack came from the other side. He had spent the night below and was hiking some trail coming from Idyllwild. We both agreed it was time to finish this hike up. Not too long after I saw the San Jacinto Hut just below the summit.

Ramona Epic #24: Mt. San Jacinto (Youtube Version)

Ramona Epic #24: Mt. San Jacinto (Vimeo Version)

Ramona Epic #24: San Jacinto Mountain (To Wellman's Divide)

2011-09-21T14:22:00.000-07:00

(GPS: N33 48.780 W116 38.320)

"'To San Jacinto,' he said. 'San Jacinto Mountain. Do not look
back, Majella! Do not look back!' he cried, as he saw Ramona,
with streaming eyes, gazing back towards San Pasquale. 'Do not
look back! It is gone! Pray to the saints now, Majella! Pray! Pray!'"

In chapter 20 of Ramona, Alessandro and Ramona are driven off their land and retreat to Mt. San Jacinto. I thought I would put up N.C. Wyeth's artwork here:

From what I can tell, Helen Hunt Jackson never stepped on Mt. San Jacinto. Alessandro mentions Saboba at the foot of Mt. San Jacinto which is the way it really is. They decide not to go there since it too is a poor village and they would probably be kicked out of there too. So, he decides to go up higher onto Mt. San Jacinto which means freedom to him, but it is also a sign of desperation.

Since these are fictional characters, and Helen Hunt Jackson really did not go into detail about where they were on this mountain, I will be referring to this mountain in very broad terms. Normally, on a mountain hike, I refer to the high peak as the main mountain peak and the sub-peaks as something else, However, for this hike when I refer to Mt. San Jacinto I am talking about the whole hike and everything you see. The point of this hike is not to point to some place and say that this is what Ms. Jackson was referring to, but to let you use your imagination with the pictures and see where Alessandro and Ramona would have lived in the fictional world of the book based on the real mountain. So, for the next few entries you will see the type of terrain they would have lived in whether Ms. Jackson completely knew about it or not. She could have experienced some of the lower levels of the mountain on the western side, or could have talked to people that had been on it.

This is from HWY 10:

In the last few blogs I covered the tram that gets you to around 8,500+ feet level. That morning I knew I was to get out of the tram as quick as possible, walk 1/4 of a mile to the ranger station, and get a hiking permit. There were a few people ahead of me, but I signed the permit at roughly 8:15am that morning. It was a quick process, and I was glad that all the tasks of the morning, like driving to the station, getting a ticket for the tram, and finally the permit were done so I could really start doing what I was there for.

I was now in a forested area. The desert floor was nowhere to be seen. Not too far off one encounters a few streams along the trail.

One thing this hike reminded me of is walking through Yosemite. Lots of trees blocking the sun, and huge boulders off the sides of the trail. At this point, early on, there was little elevation.My pace was pretty good and I was rather relaxed taking in the air. There were, from what it looked like, Conservation Corps type of members coming in the opposite direction toward the tram that I saw at several points. For most of this hike on the way to the top I had very brief interactions with people. On the way down it was a different story which I will get to.

Eventually, I got past the meadows of Round Valley. There was some wildlife out, but when I got to Round Valley that is where I saw a bunch of campers since that is where they usually go to camp here overnight. Not too far after that is where I started to hit some short switchbacks and the elevation started to pick up. After some leg work, I saw the trees open up a little and realized I was about half-way done with the hike.I had reached Wellman's Divide. I finally got to see some of the area from up high.

I have read that you can see Palomar Observatory from here on a good day. It is off somewhere to the right. The day I went it was rather hazy, and there was another factor I will get to eventually that made the views a little more hazy that I would have liked, but I was enjoying this hike.

The trail does split here into other trails. One trail goes off and around the right side of the above picture. My trail to the top of the mountain was just behind me. I briefly talked to a few men here and off I went. The hike from the station to the top is about six miles, and it is around three miles to get to this point. However, most of the uphill was from this point on.

