I don't know, what do you do for vacation? This appeals to me, and I almost never go anywhere.
१८ सप्टेंबर, २०२६
"To reach Kennecott, about seven hours east of Anchorage, you’ll need to take a long drive on paved highways followed by a 59-mile foray on a remote gravel road with no gas stations."
From "After the Gold Rush: 5 Ghost Towns to Explore This Fall/These mostly abandoned wilderness outposts, resplendent in their solitude, invite curious visitors to imagine what life was like during the boom times" (NYT gift link).
पोस्ट्स
४० टिप्पण्या:
I'd wait for the YouTube video.
My vacations for the last 4 1/2 years is sitting on my patio. I take care of my elderly mother.
If Althouse took her vacation there on June 19th, she’d have to be up and out a little before 4:00 AM to get her sunrise snaps.
I’ve been to Alaska a few times. Wife and I look forward to going back.
".. what do you do for vacation?.."
mostly go fishing, or look at old battlefields..
OR go fishing AT old battlefields..
This year, i was different, and went and climbed around in old indian ruins near Chaco Canyon
I’ve had to do enough driving in my life to have a limit to the amount of time traveling to the next destination.
Like quicksand, ghost towns played a bigger role in the imagination of boomer kids than in everyday life in these United States today.
“I can climb the highest mountain, cross the wildest sea
I can feel St. Elmo's fire burnin' in me, burnin' in me.”
St. Elmo boomed after prospectors struck gold and silver, but its population began to wane less than decade later. Fires in 1890 and 1898 burned many businesses and, though some residents stuck it out for a few more decades, St. Elmo’s primary mine closed for good in the 1930s.
My best vacation was winning the BLM lottery (After almost 2 years of trying) and exploring The Wave. It was March, and we lucked out with weather.
For the last six years, Mrs Bar and I have driven from Virginia to the west coast for a three week or so road trip. We usually spend a week at Flathead ladies in Montana. She gets to collect rocks and I get to visit aviation museums. We’ve been to about ten national parks.
We also try to get a winter trip. Usually Hawaii, but, this winter we’re going to Arizona.
Sometimes the bear eats you and other times the bear, well, he eats you.
When I was a child growing up in Arizona, ghost towns were a real thing and we often poked around in them. We also dug up Indian ruins and burial sites. They frown on that sort of thing now.
Rhyolite, Nevada. Eerie.
I was lyin' in a burned-out basement
With a full moon in my eyes
I was hopin' for replacement
When the sun burst through the sky
There was a band playin' in my head
And I felt like getting high
I was thinkin' about what a friend had said
I was hopin' it was a lie
Thinkin' about what a friend had said
I was hopin' it was a lie
I visited Kennecott this summer with family living in Alaska. The old mine was interesting, but the best part was the hike out to and onto a glacier. The drive in was very long and slow so bring your patience if you go.
Vacation? Starting last month and contnuing for the foreseeable future they will be weeks on the beach with grandkids.
There's always the eternal search for The Marley Woods. Pack LRRProvisions and go armed. And if you hear bigfoot banjos or see aliens having fun, drop a GPS marker, and run boy run.
We lived in Alaska for seven and a half years. Saw Kennecott just before they closed it for structural repairs.
Like NG said, the glacier hike is great. Flightseeing is spendy, but spectacular. Sixty miles of dirt road has nothing to recommend it, particularly the embedded remaining rail tie spikes.
In 1938, the mine closed with two weeks notice, so the town was essentially left completely intact.
A visit to Los Angeles invites curious visitors to imagine what life was like during the boom times.
We like visiting national parks and historic sites. Last September we went to Rapid City, SD. We went to Badlands NP, Custer State Park, Mt. Rushmore, Deadwood, Devils Tower, and the Mammoth Museum in Hot Springs, and a few other places. This past May we did southern Utah, including Bryce Canyon, Capitol Reef, Canyonlands, and Arches National Parks. Also got to drive the magnificent Utah Hwy 12 across Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. I can highly recommend.
Our next trip, in Oct, is to southwest GA. Visiting the National Infantry Museum and the Civil War Naval Museum in Columbus, Andersonville and the National POW Museum, and then a day in historic Thomasville, GA. Then, heading back to home near Atlanta, the Air Force Museum at Warner Robins AFB and Ocmulgee National Monument in Macon.
In July, on our way back to our GA home from our TN home, we stopped at Kings Mountain National Military park on the SC/NC border.
Next April we are going on a 2-week cruise through the Panama Canal with my sister and her husband.
Just some samples of things we like to do while we still can.
Hotel Meade in Bannock
…I don’t like grizz so Alaska is out for me. You can have much of that experience in NZ and still be within an hour or two of civilization. Only 5 million people there give or take and they spread out. Backcountry isn’t so far back…
Our last trip went through Niagra Falls, then through Canada to Moose Jaw, Canmore, and Banff. Came home through Montana, Utah (Bryce Canyon and Monument Valley).
T
Last year we spent two weeks on Vancouver Island. Very cool.
This year, I returned to Slovenia for the first time since 2019. Finally got a good look at Lake Bled. Also returned to Portugal for the first time since 2018. From there, I went to Angola for the first time ever. Now I have been to all the lusophone countries. (Finally nailed East Timor last year.)
