In past visits to the “City of Sin”, we visited places like The Neon Museum, the Brain Institute and Red Rock Canyon, this time around we checked out Fremont Street in old Las Vegas and visited the Valley of Fire, which is just 40 miles North of Las Vegas. We were SO delighted with what we saw in the Valley of Fire, we went twice! It’s was THAT beautiful and interesting, we simply could not see it all on one day.

Valley of Fire

The Valley of Fire is aptly named as the dramatic sandstone formations that make up the park are firey red which intensify in the late-afternoon sun. As the rocks and cliffs get eroded by the elements, amazing colored patterns and shapes emerge, shapes that are continually being polished by the wind, often leaving perfectly round holes in cliffs.

The valley, located in the Mojave desert, offers many aspects that are common in places like Utah and North East Arizona and offers a variety of features typically only found there. For example, the Valley of Fire has numerous arches, not unlike those found in Utah’s Arches National Park. These arches are all carved from that red, rusty-colored sandstone that Utah is so famous for.

One of the prime attractions of the park is a feature called “The Fire Wave”, a distinctly wave-shaped piece of red-and-white-colored sandstone similar to a rocky formation, simply called “The Wave”, in Northern Arizona. While the Valley of Fire’s Wave is smaller than the Wave in Arizona, it is way more accessible – a mere 30-45 minutes easy hike. In contrast, the Arizona version not only requires a permit, it is a 4 hour hike over treacherous terrain.

Hiking Trails

We found some extremely photogenic locations sprinkled through the park, lots of color and hugely interesting canyons and hiking trails. One such trail was to a location called Mouse’s Tank, a natural basin in the rock where water collects and can remain trapped there for months. The 3/4 mile round trip hike is very easy, and passes several historic petroglyphs carved there some 3000 years ago by the Ancient Pueblo people. Finding and spotting them on the rock face makes for a fascinating (and fun) game as you go down the trail. Some are easily seen, some are very obscure and hard to make out.

A far more recent bit of history is found just off the main road where three stone cabins stand. They were originally built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1930 as a shelter for travelers. This is before the area was designated a State Park, which did not happen until 1935. The three cabins each have a fireplace and an opening for a door and window, although they are now long gone. The cabins blend perfectly into the surroundings as they are constructed out of the native sandstone. The area is now a picnic area and makes for a wonderful stop and photo opportunity.

Wild Life

As you can imagine, the park is full of wildlife – coyotes, snakes, desert turtles, Gila Monsters (a lizard) and bighorn sheep. We did not spot anything “exotic” like the turtles or Gila Monster, but we DID see some bighorn sheep. They stopped the traffic and were nibbling at the vegetation alongside the road. They are very majestic animals when you get up close.

In Summary

As a park goes, it is not too large – about 11 by 6 miles, with only one single road that goes through it. There are two campgrounds with a total of 71 sites. While no sewer hook-ups, all have water and about 20 of them even have electricity.

As compact as the park is, it is packed with lots to see and do , from hiking, photography, spectacular scenery and access to other interesting locations such as Lake Mead and, yes, Las Vegas.

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As you can see from the pictures on this post, the building is spectacular and after doing some research, learned quite a lot more about it.

About the organization behind the building

The building is called “Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health” and it is an outpatient treatment and research facility for brain-related diseases. In fact, the Center is planned to become a national resource for the most current research and scientific information for the treatment of Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Huntington ‘s Diseases, Multiple Sclerosis and ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease) as well as focusing on prevention, early detection and education.

To give you some context, my mother had Alzheimer’s, so learning about the function of this center really hit home and we were delighted (and impressed) to find this kind of research center right here in Las Vegas. However, the heart-warming story behind its creation is what really struck as it filled us with a sense of warmth and gratitude towards people who do great things, because they CARE.

You see, the organization behind the center is called “Keep Memory Alive (also known as KMA)” and was founded by Larry Ruvo, his wife Camille, Bobby Baldwin and his wife Donna. Both Larry’s and Bobby’s father were a victim of Alzheimer’s Disease and they set-up the organization and built the building in memory of Larry’s father, Lou Ruvo.