Ramona Epic #24: Mt. San Jacinto (Youtube Version)

Ramona Epic #24: Mt. San Jacinto (Vimeo Version)

Palm Springs Tram (Going Up the Tram)

2011-09-20T21:37:00.000-07:00

The way the tram works is, throughout the 12+ minutes to the top, it rotates so that you get to see in all directions while standing in the same spot. If I remember correctly, you end up doing two full rotations on the way up. Taking pictures and video is somewhat difficult here. Partly because of the window in front of you moving and some of the structures of the tram that move into your way because of this. I did get a few shots just to show you what it looks like. This was in the morning looking back down to where we started.A little higher:This was at the top right before I came back down:The Palm Springs Tram (Youtube Version)

The Palm Springs Tram (Vimeo Version)

Palm Springs Tram (The Inside)

2011-09-19T21:55:00.000-07:00

Dean Martin and Sharon Tate run through the entrance of the station:In the previous blog, I was just standing outside of the doors here. This is the entrance they would have gone through for the movie.

They then run through the station to get tickets.

Things have definately changed and modernized, but you should see traces of the windows, the door, and the stairs that appeared in the movie. You purchase tickets on this side now.

In the movie they purchase tickets on the other side.

Now:

There is a point where Sharon is inside a restroom and Dean is down on the floor trying to hide from the villains. I really thought I would be able to get that, but I am not sure that area exists like that these days.

In the above picture, there is a small passageway in the background on the right. We hung out near the chairs by there that morning, and then around 80 people got in the tram to go up the 6,000 ft. The tram is built to keep rotating while you go up and down it. So, you are not always facing one direction, but will have views in all directions in the 12 minutes it takes to do it. In the next blog entry I will show a few pictures of how it looks from inside the tram.

The Palm Springs Tram (Youtube Version)

The Palm Springs Tram (Vimeo Version)

Palm Springs Tram (The Stairs)

2011-09-18T22:53:00.000-07:00

To purchase tickets to get to the tram you have to climb some stairs. In The Wrecking Crew they show Dean Martin and Sharon Tate go up some of the stairs, but then shortly after they show the villains go up all the stairs. Like so:These days:

From the above picture point of view, these stairs take you to the left up to where the camera was. Dean and Sharon here:

You will see they have added a wall:

So, there are some changes here in comparing to how it was over 40 years ago, but you should still be able to recognize this area easily. In the next blog entry I will show you some of the inside where you purchase your ticket and go up the tram. Things are much different now, but you might see a few traces of what was once here.

The Palm Springs Tram (Youtube Version)

The Palm Springs Tram (Vimeo Version)

Palm Springs Tram Station (Outside)

2011-09-16T19:14:00.000-07:00

(GPS: N33° 50.240 W116° 36.840)

This blog starts a series of entries on my visit to Palm Springs. Actually, most of my time was spent near the Palm Springs Tram and not in the desert city. What you are about to see in the next few entries is really at the end of the day right before I started to head home. When I drove out there that morning I got up early and was there after a less than 2 hour drive. I got there before the first tram takes one up the mountainside. Rather than deal with the bad early morning lighting, I decided to wait until I got back down to take pictures. The disadvantage of doing this was I was really tired, and it was very hot at the parking lot. Still I wanted to put something together on this before I left. Believe me, I really had to push myself to just get these pictures because I was really losing my enthusiasm at this time. So, this is one of those that I was more concerned about giving you some approximate locations rather than try to fine-tune and get exacts spots while I was there.

Lots of movies and tv shows have been filmed here. My example for this will be The Wrecking Crew with Dean Martin and Sharon Tate. In that movie they are chased in their car up here by the villains in that movie. There is only one way to get here and they use the road below when they enter and the villains are tailing them.

Then turning around from what you see in the above picture, you can see the Palm Springs Tram Station and that is where Dean and Sharon go with their car.My picture to give you an idea of how it is these days here.In the movie, they cross a bridge, turn around, and go back to the front entrance to the station.My picture on the bridge looking up to the station.
The Palm Springs Tram (Youtube Version)

The Palm Springs Tram (Vimeo Version)

The Palm Springs Tram (Official Website)

The Wrecking Crew (IMDB)

Ramona Epic #23: Driven From Their Land

2011-09-14T21:45:00.000-07:00

The white men come: in the book and the play, there are major concerns over Americans coming to California and taking the land previously owned by the Indians and the Californios. After the all the changes in their lives and all that is happened, Ramona and Alessandro had achieved some stability...until now...

