Glenn's Photo Gallery - Photo Journeys

Las Vegas to Harper Lake

My first Photo Journey was so much fun I decided to do it again. This time I had gone to Las Vegas to visit family and took my time coming back to take photos of interesting things. Anyone who's driven between Las Vegas and Mojave knows that there's not a lot to see. The big cities on the way are Baker and Barstow. But there are many other things to see and photograph. And that's what I'm going to show you here.

Don't expect these photos to win any awards, they weren't meant to when I took them. I didn't have the time to set up each shot and still get home in one day. Worse, I had set my camera on Custom White Balance in Las Vegas and forgot to reset it. This was one of those few times I wish I had shot in RAW. Still and all, Photoshop did a great job repairing what I did get.

Before I got out of Las Vegas I took this shot of a cell phone tower. In Lancaster they tried to hide one by making it look like a fir tree (what a laugh). This one, however, they were more clever with and made it look like an old western windmill. You can still buy these windmills from Aermotor online.

By the way, this sits in the parking lot of Bob Taylor's Ranch House steak house. This was the best ribeye steak I've had in years, though the tab came to about $35 per person.

Anyway, I hit the road and after a while I had to make a rest stop. I knew that CalTrans was fixing up the roadside rests but this one looked more like a Chalet than an outhouse.

Next Stop, Baker. I took the back road around the North side of town and saw some interesting old houses, antiques in yards, and such but nothing noteworthy. So I tried to get a photo of a vendor selling ice-cold fruits from a hand cart but he indicated that he didn't want his picture taken. So I looked around and, across the street, was an alien of a different sort. The one on the roof kept lifting his cowboy hat in greeting to the visitors and didn't seem to have a problem with me taking his picture. Somehow it reminded me of the Twilight Zone episode, "To Serve Man," and I decided not to buy any jerkey, ask any questions, or stick around.

I passed up Calico Ghost Town, the small dry lake that often sports sand-sailers, Betty Sue's Diner, and Yermo and fixated on Barstow. Don't laugh.

Most people nowadays stay on Hwy 15 and only see Barstow from the freeway. But they miss an amazing town. An avid photographer could spend a week there getting shots of old Route 66, Barstow Station, the railroad museum, the railroad station and switch yard, the houses, and more. Me, I like old Hwy 58. Just off the freeway I stopped and took photos of one of the last drive-in movie theaters in the world. The sign says it's open 7-days a week and you can see from the photo that it looks well taken care of. One of these days I'm going to take Julia so she can brag "Been there, done that."

Almost across from the theater was a junk yard with an assortment of vehicles that must have escaped from the movie screens during some of the more "Mad Max" type of movies. Here's one I'd like to have for the days I have to drive into L.A.

Just beyond there were abandoned buildings as well as fairly new establishments, including a steak house I'd like to go to some night. Keeping my eyes open for something different I saw some tractors almost across the road from the steak house. Actually, there were about 40 or so lined up in three rows, with several more in the barn looking like they were being worked on.

But Barstow-ites can't be all odd, so I thought I'd try getting some photos of some normal houses. But no, these people don't put pink flamingos-on-a-stick in their yards, they put dinosaurs in them.

Maybe a mile farther is an auto repair and welding shop. These guys must have been around a long time to collect all those signs. Much of the stuff inside and around back was just as odd. There's gotta be at least a day's worth of photography here.

Out toward the west end of town, past where Old Hwy 58 rejoins New Hwy 58, I began looking for a rest stop. I found this one built like a brick, well, outhouse.

Looking for something cold to drink I went a little farther to the nearest restaurant but they had already closed for the day.

Retracing my steps about a mile I turned back onto Hwy 58 and continued West. I stopped at the sprawling metropolis of Hinkley, about a mile off the road. I should have taken some photos but I had a hard time telling if I was there yet. But I did get something to eat and drink at the old-style general store and spent about half-an-hour talking to some red-faced bikers from New Hampshire who had decided to cross our desert in the 105 degree heat. Their main question was "Where is the nearest hotel with a pool?"

A little farther and I took a right toward Harper Lake. First I stopped at the modern ghost town of Lockhart and took photos of the wooden water tank on a stick and the old general store. I'd been there before but this time I braved going into the basement to find, almost nothing. In the main store area (the roof is long gone) a large owl has taken up residence in the rafters. If you go in from the back you might get a photo of it taking off when it hears you coming.

Harper Lake is about 2 miles off the pavement but the dirt road is good. There's even a park service outhouse there complete with fresh toilet paper so someone must check on it regularly. The dry lake is fairly large and, on a hot day, offers an interesting view, like some of those old Clint Eastwood western movies. What water was there covered maybe half an acre and not very deep, but somehow picturesque. There were birds and bugs aplenty.

On my way back to Hwy 58 I didn't wait for a train to come by I couldn't resist this shot of the tracks disappearing into the void.

By this time it was getting late and I could hear a bottle of wine calling my name so I decided to head home and come back another day to finish this photo journey. That was over a week ago and now I think I'll leave it for a separate photo journey.

I hope you've enjoyed your vicarious trip with me and are inspired to visit some of these places or make your own photo journey. Now that I'm more acquainted with my camera and taking photos I find no end to interesting scenes. Most of them will never win any contests but I took these photos for you and me, not some judge with preconceived notions of what makes a winning photo. These are my memories. I hope you take your camera out and make memories of your own, just like when we all had Brownies and Instamatics and glued our photos into photo albums (OK, so I'm showing my age).