Greg Carttars Photos – Bonnies Grave

In 1872 things were so different as people were still coming into the West with all it’s promise.

Facebook | Greg Carttar’s Photos – Bonnie’s Grave.

The marker says it all.

This is place of amazing beauty and unspeakable sorrow.

In the glare of the late afternoon Mojave sun, you can almost see the wagon disappearing into the sunset.

You have to wonder if they made it, and who they became.

I can find no records or references.

Norman Squier

“The buzz saw snarled and rattled, snarled and rattled in the yard.” R. Frost

Desert Vistas vs. Solar Power

The race to build solar power plants and wind farms once again treats the west as a wasteland. Senator Dianne Feinstein leads a resistance movement and the power companies are surprised to find the Mojave wilderness has value.

“This is arguably the best solar land in the world, and Senator Feinstein shouldn’t be allowed to take this land off the table without a proper and scientific environmental review,” said Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the environmentalist and a partner with a venture capital firm that invested in a solar developer called BrightSource Energy. In September, BrightSource canceled a large project in the monument area.

Union officials, power industry executives, regulators and some environmentalists have also expressed concern about the impact of the monument legislation, but few would speak publicly for fear of antagonizing one of California’s most powerful politicians.

The debate over the monument encapsulates a rising tension between two goals held by environmental groups: preservation of wild lands and ambitious efforts to combat global warming.

Not only is the desert land some of the sunniest in the country, and thus suitable for large-scale power production, it is also some of the most scenic territory in the West. The Mojave lands have sweeping vistas of an ancient landscape that is home to desert tortoises, bighorn sheep, fringe-toed lizards and other rare animals and plants.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/22/business/energy-environment/22solar.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

see more buildings that refer to their place and purpose

 Outside of Pahrump, Seymor’s ice cream remind’s us to look around, beauty is everywhere. The whipped up soft serve ice cream castle touches the frothy lenticular clouds passing over the Tonopah.

Sometimes the blown out billboards and run down trailers of the back side of our imagination have real beauty. I can imagine a family arriving at seemore’s and the children excited, dad rumbling around for change. Imagine that, you denizen’s of  the freshly  mown suburbia.   Life in a small desert town on a hot summer night.

Death Valley

We drove over to California the way some early settlers did, approaching out of Nevada to try and find shortcuts to the 49 gold rush. Most of them didn’t make it across this barren desert and as the remaining wagon left they said “glad to make it out of that valley of death”. The name stuck but on Thanksgiving weekend death valley was actually a pretty pleasant e from Las Vegas.

The old church steeple here has a prospector and his mule for a weathervane. 
 
 

Cesar Pelli Tower Hotel

The other day a young intern, a high school student actually, doing cad drafting and estimates, passed me some recent aerial photos of the job site. The City Center project is the largest privately funded construction project in the US ever. It will be environmentally classified LEED silver and thats my job. Cool. A very few people know that I started the league of alternative builders in 1976, worked with Glenn Harcourt and the steeprock co operative in 2002. Now this.  We are like ants, each doing a job that is part of the whole.

Musical mnemonic Ice Cream man

While looking around some of the older in town neighborhoods I heard the sound of the Ice Cream truck bell. As a boy, this bell was my first experience of the mnemonic device. click here to read about this phenomenon ” Audio Logos “
As soon as I heard the bell I began to salivate for ice cream and sugar. The instant gratification mechanisim is thus planetd, later to find gambling, sex and everything else Vegas stands for. A moment after I took this picture a young Latina mom carried her little boy over to the truck for his fix. My theory is that this is where consumer culture gets started. Sorry.

Geraldo’s Classic Barber Shop

As soon as I arrived at Las Vegas I knew I had to get cleaned up for my first day of work. Where to get a haircut without dropping sixty bucks ? After searching for “Barbers” as opposed to “Hair Salon” I called Geraldo. He answered the phone with a thick Spanish accent and gave me directions that sounded like Valley View. After a few more phone calls I found him by the “China Building” and inside I discovered my first authentic place in Vegas. A traditional, old barber shop with boys and their Mom’s, old men telling stories, cool magazines and a “mise en scene” that looked like Jean-Pierre Jeunet invented the place. I also got a good haircut cheap, and felt for the first instant that I might like Las Vegas after all.

Glenn Harcourt speaks of friendship

“This big old tree-North of Steeprock
must have been burned in a wildfire a long time ago- likely, before man lived there wildflowers bloomed It’s life’s foundation leaving it strong-even after it’s last breath.
Plumb, tall, leading the forrest for unknown years- as the fellows next to him grew- strong enough to lose one’s own footing and rest on the neighbors strength, still standing
leaning on friends
after unknown years”

As most of you know, Glenn left us in a tragic plane crash this spring, nothing that couldn’t have happened to me any day. I find his words and messages on my computer and they remind me to stop and appreciate the people who come through our lives. 

Do you know where this is?

Most anyone who had lived in Telluride would recognize this landmark where the road from Paradox Valley ( see Thelma and Louise) meets the road into Moab. Its a fragment from the heyday of mprosspecting for Uranium, and at one time there was a little village there…not to far from La Sal. In the two creeks cafe there is a painting of an old truck under a slanted roof like this. I feel the building style has an eery modernist feel to it, and the desolation of its envirronment just contributes to it. Contrast this to the emptiness of the las Vegas strip, as seen from the wall of the Aladdin Casino Hotel. 

Steep Rock Barn Project

 

storm clouds near soldier summit on the road from Price

 

Musicians at the farmers market

 

birds of Utah

My friend Des Fitzgerald, just back from a year in Spain, told me to look into the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge, apparently this area gets an amazing number and variety of migratory birds throughout the year. 

Avenues houses

Most of the old homes are pretty well restored

Two Creeks coffe shop

This is the cafe across the street 

Library

The new Salt Lake city Library is considered one of the best in the country. Its as much a cultural center as a library but we go down and find a couch and read all the magazines you wouldn’t want to buy. Good place to hang out on a hot day

Cathedral madeline

 

He just ran out the door

How did he get away so fast? 

Red Butte Garden

A few blocks uphill from the house is this garden park…in the summer there are concerts here but its generally very quiet

Welcome to Salt Lake

The triple A Bees playing Las Vegas, this game went into 13 innings. My first pro baseball game ever