Ramona Epic #23: Driven From Their Land (Vimeo Version)

You will notice that Alessandro mentions that to be free they must go up to the mountains. This is something that very much relates to this blog. I definately can understand what he is saying about that. So, there is a sense of desperation, yet escape to a better place.

The Arch (The Alabama Hills Series)

2011-09-05T23:04:00.000-07:00

(GPS: N36 36.820 W118 07.550)

I have mentioned this one before, but I thought I would give the Alabama Hills Arch (aka the Mobius Arch) its own blog entry. Roaming around the Alabama Hills one can find a lot of arches. It is not really my thing, so you will not see me posting many of them. There was a time just a few years ago that this one was a lot more difficult to find than it is now. I remember having to scramble to get to it. These days you can just find a nice trail to it with a sign with a picture of the arch that indicates it is the trailhead for it.

I would say it takes around 7-10 minutes to walk to the arch. The dirt turnout near the trailhead usually has a few cars parked, so this arch has become a popular site in the Alabama Hills. To get there and have it to yourself takes a bit of planning.

It has become a rather common shot people make. Just a few days ago on Astronomy.com's Picture of the Day it was shown with the moon through the window. My father owned old photography magazines that had it in it. As I show in my video there are lots of pictures of it around one can encounter. It is a bit overdone, and AFAIAC the people that really like this arch can have it and spend all their time in the Alabama Hills there.

The Alabama Hills Arch (Youtube Version)

The Alabama Hills Arch (Vimeo Version)

My previous mention of this arch is here.

Speaking of the Alabama Hills. All those videos can now be found on this playlist.

Recently, in the Alabama Hills I had funny encounter out there. While on the way to one of the rock formations I needed to video I passed a bunch of different people at different points on the way to my destination. It was the most I have ever seen out in these areas apart from the festival. I had a schedule to keep since my ride was patiently waiting for me. So, I was walking quickly, but was sure to greet anyone that I quickly passed by. However, there was a husband and wife I evaded as I walked on a different trail. As I passed behind some rocks I heard shouted at me, "Do you know where the world famous Gene Autry Rock is?" I then stopped turned around and pointed out the rock. The response was, "Okay, just wanted to make sure you did not accidently bypass it without knowing where it is." I just kept walking, laughed back, and said, "Oh yeah, if you only knew!" Apart from the festival, I have never had anyone try to point out any of these rocks to me while I was there.

Just a few housekeeping issues and a few tibits as we get to the end of summer and start approaching fall around here...

I took most of the summer off from editing any new videos. Yeah, you saw a bunch of new ones during the past few months, but almost all of them were completed before the summer started. I just started doing some new edits this weekend with a more recent version of Sony Vegas that has new features. Those will be coming soon.

Recently, on the Youtube account I deleted a few of the older videos. Some I am going to re-do in the future, and others were experimental videos that can still be found on Vimeo. The reason I deleted them is most of them were not really being viewed anyways, and they sampled music that, due to the sensitivites of copywrite on Youtube, could be blocked in the future. As they were, they were not that important to me to keep on there so I thought it best to take them down. All of those videos are still on Vimeo at this point.

I am continuing to upload a lot of new versions of locations I have done before. So, check my Youtube and Vimeo channels if you have not seen them.

Ramona Epic #22: "Bless This Child"

2011-09-01T20:26:00.000-07:00

In the story over a year has passed since Ramona and Alessandro were married (my previous blog on this). They are now living with the Indians in the San Pasqual Valley which is north of San Diego, and Ramona gives birth to the their baby: Eyes of the Sky. The child is blessed, and a celebration takes place.

