March 10, 2018 - Shoshone

My humans are crazy. Yesterday they found out that the lottery Powerball had almost 400 million dollars in the jackpot and they decided to purchase tickets for this. They can play in this lottery without being US citizens they said. There is only one little problem – we are in Nevada and you can’t purchase tickets for Powerball in Nevada. My mistress always says problems are a challenge and you just need to accept the challenge to solve the problem. Well, here we got; all they had to do was to go to California. Luckily the state line to California is just a couple of miles from here and Shoshone is the next town.
So this morning they took me with them in the car to go to Shoshone to purchase tickets for Powerball. They were prepared for everything as two years ago they tried the exact same thing but had to wait in line for more than four hours to purchase tickets. Of course the jackpot was much higher then, around 1 billion dollars.
Going to Shoshone is a really nice trip through the desert with great rock formations and views. This is only about 50 miles from Badwater where you can see the famous moving stones in Death Valley.
Shoshone is a small town, according to Wikipedia it has a population of 31 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoshone,_California). This is not a spelling mistake. Thirty-one is the population. They have a hotel, a gas station, a restaurant and even a museum.
When we arrived in Shoshone there was no line at the gas station, which is the local shop too. My humans just walked in and purchased their tickets while I had to wait in the car.
My humans were prepared to be in line for a while and now they were finished with their mission in a couple of minutes. They decided to visit the museum on the other side of the road.
My master let me out of the car so I could walk around on my leash and pee. You know, I always have to pee everywhere I haven’t been before. I need to mark the place to let other dogs know I was here. Just like some humans write their initials on walls and stuff like that. The only difference is my marks are washed away by rain.
My mistress wanted to take me back to the car to wait for my humans while they visit the museum. That nice lady of the museum came outside and told my master that dogs are more than welcomed in the museum and they should bring me.
My mistress and my master were amazed what they could see in the museum. A mammoth was found in Shoshone and they displayed it. Even a stuffed coyote was there. To me it looked very realistic.
That lady in the museum was very nice, so friendly. She said she loves dogs and she even told my humans that a stuffed rabbit of the museum writes a blog.

If you want to see more about the Shoshone museum and the town, here is the link.
http://shoshonevillage.com/shoshone-museum.html

After visiting the museum my humans decided to take the other road home and so we went towards Death Valley Junction.
They told me that there is a very famous opera house in Death Valley Junction. I don’t know what an opera house is but how can something be very famous in this little town? It seems even smaller than Shoshone.
My humans and I went to the Amargosa Café because my mistress wanted to get a coffee, as she was tired. This café was amazingly big but almost empty.
There is a hotel as well and the opera house.
My mistress explained to me why this opera house is so famous. Martha Beckett, a famous American actress. She appeared in several shows on Broadway and started a one-woman show later and toured across the country. In 1967 she was on her way to an engagement and the car had a flat tire at Death Valley Junction. She discovered that Death Valley Junction had a theatre and she and her husband decided to stay. She rented the recreation hall, began repairs and called it Amargosa Opera House. Of course there wasn’t much audience as this town is very small and not much towns nearby, except Shoshone. In 1970 some journalists from National Geographic’s found out that Beckett did a performance in the Amargosa Opera House without audience. They did a write up in National Geographic’s and all of a sudden people from all over the world traveled to Death Valley Junction to see her performances.
Martha Beckett passed away in 2017.

To find out more about Death Valley Junction and the opera house click here
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Valley_Junction
http://www.visitcalifornia.com/attraction/amargosa-opera-house

This is a crazy story, isn’t it? I didn’t like Death Valley Junction too much, there was nothing interesting for me, nothing worth to pee on.

My humans went back into the car after they took some pictures of me.

On our way home, back to Pahrump, we passed Ash Meadows National Park. My humans told me they have been there last year and it was amazing. Devil’s hole is located there. Where ever on this earth is an earthquake you can see the water level raising within seconds after the earthquake happened. Waves may splash as high as 6 feet. (https://www.nps.gov/deva/learn/nature/devils-hole.htm).

After we passed Ash Meadows National Park my humans stopped to let me out of the car so I could enjoy that trip as well. When my mistress stopped the car there was a Jack Rabbit sitting next to us. My master got off the car and the rabbit was still sitting there waiting for what would happen next. When my master told the rabbit that there is a dog in the car he ran away as fast as he could. You don’t believe me? Well, too bad, this is a real story.
My master let me jump out of the car and my mistress walked away from the street towards the mountains with me and released me from the leash so I could run. Wow, that was fun. No dog has been here before and I needed to mark this place so bad. But this was huge, where should I start – to the right or to the left? I ran and changed directions every couple of seconds. I had so much fun running around in the desert.

What an amazing day with so much to see and smell. I like trips like that and I hope my humans take me with them on more trips like this.

I was very hungry and tired when we came home and I decided to sleep the rest of the day.


Professional Reader

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Buffalo farm, herding dogs and living in Serrone - February 9, 2022

Mogli. loves joggers - September 15, 2021

Our new home – January 4, 2022