Shoshone - On the Way South

On the way down south we stopped in a small palce called Shoshone, CA. We were running ahead of the snow, had put in a couple of hard driving days for us, and wanted to stop for a night or two. The town, it is not much, is on highway 127 in California north of Baker. We came south out of Beatty. The highway is one of the main access roads to Death Valley. Pick the time of year you visit here very carefully, the campground host said it was 129 degrees in the summer of 2013. That's hot.

Here we are parked in the RV site. You can see the puddles in the picture. The first night we were there it poured rain almost the entire night. The park manager the next day said they had never seen it rain that much, we are in a desert you know.

In the south west one of the common but undesirable trees is the salt cedar. They drink up huge amounts on water and are an introduced species originally intended to help with soil erosion. the pruning that was done on this tree will only slow the growth. It will grown out full, soon.

Just behind the RV Park is this swimming pool. It is fed from a warm water spring in the rock mountain behind the park. It is a constant 89 degrees. It is a great respite from the cold, rainy weather.

One of the famous landmarks in the area is the Crowbar. It is a bar cafe. We had lunch there one day and for being the only option in town the food was great. Well prepared and huge quantity. The name comes from the Crows in the area so a more descriptive moniker might be "Crows Bar". Great place and excellent service.

There are not a lot of businesses visible in Shoshone. Here is the market, not related to the cartoon character but an old time immigrant in the area. Be sure and fill up with gasoline before you get to this area, it was $3.959 a gallon when we passed through. The store had some real basic food stuff, don't look for organic or healthy options, just stuff to survive on. It is only about 35 miles to the larger town of Parhump, NV from here.

There is a neatly done small park in town. The rock benches and tables appear to be almost new. Some one put in a lot of effort in the design and construction of this small respite from the surrounding desert.

Here in the park is this sign with colored arrows pointing in various directions. Nicely done

Also located in the park are various old relics from the earlier mining days. Not exactly sure what this was used for but it could have been part of a still what the guages and all. Those miners did like to drink a bit.

Here we have a collection of some of the original recreational vehicle tires. They got good mileage off these but did not go very fast.