Ramona Epic #22: "Bless This Child" (Vimeo Version)

One thing to note is I faded about the time Alessandro put his arms down. You might think I cut out early, but everyone started clapping right as the video ended because the scene was over.

Ramona Epic #21: La Casa De Estudillo (Part 3)

2011-08-18T08:06:00.000-07:00

(AKA The Marriage Place of Ramona and Alessandro)

"'Majella, the chapel is lighted; but that is good!' exclaimed
Alessandro, as they rode into the silent plaza. "Father Gaspara
must be there;" and jumping off his horse, he peered in at the
uncurtained window. 'A marriage, Majella, -- a marriage!' he
cried, hastily returning. "This, too, is good fortune. We need not to
wait long."

The place of marriage can be narrowed down to Old Town San Diego because that is the only historical place for that time that would have matched the short description in the book. To identify the Estudillo home as the place is a stretch, but is the one place in the plaza that had a chapel.

Continuing from the last blog, I walked toward the other side of the U-shaped casa to view the rooms on that side.There is a workroom and a few other bedrooms on that side.The dining room. That piece of art is supposed to be of Jose Maria Estudillo, the original owner and creator of the casa.Now going back to the other side we have the chapel. From what I can tell, this room changed completely over the years. Some old pictures I have seen do not look like this room at all. In any case, for our purposes, this is where Ramona and Alessandro exchanged vows with Father Gaspara.
Now in the book, what really happens is Father Gaspara writes their names down in a marriage registry where he lives, that would be here, then they cross the plaza to the chapel. But, for the Ramona tourist back in time, this would have been the room they were married in.Behind me is where the priest's room was:
There is an odd history for this site. By the time Ramona was written and being read, it was already in a state of ruins. In more time, the remains on the site would have probably been bulldozed and completely built over with something else. So, its continued existence depended on a work of fiction that probably had nothing to do with it.

"AFTER leaving Father Gaspara's door, Alessandro and Ramona
rode slowly through the now deserted plaza, and turned northward,
on the river road, leaving the old Presidio walls on their right. The
river was low, and they forded it without difficulty."

There's really nothing left of the Presido, but the description above matches up with how they would have had to leave the Old Town San Diego plaza.

A few side notes as I wrap this one up:

Over ten years ago, I remember actually walking around at this casa when I visited the Whaley House in Old Town San Diego. I specifically remember not caring about its Ramona history because I was more concerned about the actual history of the place. If I remember correctly, it had a little more publicity about being the "Marriage place of Ramona" at the time. In the past 40 years or so, it has gradually lost some of it identification as part of the Ramona history. In the pamphlet you get there I think there is a sentence or two mentioning that it was connected with the novel. The funny thing is my attitude toward the casa and the Whaley House has totally flip-flopped in that time; my interest in one is more than the other these days.

I actually had to visit this place twice last year. When I originally went there the first time I was excited only to find out that the chapel room was closed and being worked on! I just about wanted to slam my head into the ground. I got there early in the morning to picture and video the outside, but the whole reason I went there was to get pictures and video of that room. I asked when it would open up again, I was told they just had a meeting about this, and within a few weeks by July 4th or later in the summer. I could not get a direct answer so I had it my mind I would have to come back by around Labor Day. On the day I went back I probably spent five minutes parking, walking to the casa, then going into the chapel room. I was so glad I did that I verified all footage to make sure I got everything before I went home. That room was important for this project, and for a while I was trying to come up with alternate plans for how to present this if that room was going to stay closed. I was told that the casa is in a continual state of being repaired and updated so other rooms of it are often closed for a time.

Ramona Epic #21: The Marriage Place of Ramona (Youtube Version)

Ramona Epic #21: The Marriage Place of Ramona (Vimeo Version)

Ramona Epic #21: La Casa De Estudillo (Part 2)

2011-08-17T12:46:00.000-07:00

(AKA The Marriage Place of Ramona and Alessandro)

"The road on which they must go
into old San Diego, where Father Gaspara lived, was the public
road from San Diego to San Luis Rey, and they were almost sure
to meet travellers on it."