And just a few weeks ago, I traveled to the Pacific Ocean by going south: flew from Austin to Monterrey, then went overland over 4 days to Puerto Escondido. Best parts: the cablecar in Mexico City, for which my subway card from 2024 worked, and the waitress who guessed I was Italian. It was my arm-waving, she said. I was hunting for just the right words when ordering breakfast. Just what did I want with my huevos revueltos? And jugo de what did I want to drink? In any case I assured her I was American. I might have added that my Portuguese is better than my Spanish, indeed I am as histrionic as any Brazilian, but this seemed irrelevant in Mexico.
I visit countries that don't have McDonald’s or Gray Line tours.
Most of Nevada is eerie, especially Highway 50.
Bodie is pretty cool. A great side trip if you are travelling up the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada mountains from Mojave to Tahoe.
I've done the Nevada Test Site twice and I highly recommend the full tour for any who are interested in such things. My father was present for Julin Divider, the last shot, as a perk shortly before his retirement. I begged to go but children were definitely not allowed in the Q area. When asked he always said it was "meh".
"Resplendent is an adjective that means shining brightly, glowing, or having a very impressive and beautiful appearance."
How can an abandoned town be 'resplendent'?
Link to video - Althouse posted this btw. It was easier finding it on Instagram.
According to Goggle AI search, Tuktoyaktuk, Northwest Territories is the northernmost settlement you can drive to on paved roads. Paved including gravel roads in the description...
I've always wanted to visit Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, just to be able to say I've been to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Also on my list is Prince Edward Island. I've got a crapton of living DNA relatives there, some as close as 3rd cousin. And most of them are multiply related to each other. Seems living on an island isn't good for genetic diversity.
Aside from islands, there are plenty of challenging towns and settlements in Canada and Alaska that you cannot drive to. The roads and even paths aren't there. I don't know if there are any of those in the Lower 48.
Having been to many places outside the USA- and on 5 of the 7 continents, I really don't have much desire to travel anywhere outside mainland USA and Canada- except maybe for some of the Caribbean Islands. They really do have great beaches and a laid back atmosphere. I've been to Hawaii. Were it not for their strategic location, I'd be all for letting them have their independence with a hearty "Good Riddance!" wish to them.
The lower 48 has a lot of cultural and geographic diversity to experience. Heck, there's more then 100 places within a day's drive in NY that I have yet to visit. With things to do while you're there. I've been to Letchworth Park and walked it's path and seen the canyon, but have yet to visit Ausable Chasm.
WhenI lived in Boston in the 90’s, we would go camping in Baxter State Park in Maine. The northern end of the Appalachian train is in the park at the top of Mount Katahdin (the highest point in Maine). After a long six hour drive you reach the entrance, where you then drive on a single lane gravel road with a 25 mph speed limit until you get to your campsite. Our favorite campground was about thirty miles from the entrance. Baxter has a reservation system and a strict limit on how many people can be in the park. It’s as far away from civilization as I ever got and I loved every minute of it. We climbed Katahdin once using the last leg of the Appalachian trail and it was the most difficult climb/hike of my life. I recommend Baxter to anyone who wants to get away from it all.
RideSpaceMountain said...
“Rhyolite, Nevada. Eerie.”
I’ve also visited Rhyolite, NV. It’s a short drive west out of Beatty, NV, and on the way into Death Valley via Titus Canyon. There’s a strange permanent open air art installation just outside the town’s borders, but many of the structures in Rhyolite proper are still partially intact. BLM has put chain link fences around them to keep mischief-makers from vandalizing them. But the railroad depot is still in decent shape, and the Bottle House is worth seeing.
https://vanishingnevada.com/2021/07/31/rhyolite-railroad-depot-las-vegas-and-tonopah-rr/
About six years ago or so, a young man named Brent Underwood became intrigued with the ghost town of Cerro Gordo, which is at eight thousand feet above the now dry Owens Lake, just outside Lone Pine, CA. It had a lively history of boom and bust with productive gold and silver mines in the area. He discovered that the town was privately owned and up for sale. Sinking every penny he had into it (and also getting some other investors involved) he bought the town. As luck would have it, this came to pass in early 2020 when the world came to a halt and he became the lone resident of the town. He’s become very committed to bringing the town back to life, going as far as restoring many of the structures himself. Unfortunately, a year or so after he arrived the one building that was and relatively in good shape – The American Hotel – burned to the ground under suspicious circumstances. It was never determined how the fire happened, and sadly it meant the loss of priceless historical artifacts dating back to Cerro Gordo’s heyday as a bustling mining town.
Upon discovering that some of the smaller abandoned mining works were fruitful, Underwood filed claims with the Feds and bought the land. He’s pulled small amounts of silver out of the rocks, and thinks there may be more deep in the hillsides.
https://www.youtube.com/@GhostTownLiving
Take bug repellant if you visit Kennecott. We were very popular being the only ones in our tour group who knew about Alaska summer insects and brought bug spray. The long ride to the mines is fascinating, also.
I haven't been to Kennecott, but the Independence mine is closer to Anchorage and easier to access. It's incredible how much effort was needed to establish and support a mine operation in an era before paved roads.
"I've always wanted to visit Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, just to be able to say I've been to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan."
I can say it.
Drove through it on the way to Jasper.
“I was lyin' in a burned-out basement
With a full moon in my eyes
I was hopin' for replacement“
Even though Niel Young wrote and did this, KD Lang did a better job with it. And the Rankin Family had better gold rush story songs.
All the rush towns are great but the best thing is to clknb the Chilkoot pass on the way from Skagway to Canada. A real old time hike.
It’s best to go to places that have underground tours like Leadville CO, Idaho Springs CO. And Balarat in Australia. Try Grass Springs in California too.
I have been “a little bit south, south, south, of Saskatoon.
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