Shout out to our very own DAW for suggesting Ghosts of the Glory Trail by Nell Murbarger as a good read. Here are some of my favorite lines taken from her captivating writing which will haunt me as I visit Death Valley in the near future. 

This is a ghost town, a mining camp that has had its day, has sung its song. 

Prospecting partners made their way across mountains or desert using their burros' tails for a compass. 

Fighting for a chance to pay a dollar a night for a pair of dirty blankets and space on the ground to roll them. 

Peace, like a wooly blanket settling over the town and a lonely wind came to whisper around broken windows, and ran its gaunt fingers over cold chimneys, and silent graves. 

A lonely wind rattled the cabin door and tugged fretfully a the rusted stovepipe on the roof; and not even the old graveyard across the ravine was more pregnant with ghosts than the lifeless garden that had once bloomed in barren soil. 

It seems as if the Present is subordinated to the Past and that the dead are closer and more real than the living.

Glad you are enjoying it. I tend toward the old books, as writing was then more of an art.

(2021-09-01, 09:27 PM)DAW89446 Wrote: as writing was then more of an art.

I couldn't put the book down until I finished Ghosts of the Glory Trail so I'm with you on the old books. What a privilege it would have been to share a campfire with Nell back in her glory days. Did you ever meet up with Nell? She's been gone about twenty years now.

https://www.highdesertdrifter.com/murbarger.shtml

No, never had. As I mentioned in another post, I have two copies of the book - a paperback edition I’ve had for decades. In 2002, while visiting friends, we went to Dawson Books in downtown Portland at midnight and I found a hardbound copy, in which Murbarger wrote a full page note to whoever originally bought that book and signed it. I paid $5. I also have a hardcopy of the companion book to GHOSTS, which is SOVEREIGNS OF THE SAGE. Its methodology is the same as GHOSTS.

I first read her book in my high school library, as well as Desert Magazine. I always spent my lunch break in there. I’d spend all my loose change making photocopies of favorite articles from Desert. Back in the late 60s and early 70s the photocopy process used a far stronger chemical, which left the paper smelling strongly. I still remember that smell to this day. Those articles were the basis for future trips that came after I left home and was on my own.

(2021-09-02, 01:02 PM)DAW89446 Wrote: Those articles were the basis for future trips that came after I left home and was on my own.

Well David, your writing "ain't too shabby" either!

Thank you.