In the real world, the comandante of the nearby San Diego Presidio, Jose Maria Estudillo retired in 1827 and was given this land to build his home on. He died in 1830 and his son, Jose Antonio Estudillo, continued building the home. By 1887 the family moved to Los Angeles and the home was left with a caretaker. By 1906 the place was almost in ruins, it was purchased by Nat Titus. It was eventually sold again. By 1908, the place was restored by architect Hazel Waterman and converted into the "Marriage Place of Ramona" tourist spot. By 1968 the home was restored as a museum in the California State Park system.

When the museum opens up there are a couple of ways to enter it. I entered it from the front. In this next picture I went into the midde of the casa and turned around to where I came in from. Just imagine there are two sides: one on my left and one on my right. The chapel we will get to in the next blog just happens to be the first room on the right side. You can barely see the door entrance in this picture.

For this blog, I am skipping the chapel for now, but will show you some of the rooms on the right side (from the perspective of the above picture) of the casa. The room in the above picture is the storage room. If you turn to your left there is a short entrance to the guest bedroom:

Another room on that side is the dining room which I will skipping here, but the next room down is a bedroom:

The next room down is the kitchen. And, just looking over to the right side of the kitchen:

Outside there is an oven next to the kitchen. Keep in mind that a lot of the items you see in these pictures are there just to keep the feel of the old California days and not items that go back to those times.

Back to our historical fiction and this place. While there is nothing in the book to indicate that this is the spot Helen Hunt Jackson had in mind for Ramona and Alessandro's wedding place, it would make since for someone to think it was nearby. First, we know that they end up in San Diego. Second, the only place of significance for that time would have been what is known as Old Town San Diego. This area that the casa is contained in.

Once we start talking talking about where Father Gaspara wrote down their names in the marriage book and where they were actually married it gets a little more problematic. I'll finish this one up next time.

Ramona Epic #21: The Marriage Place of Ramona (Youtube Version)

Ramona Epic #21: The Marriage Place of Ramona (Vimeo Version)

Ramona Epic #21: La Casa de Estudillo (Part 1)

2011-08-16T13:24:00.001-07:00

(GPS: N32 45.265 W117 11.810)
(AKA The Marriage Place of Ramona and Alessandro)

"Alessandro had explained to her his plan, which
was to go by way of Temecula to San Diego, to be married there
by Father Gaspara, the priest of that parish, and then go to the
village or pueblo of San Pasquale, about fifteen miles northwest of
San Diego."

In chapter 18 of Ramona, as Alessandro and Ramona are traveling, there is a lot of talk about the California Missions. The talk of it is not always good about the priests and some of the Indians that inhabited them. One of the persons spoken of is Father Gaspara, one of the good ones, in San Diego. That is where they go after Temecula in order to be married.

This will be the first of three blogs on this site in Old Town San Diego. The Estudillo home (La Casa de Estudillo) became known as the marriage place of Ramona. I will cover some of the real history in the next blog, but for this one will focus on the fictional history involved.

In the Ramona book, Helen Hunt Jackson has her main characters go to San Diego to be married. There are a few brief descriptions of the place where they were married, but nothing to the extent of some of the other places mentioned in the book. However, this site had been a major Ramona tourist destination from the late 1880's as pointed out in the chapter dedicated to it in Dydia Delyser's Ramona Memories book.

From the very beginning, the site became a major point for Ramona merchandising. All sorts of trinkets could be found to be sold here. These days you probably will not find Ramona goods at this place, but if you go on e-bay you still might find old postcards like the following:

From somewhere very close I got this:
Another postcard one can find shows the entrance from the other side.The little bell tower you see was added later.The entrance. The adobe originally started out as L-shaped, but then was developed into a U-shape as many of these old adobe homes tend to be..So, this is one of those places that, although had a history of its own, was developed into a Ramona tourist site for the public as a money making venture. No one knows if Helen Hunt Jackson visited this place, and there really is nothing in the book to indicate that this was where Ramona and Alessandro were married.

