Old Hotel – Murphys, California

Mary is no longer available for RV traveling, but we remain good friends.
Because we have 4,000+ postings, I’ve invited her to continue posting entries on this blog.

I’m currently in my 21st year of full-time RVing and my lifestyle is changing, For more info click Here

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The motorhome is parked at Mary’s home in Murphys, California. I am scheduled to depart November 28th. While here, I’ll do cleaning, routine maintenance and minor repairs to both vehicles.

 

 

Today’s Subject…Old Hotel – Murphys, California…

 

 

Murphys is an old gold mining town. Rich in gold and rich in history, it has become a tourist town. At the center of town is the old Murphys Hotel built in 1856.

 

 

Here are some of the photos that I took…

 

 

As always you may left click upon an image to see an enlarged view and then click once again to see an even larger view…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To see the other 13 photos that I took, click this link…

https://get.google.com/albumarchive/110455945462646142273/album/AF1QipP74eaSZhfCalWhJ8vhITUZ-uPA3MZkAocYCkfJ

 

 

 

To read all about the Murphys Hotel, click this link…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murphys_Hotel

 

 

To read all about Murphys, click this link…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murphys,_California

 

 

 

I hope you enjoyed the photos!

Yesterday was cloudy/rainy and 50 degrees. Forecast for today is partly sunny and 57 degrees.

Enjoying nice weather is another joy in the life of a full-time RVer!

The red dot on the below map shows my approximate location in the State of California. You may double left-click the map to make it larger…

Enjoying 65-75 degree temperatures with low humidity most of the year is a primary joy in the RVing lifestyle!

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving”…Albert Einstein

My current travel rig is a 2006 Fleetwood 26′ Class A Motorhome and a towed 1986 Ford Bronco II, Eddie Bauer Model. This photo was taken in the desert at Slab City near Niland, California…

On October 27, 2012, I created a two-minute video titled America The Beautiful. The music America The Beautiful is by Christopher W. French. The photos, which I randomly selected, are from the states of Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Montana, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Tennessee, Washington and West Virginia (not shown in that order)…are mine. Yup, That’s me standing in front of the Post Office in Luckenbach, Texas…Y’all!

Click this link to start the video. Make sure you have your speakers turned on and go to full screen asap.
http://youtu.be/FfZUzEB4rM8

If you would like to see my YouTube videos, click this link… http://www.youtube.com/user/JimJ1579/videos

There are more than 700 photo albums in my Picasa Web Albums File. To gain access, you simply have to click this link… https://get.google.com/albumarchive/110455945462646142273?source=pwa

If you have not checked out my Ramblin Man’s Photos Blog, you can do so by clicking this link…http://ramblinmanphotos.wordpress.com/

For more information about my books, click this link:
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/panamaorbust

All original works copyrighted – Jim Jaillet 2016

MGM Grand Hotel/Casino – Las Vegas, Nevada

The motorhome is parked at Thousand Trails RV Resort in Las Vegas, Nevada. My scheduled departure date is Friday, February 13th.

Mary continues to be overwhelmed with personal business. I am now not expecting to see her again until I arrive at her home in Murphys, California about the third week in April. It’s just the way things are and we just have to deal with it.

I’ve come to Las Vegas, Nevada several times over the years and have quite thoroughly explored the area. Rather than go back to these various places and re-create the wheel, (unless I do something different and unusual) I’m electing to republish some of my earlier blog entries.

This blog entry was originally published February 11, 2011…

MGM Grand Hotel/Casino – Las Vegas, Nevada

Yesterday Mary and I spent a couple of hours wandering around the MGM Grand Hotel/Casino at the corner of Las Vegas Boulevard (“The Strip”) and Tropicana in Las Vegas, Nevada.

As always you may left click upon an image to see an enlarged view and then click once again to see an even larger view…

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia. Click the below link to find out all about the MGM Grand…

< http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MGM_Grand_Las_Vegas

The purpose of our visit was two-fold. First, we have tickets for Cirque De Soleil – Ka, next Tuesday evening and we wanted to get a general feel for the layout, parking, etc…rather than a first-time visit at night.