Today, the Keep Memory Alive (which is a nonprofit organization) owns and supports the Brain Health Clinic and aims to increase awareness and raise funds for the research. In a mere two years after they treated their first patient, their fund raising efforts surpassed the $100 million mark in raised funds. An outstanding achievement and what a beautiful cause to help find some cure for these horrible diseases.

[See image gallery at hitthefrogandtoad.albertdebruijn.com]

About the building

The Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health was designed by world-renowned architect Frank Gehry who wanted to create a place that would be memorable. He is quoted for saying “The mantra is Keep Memory Alive, I’m trying to make a building that people will want to visit, remember, talk about, and enjoy, and ultimately will want to partner with us at the center to help cure brain diseases.”

Frank Gehry is generally considered the “most important architect of our time” and his work is famous around the world for their beauty and unusual design. The Lou Ruvo, just one of may of his designs, has some impressive statistics – the building has 199 windows, none of which are alike and the roof is constructed with 18,000 stainless steel shingles, each cut to unique measurements. A massive 65,000 hours of engineering went into the construction which took 3 years, 3 months and 13 days to complete.

Outside, there is a courtyard with seating and a “reflections garden”, a serene and peaceful place to sit, relax and reflect.

[See image gallery at hitthefrogandtoad.albertdebruijn.com]

About our photoshoot

After parking the car and walking up to the building, we were simply in awe by the design and architectural detail. We simply could not stop shooting, using both a wide angle and standard zoom lens.

The best part was meeting this nice guy, who, after watching us take picture after picture, asked “would you like to see inside”? Of course said “YES”, after which he unlocked the door to the main atrium and promptly let us in. WHAT A TREAT! and What a sight! This building is equally fascinating on the inside as it is on the outside! Amazing. The building is “hollow” on the inside with several large “tree-like” structures supporting the roof. Not a single straight line, just elegant curves and intricate angles. Just beautiful.

[See image gallery at hitthefrogandtoad.albertdebruijn.com] Check out the pictures on this page and let us know what you think.

If you want to learn more about the Lou Ruvo Center, click here

If you want to learn more about Frank Gehry, click here

To see more of the buildings that Frank Gehry designed, click here

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Boy was I wrong…

Linda and I heard about a place called “Slab City”, located out in the middle of nowhere, in an inhospitable part of the Southern California desert, where summer temperatures easily reach 120F (48C). Once the location of a WW2 camp, all that remains now are some concrete slabs, from which the place gets its name.

With our interest having been sparked (I know we have weird interests), we set out  to find it… and did!

What a place! It is really hard to define, but “post-apocalyptic” certainly comes to mind. Like a scene straight of a “Mad Max” movie, this place is occupied with as diverse a community of people as I have ever seen. Sure, there was the odd fancy motorhome or RV (the place is destination for “Snowbirders”), but by far the most common sight to see are ramshackle dwellings, old rusted out trailers, tents with lean-tos built with pallets, corrugated roofing sheets or old shipping crates. Among all this are a plethora of tire-less car wrecks, garbage, broken bottles and all kinds of stuff you can really only refer to as “crap”.

Then, among all this, are a few “artistically” laid out plots or trailers decorated in unusually artistic ways or “buildings” crafted in eye-catching designs, using anything that can be found (usually for free) in the vicinity.

While this makes for a visually interesting visit to people like us, to the folk that make Slab City their home, it is all quite normal and an inexpensive way to extend their home while expressing their inner creativity. Obviously, there are lots of folk who really like the abscence of any building regulations and rules. While the area is owned by the state of California, it is generally “left alone” with no real governing body to oversee things. Perhaps put in the State’s “Too Hard” basket, the place has been allowed to grow into a haven for people “who don’t quite fit in mainstream society”. A place for people “down on their luck”, outcasts, or just people who simply don’t like having to comply with rules and regulations imposed by “mundane” things like “mortgages”, “rent” “being politically correct” and other  things that you and I would consider normal.