With that said, it was not a total stretch for one to come to the conclusion from reading the book that this was close to where the event took place. I will mention a few items in the next two blogs about this.

Ramona Epic #21: The Marriage Place of Ramona (Youtube Version)

Ramona Epic #21: The Marriage Place of Ramona (Vimeo Version)

Hoppy Rocks! (The Alabama Hills Series)

2011-08-15T22:04:00.000-07:00

(GPS: N36 36.260 W118 07.060)

Here is one that I should have had taken care of when I began the blog. In fact, for quite some time I thought I had already had something about it, but one day I was going back over some of the early blog entries and realized I never did. Then over the past few years I just delayed doing it because I always wanted to get better video footage of it than what I originally had. So without further ado, let's talk about the Hoppy Rocks.

In the Hopalong Cassidy movie Silent Conflict, Hoppy and California are being chased through Lone Ranger Canyon. They hide behind some rocks as the men who are chasing them go by.Lots of b-movies used this area for horse chases. It would be too difficult to mention them all.As the men chasing them go by, Hoppy and California are hiding behind two big rocks in what is known today as the Hoppy Rocks.Tim Holt and Gene Autry used them too in their own movies.Now, just take a few steps to the left and rotate toward your right you get this...which was used in a gunfight in Hoppy's Secret of the Wasteland.A lot of these old b-westerns just filmed in the same areas, but filmed different angles to create a "new location" for each movie. All it takes is a few steps, or a slight change of camera angle, to do this. Hoppy actually used this trick of having someone chase him and then hiding behind a rock in Lone Ranger Canyon many times. It was not always at these rocks.

Silent Conflict (Youtube Version)

Silent Conflict (Vimeo Version)

The Gun Smugglers Rock (The Alabama Hills Series)

2011-08-12T22:08:00.000-07:00

Here is one that is in Lone Ranger Canyon on the way to Gene Autry Rock, but is very easy to miss. If you are where the Lone Ranger Ambush scene was then you just go a little further east on the road and just off trail to your left.

There is a rock that is cutout rather nicely. Actually, there is another rock like this one too nearby, so it is nice to have a picture from the movie to tell which one is which. When I originally looked for this one years back, I did not have any pictures with me. I knew the approximate site due to knowing how Lone Ranger Canyon is used in Tim Holt's Gun Smugglers. I ended up taking pictures and old camcorder footage of both spots. I then had to verify it at home.

In this scene the army is ambushed in Lone Ranger Canyon. Martha Hyer pulls the Sergeant into the cutout rock.Here is that rock. Notice the little hole in the rock?
Martha Hyer then defends herself behind the rock. Tim Holt and Chito eventually show up to help out.Here is a different look from some years back. The clouds were covering the mountains that day making it overcast.The L.P. Film Festival has a sign out for this one in October. It is one you could easily walk past, but during that weekend you can't miss it if you look for the signs.

Ramona Epic #20: The King of Temecula

2011-08-06T10:48:00.000-07:00

(GPS: N 33° 27.845 W 117° 07.200)

In finishing up my short series in the town of Temecula I thought I would connect the last blog about the store to this one. The last place I visited was the store of Louis Wolf. Louis Wolf was a European immigrant who arrived in Temecula in 1857. Since he not only developed the store I mentioned in the last blog, but helped develop and influence the early town of Temecula in such a way that he was known as the King of Temecula.

One thing he had done was to have his gravesite overlooking the town of Temecula. So, off I went driving through a residential area of Temecula. Through twisting and turning streets, I finally found the Cul-de-sac it is on. The gravesite is literally right next to some homes behind a locked gate.

There is a small plaque that shows a picture of him, names, dates, and the people that helped contribute to the restoration of the site. From around 2002-2007, the site was restored since the sarcophagus had been sicking into the ground and was damaged.At this point I was getting used to taking pictures over fences and gates. It was good enough for what I wanted to do anyways.I zoomed in on the sarcophagus.

