Outdoor Wednesday

On Wednesdays I'll sometimes join A Southern Daydreamer and her Outdoor Wednesday meme to share these pictures.

Stop by and check out other great photos of the outdoors!

I was on YouTube looking for stuff about Rhyolite, NV (it's what my post is about) and found a bunch of videos about "That creepy little town in Nevada"

"The creepiest place you'll ever see"

I find this very amusing.

Because,  I guess it's all relative. 

I think those creepy places are really interesting.

Nevada is big.  Really big.  Texas is bigger.  So is Alaska, California and Montana. 

Nevada is the 7th in area but the 37th in population.

We are a Rural state by any standard.

There I am---in the middle of the state, in the north.  That big yellow spot? That's me! I am proud to be with the  100-250 people per square mile.

Don't crowd me in!

And Nevada is full of Boom Towns. Bust Towns.

It all has to do with gold, but I know you don't want a history lesson or an economics lesson (Nevada is the worlds 5th largest gold producer!  There!  I snuck it in.)

Anyway, I love the creepy little ghost towns in Nevada.

Most of them were 'boom' towns.  Booming Metropolises of 6,000 to 10,000 people in their day.

And now... ghosts!

So, now you think you'll get to see a creepy little ghost town called Rhyolite, right?

NO, you get to see some sculpture.

Some religious sculpture at that!

The sculpture, The Last Supper, consists of ghostly life-sized forms arranged as in the painting The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci. Szukalski molded his shapes by draping plaster-soaked burlap over live models until the plaster dried enough to stand on its own. In the same year, using the same techniques, Szukalski also created Ghost Rider, a plaster figure preparing to mount a bicycle.

 Szukalski traveled to the Nevada desert in 1984 to create “The Last Supper” sculpture.

I'm not sure why he chose to put the sculptures in the middle of the Nevada desert---just 5 miles from Death Valley.

Some say he wanted to put them in Death Valley, but since it is a National Park, he couldn't.   So, he moved them down the road to an old ghost town.

Seems fitting.

Other artists are following suit and adding sculpture to what is now known as  the Goldwell Open Air Museum.

I will leave you with these outdoor pics of the Last supper in this creepy little town.

(next week I'll share pics of the town!)

Outdoor Wednesday

On Wednesdays I'll sometimes join A Southern Daydreamer and her Outdoor Wednesday meme to share these pictures.

Stop by and check out other great photos of the outdoors!

Once in a while, I take the train to see my grand-kids in California.

I love the train.

I know that it's slower than taking a plane, BUT for me, I can catch train here in town vs driving 2.5 hours to the airport, and then paying for parking.

It's roomier than a plane.

You can get up and walk around on a train.

You can go to the little cafe on a train.

You can sit in the observation car on a train.

TRAINS ARE GREAT!

They are just really, really slow. ( Amtrak)

If you live on the West Coast that is.  There are a lot of mountains.

Anyway, I love to take the train to the Bay Area.  I look at it as  10 hours of forced reading for me.  Ohhhhh, that's so sad.  (she laughs)

Train tracks follow a different path than the interstate freeway system. Interstates were made to go the fastest way---not always the prettiest way. You really need to drive the back highways and roads to see pretty.

Trains usually go  thru industrial areas,  backwoods, and some seedy areas.

I took some photos from my last trip in the spring.  Just shots from my train window.

They're not great photos, but I just find the whole train thing-- interesting, fun, melancholy (train whistles at night) , romantic, wistful....

This is the first set of photos.