These people have decided to forego all of those things and have chosen to live in Slab City, with no rent or title deeds or even a fixed address. As there is also no water, sewer or even electric, they need to be creative to survive living there year round – hence the odd constructions seen around the place, all providing some manner of shade, cool in the summer and protection during the cool nights of the desert.

There is a “code of conduct” in Slab City, “leave us alone and we’ll leave you alone”.

Sounds reasonable . . .

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I am not sure how best to describe a Joshua Tree to someone who has never seen one, but the term “Alien” definitely comes to mind.

By any definition, it sure is a strange looking tree.It is actually a member of the Yucca family, but grows like a tree, i.e. tall with branches. However all resemblances with a tree stop there. The Joshua Tree is simply a unique plant and only grows in the Southwestern United States, in, and, surrounding the Mojave Desert to be more precise. For non US-friends reading this blog, Mojave is pronounced “Mo-HAH-Vee”.

Anyway, Linda and I are on a mission to visit every National Park in the US so we decided to visit Joshua Tree National Park, in Southern California. I had been there once before with my son, but that was a long time ago and a visit, together with Linda, was well overdue.

 

Overwintering in Southern California

We were staying in an RV Resort in Palm Desert (just south of Palm Springs) in our motorhome. This resort was simply awesome and we were there in October, just in-between “seasons” as the summer crowds were gone and the “snowbirds” (a term used for RV-ers who overwinter in the South, just like migratory birds) had not yet arrived. As a result, the resort was pretty empty, we had ample room and even had the magnificent swimming pool (and hot tub) all to ourselves . . .  every time we went.

Getting to Joshua Tree National park was about a 45 minute drive, this was to the North Entrance of the park. As it was going to be a hot day (98F) we decided to leave early and get some early shots before it got too hot. We also knew, from visits to other National Parks, that if you arrive  too late, every man and his brother is there too, often making the experience somewhat less then great. So, off we went, leaving around 6 am and getting to the park well before 7. It was cool, the sun was just coming up and the place was empty, just ourselves and Nature . . . perfect.

There is beauty everywhere, even in the desert

Despite its alien nature, the park is quite attractive and we saw some beautifulI locations with wild flowers and interesting formations of granite boulders. In fact, it is not just the unusual vegetation that makes this park so interesting, the Eastern part of the park is littered with these piles of of huge boulders, like some giant piled them up in a random fashion, a long time ago. Today, these “clumps” of boulders have become popular with rock climbers, who use them for practice, training and just for fun. We stumbled upon a an area called “banana crack rock”, a challenging rock formation that is popular with rock climbers who like a challenge. The main reason for its popularity is the steep cracks on its west face. Banana Cracks Rock is short, only about thirty five feet, but it sits on top of a jumble of large boulders about another thirty five feet high themselves. The approach to the base is somewhat precarious to say the least. Some climbers rope up for the approach to the base. The safest approach, however, seems to be scrambling on large boulders on the left side of the west face. Pretty cool.

On a side note, the original “Banana crack” term comes from those stringy “things” you peel off a banana. Apparently, when you dry them, you can smoke them and get high (look it up!). No wonder there us a strain of cannabis now that is also called “Banana Crack”.

Anyways, I digress . . . Parts of the park reminded us of Death Valley, not surprising perhaps as Death Valley lies only a short distance to the North of Joshua Tree and is also dry and located in the desert.

Joshua Tree National Park actually contains TWO different kinds of deserts, the Mojave type, found in the higher portions of the park and the Colorado type, found in the lower elevations.The two are distinctly different and you can clearly see the vegetation and “look” change as you pass through the park. Nested in a secluded area between these two desert types is the Cholla Cactus Garden. If you thought Joshua Trees looked weird, wait until you see the cacti that grow here! Amazing.

Check out the pictures of this very interesting park and if you are ever in the area, make sure you take some time off and check it out. It is well worth a visit!