In Helen Hunt Jackson's book, Ramona, the character who owns the store and is the main business man of the community in Temecula is Mr. Hartsel. So, the connection between Louis Wolf and Mr. Hartsel is a simple logical one. On the other hand, Mrs. Hartsel is the one that communicates with Alessandro while he was there. The Mrs. Hartsel connection would have been Wolf's wife, Ramona Place Wolf.

It is often said that Ramona Place, who was part Indian, was an influence on the main character of the book. It has been reported that Helen Hunt Jackson interviewed her about the Indian situation in Temecula. I am sure there were a variety of influences on the Ramona character, and this will come up again later near the end of this series.

As an aside, Ramona Place Wolf was supposedly buried at the San Luis Rey Mission cemetery, and not with her husband.

Ramona Epic #20: The King of Temecula (Youtube Version)

Ramona Epic #20: The King of Temecula (Vimeo Version)

Some of the links I provided in the last blog are connected to this one, but I will add a few more:

Louis Wolf (Temecula Walking Tours site)

The Wolf Family (City of Temecula Site)

When I get back to this series I will show the next stop Ramona and Alessandro made..."where they were married."

Ramona Epic #19: The Wolf Store

2011-08-03T06:49:00.001-07:00

(GPS: N33 28.750 W117 05.995)

"Hartsel's was one of those mongrel establishments to be seen
nowhere except in Southern California. Half shop, half farm, half
tavern, it gathered up to itself all the threads of the life of the
whole region. Indians, ranchmen, travellers of all sorts, traded at
Hartsel's, drank at Hartsel's, slept at Hartsel's. It was the only place
of its kind within a radius of twenty miles; and it was the least bad
place of its kind within a much wider radius."

While Ramona is at the cemetery, Alessandro is trying to sell his violin at the Hartsel store. Alessandro had lived nearby and does sneak by his home that is now occupied by new residents. He gets to the store and talks to Mrs. Hartsel since Mr. Hartsel cannot speak with him. She ends up loaning him some money and tells Alessandro to come back the next day to sell his violin.

The only store that fits the description and would have been the place in old Temecula for commerce like this is the Wolf Store. This store is still around, but is currently fenced off along with a bunch of other buildings in the area. The area is currently listed as being in the process of being restored. All I could do with look over a fence to view the buildings. The Wolf Store is the one on the right.

Louis Wolf had his store built sometime in the 1860's and was the main place for commerce in Temecula until 1905. The following picture was taken around 1890.This is what it looks like today. It is the oldest building in Temecula that is still around.One thing I was puzzled by was the landmark sign on the building. That is what a California historical landmark (CHL) would look like. On zooming in I saw that it said, "Treaty of Temecula." I was puzzled by this since I did not know of any CHL around here. From what I remembered from reading, the treaty was not signed at this store, but across the way in a place no longer around. I'll come back to this down below.I do not know anything more about the other structures in the area. Whether they go back as far as the Wolf Store I do not know.At some point in the future, this area is supposed to open up to the general public. I hope they can get the resources to get this done.This is another area that the modern shopping stores have built around. Although enough area has been separated to make this look like part of the old world.

The Wolf Store (Youtube Version)

The Wolf Store (Vimeo Version)

A few links you can check out:

The Wolf Store (and restoration) mentioned on the Vail Ranch site

The Wolf Store (Wikimapia): this shows you where it is at

Louis Wolf and His Store

When I got home I did a few searches on that Treaty of Temecula plaque I saw. The only thing I could find was an old Desert Magazine (January, 1966) article that shows it.
Like I said earlier, from what I have read, this treaty was not signed at the Wolf Store, but some other nearby place. It was a treaty signed by a few of the local tribes, but rejected by the U.S. Senate. I am sure you can search "Treaty of Temecula" to find out more of the history on this one.

Ramona Epic #18: The Old Cemetery

2011-08-02T17:20:00.000-07:00

"His silence was more than silent; it was taciturn. Yet she always felt herself
answered. A monosyllable of Alessandro's, nay, a look, told what
other men took long sentences to say, and said less eloquently.

After long thinking over this, she exclaimed, 'You speak as the
trees speak, and like the rock yonder, and the flowers, without
saying anything!'