The second reason was to see the Lion Habitat with live lions behind thick glass in the casino area. The photography conditions were terrible. First lots of people, then trying to shoot the lions behind glass with lots of reflections and finally the casino was very dark. The following photos are the best I could do under these conditions…

The read about the Lion Habitat, click this link…

http://www.vegas.com/attractions/on_the_strip/lionhabitat.html

End of Blog reprint…

I HOPE YOU ENJOYED THE PHOTOS.

IN OTHER NEWS…

The last three days have broken all-time temperature highs here in Las Vegas. The average is 61 degrees. Yesterday it was 78 degrees…17 degrees above normal!

Yesterday was a sunny/cloudy and 78 degrees. Forecast for today is sunny and 73 degrees.

The red dot on the below map shows our approximate location in the State of Nevada. You may double left-click the map to make it larger…

Enjoying 65-75 degree temperatures with low humidity most of the year is a primary joy in the RVing lifestyle!

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving”…Albert Einstein

On October 27, 2012, I created a two-minute video titled America The Beautiful. The music America The Beautiful is by Christopher W. French. The photos, which I randomly selected, are from the states of Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Montana, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Tennessee, Washington and West Virginia (not shown in that order)…are mine. Yup, That’s me standing in front of the Post Office in Luckenbach, Texas…Y’all!

Click this link to start the video. Make sure you have your speakers turned on and go to full screen asap.
http://youtu.be/FfZUzEB4rM8

If you would like to see my YouTube videos, click this link… http://www.youtube.com/user/JimJ1579/videos

There are more than 600 photo albums in my Picasa Web Albums File. To gain access, you simply have to click this link… https://picasaweb.google.com/110455945462646142273?authkey=Gv1sRgCKrvzqm8-IKGdA

If you have not checked out my Ramblin Man’s Photos Blog, you can do so by clicking this link…http://ramblinmanphotos.wordpress.com/

For more information about my books, click this link:
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/panamaorbust

All original material Copyright – Jim Jaillet 2015

THE CASCADES, WENATCHEE, CASHMERE

The dry plains of Eastern Washington give way to the Cascades. Therein lies the cause of this dry area. The rains hit the mountains and drop most of the rain on the west side of the peaks leaving little for the East.

There is beauty here. We will eventually climb up over 4,000 feet.

Midway, sits the small town of Douglas.

We take a rest stop here and I see my first ever bright, purple rood. I like it!

This old ad has been repainted on an old barn. I like it, too.

Once over the summit, it is down,down,down on curves and hairpin switchbacks.

Of course Jim does the driving so I get to enjoy the scenery and it is a beautiful drive, this Highway 2.

Below us is Wenatchee. The apple capital of the world. Their Washington Apple Commission Visitor Center was closed on Saturdays. The area is the biggest city in the county, the county seat, and part of the power buckle, referring to dams above and below Wenatchee. It is named after the Sahatpin Indian tribe. Wenatchee means – at the source of the river-. They grow and ship pears, cherries, and apples. We saw signs for Pickers Wanted, Por Favor.

Jim made an appointment to have the vehicles serviced at Anglers Auto Service.. Across from Anglers is Dustys Used Cars. His sign is hard to miss.

We ate lunch, and read while the work was done. I have a friend, Pam Rousey,  who was raised here, if memory serves me. I remember a lovely little circus we saw while camped at a Thousand Trails that was from Wenatchee.  Pretty country, great river and we had cool weather with a constant breeze.

We moved on to nearby Cashmere. The old part of town is preserved and attracts tourists who enjoy the shops and atmosphere.

Cashmere’s  large complex of a museum and pioneer village was open. The mastodons roamed this part of the country. The Indian artifacts part of the museum was off-limits to cameras. Part of the collection was donated by a local collector. The rest came from the Department of the Interior. Well worth a visit. The Indian History is well done with pictures of the various personalities that imprinted this land.

An item I’ve never seen is this Indian throwing stick. Kind of tricky to figure out how it worked from in front of the glass case.

I’m ever picking up pretty rocks and boy do they have them. About four cases of them one with beautiful petrified wood.

Some great western paintings by Walter Graham.

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A room full of stuffed birds. What was engaging about the exhibit is the explanations and drawings of how the feathers work to accomplish, flight, gliding as in the raptors diorama, the upward movement as opposed to the downward movements,etc. Interesting.