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You may never have heard of him, but he was one of California’s “Authentic Characters” . . . with an obsession. I am referring to Leonard Knight, the creator of “Salvation Mountain”.

You’ll find Salvation Mountain about 4 miles inland, Southeast, of the Salton Sea, right in the middle of the desert. Don’t worry, you can’t miss it as the “mountain” is painted bright blue and pink and dominates the country side. If fact, you’ll be able to spot it a mile away.

The “mountain” is (as Aaron Huey from National Geographic so aptly described) a literal man-made mountain, 28 years in the making, covered in half a million gallons of latex paint. What started as a small monument made of dirt and painted cement became, over time, a sprawling adobe clay and hay-bale mountain complex, with peripheral structures made of telephone poles, tires, and car windows, as well as art in the form of cars and sculptures, all painted in a patchwork of stripes and colored blocks of whatever color paint was donated that week.

Leonard Knight

The “man” in this description is Leonard Knight, a man who found God at age 36 and wanted to tell the world about Him. After a failed attempt to do so with a balloon, he settled in the Southern California dessert (living in an old truck without water, electricity or services) and built Salvation Mountain as a lasting monument for all to see. From its Sea of Galilee at the bottom, to the big red heart in the middle, to the cross at the very top, the recurring theme of “God” and “Love is everywhere” at Salvation Mountain.

We first heard about the Mountain while staying at an RV park called the “Emerald Desert RV Resort”, just south of Palm Springs and and were intrigued… The initial description we heard of the place was kinda vague and open to multiple interpretations. We heard words like “art”, “painted mountain”, “spending 28 years in the desert”, “dedication to god” . .  and much more. Enough phrases to spark our interest so we decided to go see for ourselves.

We arrived there in the afternoon and while this was October, temperatures that day still reached 99 degrees Fahrenheit. Hot! The good news here is that there were not many people about so we had ample opportunities to look around and get great pictures without battling crowds of people.

Salvation Mountain’s Museum

The “mountain” has two distinct areas, the main (and original) mountain and a newer addition, built after a donation of 200 bales of hay, called “the museum”.

A yellow path, called the Yellow Brick Road” lets you climb up to the very top of the mountain, which really lets you appreciate the effort it took to create this place. It also offers some amazing views of the desert, adding to the wonder and admiration of Leonard’s dedication.

In May, 2002, Salvation Mountain was entered into the Concressional Record of the United States, proclaiming Salvation Mountain as “A National Treasure”, something that Leonard was extremely proud of and thrilled by.

Salvation Mountain was also featured in Huell Howser’s well known “California’s Gold” series – twice! You can see both episodes here, just scroll through to the 27:00 mark of the video.

Make sure you check out the video, if for nothing else to enjoy Leonard’s enthusiasm for his creation, his wonderful sense of humor and his obvious delight and pleasure he gets from the people that come and visit the mountain.

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It is covered in snow, all year long, which adds to its visibility. You simply cannot help but be in awe.

Mt. Rainier is one of the many volcanos in the “Ring of Fire” the seismically active strip that starts in South America, runs up the coast of South and North America (think San Andreas Fault line) up around Alaska to Russia and down along the West Coast of South East Asia and ending in the Southern hemisphere in New Zealand. A HUGE area of course, but the Ring of Fire is where you find the vast majority of the world’s volcanos. In fact, 75% of the world’s volcanos are found along this strip and an amazing 22 of the 25 largest eruptions in the past 11,700 years have taken place along this strip. It has something to do with tectonic plates and how the earth’s crust is formed.
I guess you can tell I find this kind of information amazingly interesting and it excites me no end to be here, in person, to see it a small portion of it (although I’d be considerably less excited if something blew up).

I recently wrote about Mount St. Helens, also part of the Ring of File, as is Mount Shasta in California. If you missed it, you can read it here.