This delighted Alessandro's very heart. 'And you, Majella,' he
exclaimed; "when you say that, you speak in the language of our
people; you are as we are.'"

In chapter 17 of the story Alessandro takes Ramona with him to Temecula so he can sell his violin in order for them to have some money so they can be married. There is some concern that they could be caught by those sent from the rancho to find them. So, Ramona agrees to stay at the cemetery while Alessandro attempts to find out what is going on in Temecula and sell his violin. There she meets Carmena who is grieving over the loss of her husband. Carmena does not speak, but she is glad Ramona is there and they hold hands.

Visiting this particular cemetery is somewhat disappointing. I knew this would be the case even before going to it. There is really nothing there these days. In fact, unless someone told you, you would probably have no clue it was a cemetery.

The modern world has been completely built around it. A shopping center with many modern chain stores has taken over. What separates it from the modern world is a big wall around it.Looking over the wall is a big square flat dirt field. How many times have I seen something like this elsewhere and not thought anything about it? However, in this case, it was a historical cemetery.The real historical basis for this cemetery took place during the Mexican War. While a few battles were taking place in California, the Battle of San Pasqual near Escondito was won by the Californios (the Mexican side) around December 6, 1846. After the battle 11 Californios went to an adobe in Pauma Valley. There a bunch of Luiseno killed them in what is known as the Pauma Massacre. It was said that they were tortured and killed in a way to brutal to describe.

No one knows really why this group of Indians did this. There is some thought that the recent Battle of San Pasqual had something to do with this and thinking of the Americans as their friends. Or, some of their horses has been stolen by the Californios. In any case, they were avenging something.

Jose Del Carmen Lugo was ordered to avenge the massacre. In December, 1846 (and January, 1847) he took the men he could get and got the help of Juan Antonio, leader of the Cahuilla Indians, with his men. With a combined force of Californios and Cahuilla Indians, Lugo led them to the mouth of a Canyon near Vail Lake. As an aside, when I was younger I often fished at Vail Lake.

There they hid, setting up the ambush, and sent some of their men into the canyon. A few of he men went into the canyon to trick the Luisenos they were after to chase after them. The trick worked, and as they came out the Temecula Massacre was on.

No one knows how many Luisenos were killed. Estimates are between 40-120. The dead were gathered and buried at this spot in Temecula. This is the origin of the cemetery.

A couple of my own thoughts on this:

One thing that is hard to describe in a quick historical summary like this is overgeneralizing a group of people. Sometimes we talk about the Californios, the Americans, the Indians, etc. as if they were unified group of people. When reading Horace Parker's small book (listed below) I kept trying to figure out why some of the Californios were not really following orders of the Mexican side, why groups of Indians were attacking each other, etc. In the case of the Californios they were on the Mexican side of the war, but did not think of themselves as Mexicans. So, their immediate concerns came first over whatever General was ordering them to do. In the case of the Cahuilla Indians going against the Temecula/Luiseno Indians, that appears to be retaliation for a battle lost by the Cahuilla Indians years earlier that had nothing to do with any sides of the Mexican War.

So, the historical reality of the cemetery has nothing to do with Helen Hunt Jackson's version of why it was there in the fictional Ramona book. In fact, had she actually mentioned the historical reality behind the cemetery it would have undermined the premise behind her book. War and politics are usually really messy when comes to this.

The Old Cemetery (Youtube Version)

The Old Cemetery (Vimeo Version)

The following links are old pictures off the USC Digital Library of the cemetery:

An old picture of the cemetery

Another old picture of a grave in the cemetery

For my quick summary of the events involved, I used the following book which I found at a local library:

Parker, Horace. The Historic Valley of Temecula: The Temecula Massacre. Balboa Island: Paisano Press, 1971.

The following links should be helpful:

Temecula Massacre (Old Town Temecula article)

Temecula Massacre (Wikimapia): this shows you where it is at

Temecula Massacre (Wikipedia article)

Whizzing Past the Graveyard (North County Times)

A Look Back: The Temecula Massacre (Press-Enterprise)