Darkness Over the Land
Michael Collins | Nov 20, 2009 | Comments 5
Dust or no dust it was hard to tear ourselves away from Lone Pine, but Darkness was calling. We bid farewell to the friendly town and snow-capped peaks of Mount Whitney and headed East over the Inyo Mountains, through the Panamint Valley, and over the Panamint range into the land that we love.
Orders from Above
It was evening when we arrived in the park, and the desert sky was filled with a stunning array of celestial bodies that always take us by surprise. With the star field’s endless expanse halted only by the silhouettes of the surrounding mountain ranges, the sensation of really being on a planet takes hold. Last year a ranger at the park’s visitor center taught us how to identify the International Space Station, and we were able to spot it passing over our heads during an evening hike in the Mesquite Sand Dunes.
Denise Anne is always searching the skies for objects that seem a little…unusual, especially in Death Valley. While it’s fairly common to see fighter jets from the nearby China Lake Naval Air Weapons Station, she’s not-so-secretly hoping to see something else. Experimental aircraft from Nellis Air Force Base and Area 51, a mere hundred miles away, perhaps…or friendly visitors from another planet.
When I hear the staccato cadence of D-bot’s voice, I know one has arrived.
“Do not be afraid, Earth Man,” she uttered.
I turned to see an android with a skin-tight metallic space uniform, short spiky silvery hair, and an asteroid that was out of this world.
Afraid? No, not exactly. I’d seen her kind before. My last close encounter with this alluring alien took place in the Trona Pinnacles, a bizarre landscape in the dry Searles Lake basin consisting of over 500 tufa spires. The area has served as a film location for many sci-fi movies, though the town of Trona is arguably stranger – but that’s another story.
D-bot’s interest in the area may have more to do with the fact Searles Dry Lake contains an astonishing 98 of the 104 known naturally occurring chemical elements, which she needs to buff that metallic skin to a blinding sheen. She also uses the area for target practice, as the tufa spires remind her of former enemies she’s blasted with her mighty laser-gun.
I was trying to talk her out of vaporizing an off-roader that annoyed her when an F-16 swooped down and showed off for us. I was afraid she’d take aim at it but she just laughed in that unsettling mechanical way.
“Your military poses no threat to us. But its activities may be toxic to your people and planet. You should inform Earthlings of the danger.”
I had my orders, and as I have written before (see Sputnikfest), D-bot gets what she wants.
Standing next to her now at the Mesquite Springs campground, I sensed she had something specific in mind. The campground is one of the park’s most remote, located in the northeastern park near the Cottonwood Mountains. A bluff overlooking the dry riverbed, Death Valley Creek, looked more like an airstrip in the blue moonlight, and I recalled that the nearby Ubehebe volcanic crater always seemed more like a high impact zone to me, from a meteor or …
“No, we did not land here or at Ubehebe” D-bot said crackling with electricity. “That is from a steam eruption 2,000 years ago. But we are concerned with other craters, ones that your people have made.” Pointing east, D-bot told me that radioactive contamination from the Nevada Test site, where at least 928 atomic explosions occurred, may be traveling toward populated areas faster than previously thought possible.
Filed Under: Blog • EnviroReporter
I enjoyed your post. Regarding Marta Becket, she hasn’t entirely quit performing–she just does it sitting down now.
I’ve had the pleasure of meeting her on two occasions, and wrote about her over at my blog MERE WORDS:
http://chidder.livejournal.com/4132.html
http://chidder.livejournal.com/19300.html
Enjoy!
Kevin
Makin’ Tracks Max,
In 2008, Dawn Wilde and I eased into the Furnace Creek Garage needing to plug a tire and what did we hear? The chunky crunch of Angus Young’s guitar on “Rock and Roll Train.” We asked one of your successors what the racket was and, wild-eyed grinning ear to ear, he shouted “Black Ice – AC-DC’s new album!” Of course we were thrilled as you can imagine after reading “Hell’s Belles.” And we were thrilled that this gent opened the garage and plugged our tire.
That surely ain’t all the pluggin’ going on in Death Valley, reading your witty and hilarious comments here. Your Death Valley tails have the reporter in me wondering what exactly did you do when you woke up with Death Valley Sally? And our imaginations are running away with us trying to conceive of who “The Wall People,” Crazy Carl and the Bongo Sisters are. Don’t leave us hangin’, MTM… who are these folks who make up this wildlife? Inquiring minds want to know!
Regarding your informative response to Marge Brown’s sweet comment, we see that Marta Becket retired from performing at the Amargosa Opera House at the end of the season this year. We applaud her long loving run. Now that Denise Anne has created two dozen characters, with more to come, she could be the Bad Girls In Residence, performing a different girl nearly every night of the week with no repeats in an entire month! I wonder which gal of hers would be the most popular… I’d be tempted to say Dawn Wilde but then Darkness might curse me for eternity which is something I would try to avoid.
Oh, one more thing… Regarding Marge Brown’s comment, the opera house to which she is referring would be the Amargosa Opera House, which Marta Becket started in 1967. Because Marta would often perform without an audience, she painted balcony scenes on the walls complete with painted patrons to watch her. More here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marta_Becket
I enjoyed reading your Darkness Over the Land story, or vignettes… I lived in Death Valley from 1979 to 1981. I was a mechanic and tow truck driver at the Furnace Creek Garage. Met some interesting people that way. I also made friends with some of the employees. There were times when there was more wildlife IN camp than outside of it
I sometimes wonder what became of Death Valley Sally, the gal with whom I had evidently slept with in my trailer. I awoke to the sun’s rays screaming through the trailer window early one morning, and there she was, lying naked beside me. Yes, Death Valley has a lot of wildlife. I could tell you stories about Crazy Carl, or “The Wall People”, the Bongo Sisters, etc. One of these days, I’ll get around to compiling my stories, maybe put them on my website (q.v.).
I left Death Valley and moved to Lone Pine, where I lived from 1981 to 1987, then moved to Bishop where I lived until 1992. I have returned to the DV area, including Panamint, Saline, Eureka, and Deep Springs Valleys many times. I have loads of photographs, not to mention unwritten stories… I know the area well: I have backpacked, hiked, and driven my old IH Scout many places where others fear to tread.
If you have any questions regarding “Death’s Valleys”, I may have answers. Appetite whetter: In an attempt to preserve Zabriskie Point, the Nat’l Park Circus in 1941 gouged out a diversion ditch to keep floodwaters away. This resulted in the man-made creation of Gower Gulch, which can be explored today from the Badwater Road.
Ciao, Max.
Michael,
I have heard that there is an Opera house in Death Valley, where Denise could do a multi-woman show. Tickets should sell like HOTcakes.
She certainly sounds (and looks) like an amazingly gorgeous and talented performer. No wonder that your descriptive prose is almost poetry.
With so many different women, you will never become bored. You might get arrested for polygomy, but I am sure you can write or talk your way out of it.
Would that you could also talk Boeing out of their unsurprising but disruptive law suit. Hopefully, by the time they are finished, they will have turned SB 990 into pure gold!