Anyway, back to Mt Rainier and the Mt. Rainier National Park, another of the National Parks on our list to see this trip.
We were parked in Randle, WA, about 25 miles from the park entrance so a short trip to get there. We essentially took the “Mount Rainier Loop”, one of scenic loop drives that takes you across the entire southern part of the park. We had been warned by the nice man at the visitor’s center that the road was “bumpy”. Well he was not kidding, the road LOOKED fine, but rattled us considerably as we approached the park. By the time we got to the park’s entrance we were well and truly shaken!

The mountain is of course in view pretty much the entire way with only trees occasionally obscuring the view.

We entered the park at the Nisqually Entrance, in the South West corner of the park and followed the Nisqually-Paradise road from West to East, exiting the park at the Stevens Canyon Entrance. Frequent stops were made of course to admire the magnificent views which presented themselves all along this route and take photos. Mountains and waterfalls dominated the scenic opportunities. The Christine Falls especially were spectacular!

Paradise is the location of a large visitors center and is located right below the mountain and offers fantastic views. It is also the place where hikers and skiers go to start their adventure and, to our somewhat amazement, people were still skying there. Additionally, lots of families with toboggans were out having fun in the snow.

Most national parks offer water bottle refill stations (rather sell more plastic bottles) and the water from the fountain there is ICY COLD, obviously cooled by the abundance of ice and snow which are available year round. Wonderfully refreshing and so much better than buying more plastic.

Just beyond the visitor’s center at Paradise is the aptly named Reflection Lake, which was still mostly frozen over (note that were there in June). We DID spot a section of the lake where the ice had melted and we got a few photos there, but nothing like the view you would have had on a clear lake where the entire mountain is reflected in the still water. We will have to come back later in the season to get those shots.

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So it was with me, I was living in the Netherlands at the time. Holland is a small country with hardly any “empty space” at all and I remember I found it hard to really comprehend the massive scale of the Mount St. Helens eruption. Think about it, if this volcano had been in the center of the Netherlands, most of that small country would have been obliterated. I remember the event and being in awe at the catastrophe and marveled at the photos and stories of eye-witnesses that started to emerge in the weeks after the event itself.

Fast forward to 2016, thirty six years later and imagine the feelings of anticipation that went through me when heading out to see this mountain. It stirred up those, now long forgotten, feelings of wonder and amazement, along with new emotions that went something like . . “WOW, I am actually going to see this place”, “what will it look like now” and the occasional thought along the lines of . . “what if it blows up again?”.

So . . . seeing this mountain was quite an event, almost spiritual as it really reminds us humans of how small and insignificant we are within the grand scheme of things. One simply CANNOT be impressed by what you see, marvel at the sheer size of the area and feel a deep respect for that universe and be humbled by it all.

Getting up-close to the areas that blew up is amazing, so much larger than I had imagined when trying to visualize it way back then. Even today, thirty six years after the event itself, the scars are still very visible. One of the most noticable signs of the enormous “blast” of the eruption is the unimaginable number of trees lying on the mountain sides. Whole forests were simply blown over, matures trees snapping in two like they were no bigger than a match-stick. Take a close look at this photo. You can see fallen trees covering the entire mountain side, all pointing in the same direction, clearly showing the direction of the blast. In the top left, you can also see trees still standing, obviously protected by the mountain, but still dead.

Yet Mother Earth is healing itself as you can see below.

New growth is everywhere. There is new grass, new wildflowers and masses of new trees, even new lakes and rivers and the mountain itself is quite different. The new trees are quite large, but when looking at them, you cannot help but sense there is something not quite right. There is “something” different about the forested mountainsides. Initially, that feeling is at a sub-conscious level, then it hits you, there is an unusual “uniformity” about the trees. They are all the same height, as if all planted on the same day, yet they are not planted in rows, the growth is quite random. And that is probably exactly what happened – they were not “planted” by human hands but did all start growing around the same time. This “uniformity” is somewhat unsettling at first, until you realize this is Nature simply reclaiming the mountain sides that were taken away by the eruption. A sense of wonder sets in and a deep sense of respect for how wonderful nature really is.

Access roads

We were staying in a place called Randle, which is located almost exactly half-way between Mt Rainier and Mount St. Helens. We strategically picked that location so it would be a brief drive to both locations. Then we heard that Hwy 99, which takes you to Windy Ridge, was closed due to a land-slide.
As a result, we needed to drive some 110 miles to the other side of the mountain, using Hwy 504, to get to the Johnston Ridge Observatory the route from which we took these photos. As a result, we never got to see Spirit Lake, a lake heavily affected by the blast.

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The Butchart Gardens lie half-way between Victoria and Sidney on the south eastern portion of Vancouver Island and was only a half hour drive from our B&B in Victoria. Linda had purchased tickets online a few days prior as we did not know how busy it was going to be. We arrived promptly at 9:30am, when the gates open, and were surprised to see several dozen cars already parked. As a side note, the license plates revealed there were visitors from far away places such as Virginia, South Carolina and Florida (about as far away from Vancouver Island as you can get!). Obviously, the place has a wide ranging reputation!

We were not disappointed! The gardens were beautiful! While we had missed the tulips and other bulbs (a few were still there, but clearly passed their peak), but the Rhododendrons, Azaleas and many others were in full bloom.

The Gardens are divided into multiple sections, a sunken garden, a Japanese Garden, an Italian Garden, etc. Each has a distinct “feel”to it, adding great interest to the whole experience.

We were particularly delighted by the Japanese Garden, there is something superbly elegant about it. We found out that the Japanese Garden was designed by 65-year-old garden designer Isaburo Kishida of Yokohama in 1902. He had come to Victoria, at the request of his son, to build a tea garden that became wildly popular and a place to be seen. Several prominent citizens, Jennie Butchart among them, commissioned Japanese gardens from Kishida for their estates.

Robert Butchart had made his fortune manufacturing Portland cement in the 1880s and 1890s and he and his wife Jennie Butchart established their home on Vancouver Island in 1904.

Ownership of The Gardens remains within the Butchart family, even today. The current owner and managing director is the Butcharts’ great-granddaughter Robin-Lee Clarke. The gardens have been designated a National Historic Site of Canada and receive close to a million visitors each year.

This year, we were two of them.

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We were not disappointed! Even the heavy overcast skies and low temperatures could not dim our enthusiasm. In fact, those weather conditions actually added an extra quality to our shots which we really appreciated.

We stopped practically every few miles to see what we could shoot. I think we visited every scenic lookout or car parking along the stretch of Hwy 101 between Newport and Tillamook.

An interesting spot we found quite by accident (those are always the best discoveries!) is the Devil’s Punchbowl.

Looking down upon the Devil’s Punchbowl

If you look carefully, you can see two openings down there, allowing the sea water to rush in during storms. In severe weather, water from the ocean slams with a thundering roar into the bowl churning and foaming. You can see how the water was carved out a huge bowl-shaped hole.

Every time we stopped somewhere, we could not help but observe plants and flowers we had never seen before. Here are a few examples of these, quite beautiful, flowering plants, seen everywhere.

In addition to these beautiful flowers, we could not believe the amount of Flowering Broom. It was everywhere, in beautiful vibrant yellow.

Burning Driftwood

When we checked into the RV Park, the map of the park they gave us had a little note not to use driftwood in campfires anywhere in the RV Park. We found this a bit strange as we saw mountains of driftwood on virtually every beach we passed. Checking into this a bit further we found out why. Burning driftwood gives off toxic fumes!

Driftwood is saturated with salt from the ocean and when it burns, it gives off a pretty blue/purple colored flame, but the smoke contains a chemical called Dioxin which is carcinogenic. Dioxin is referred to as a persistent, bioaccumulating toxin, meaning it doesn’t decompose, and it builds up in the tissues of the organisms that ingest it. Specifically it can concentrate in mother’s milk. It has been associated with various cancers.

This was a major surprise to us as we had no idea. We do now and will stay well away from bon-fires on the beach that are fueled by driftwood.

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