In the community exhibits, another item I’d never seen before. A bank’s timed lock and alarm.

The Pioneer Village was made up entirely of log buildings. All are furnished though you can only see the insides through wired barriers. About 30 buildings, all were moved to the site. Nicely done, except for the wire barriers. But,then the buildings were smaller than other villages like this we’ve seen.

It was interesting to me to see the various modes of log construction. This building was a two-story hotel.

The upstairs held three beds, but only two were open to a photo through the wire. All in all, an enjoyable visit.

We camped at an American Legion  next to an apple packing plant. The enormous boxes of apples being trucked to…?  Maybe a train car?  The Legion  wasn’t open.

HOTEL HELL

The Murphys Hotel was registered as a California Historical Landmark and later it qualified for recognition as a Natiional Historic Place.  When we moved here in 1978, it was the only game in town. Some say, in the county, which then boasted a total population of 29,000 people.  There wasn’t a single stop light in the whole county and not many stop signs, either. The sleepy, quaint town enjoyed a steady trickle of tourists on their way up to Calaveras  Big Trees State Park, or up to Mount Reba Ski area on Highway four in the winter.  Highway 4, Ebbetts Pass,  is one of the narrowest passes over the mountains to Reno, Lake Tahoe and is closed completely during the winter.  Old time skiers say Mt. Reba  was one of the best kept secrets in the skiing community.  The trouble is no one with a business in town could make a living, and the hotel has struggled through multiple owners over the years.

I’d heard rumors that Gordon Ramsey, who hosts Nightmare Kitchens, and Hotel Hell was coming to the Murphys Hotel. I couldn’t pay much attention, but one cruise through town and I saw the yellow tape, the hotel was closed for a week and no one was allowed in. But, on their last day, I just happened to be returning from Angels Camp and they were packing up their gear.

I walked in and no one stopped me. I was allowed to click away. This guy said, I’m a  local, I’m a local. He was an electrician fixing something.

The lobby has been modernized over the years.  I remember an old rocking chair next to the stove where a Miwuk Indian used to hang out and tell everyone stories of the old days. Once the wine interests  took over the town,  I quit frequenting the hotel or just about any business downtown and hadn’t paid much attention to what goes on there.

I felt like an intruder in the empty bar, with its Indian Rug and deer horns that have been there forever, it seems. One of my best friends met her husband to be at this bar.  So what, I asked myself is Hotel Hell?

The technicians moving out of this tent behind the hotel where they stayed were hustling and I didn’t get one picture of them as they packed themselves out of there. It seems Gordon Ramsey,  helps struggling hotels with the issues that drive business away. He goes over their menu, tastes everything. He checks every aspect for cleanliness and appeal, the effectiveness of employees and so on. Then he presents his findings on TV. It can be brutal, but the price tag for an event like this is about $7,000,000 according to one technician’s estimate. (No cost to the hotel, just the program’s expenses to film here.)

The hotel has patio dining in what was once part of their parking lot. I thought that was a great improvement.

At the back and a parking lot’s distance from the main, historic building, is a 1950’s style set of rooms I’ve never been in. Most people stay in this part of the hotel. The historic hotel rooms are few. They are  quite quaint, and the rooms share a bathroom down the hallway. There are no closets. I couldn’t do the steep stairs to take pictures, but I’ve been upstairs  in a lovely party/ meeting room many times in the past.

I suppose the idea of sleeping in a hotel once frequented by famous people wears thin and the historic aspect carries a limited amount of cache. So, my guess is Ramsey has plenty to attack in the 50’s part of the hotel.

It was interesting to see how they lit the place for filming. They brought  their own lighting temporarily attached to the ceiling out of sight of their  camera. The chandelier lighting isn’t bright enough for television production. This tech was removing the lights from one of the dining rooms when I walked in.

One former bartender worried that the “Ramsey Machine” will have the owners modernize the hotel to the point where it will lose its sense of community. All the old wonderful stories about the hotel even the new owners don’t know anything about. We talked a bit about how do you address that?

But, we’ll see sometime in September when the program is expected to air. Tune in if you can. I am not a TV watcher so I don’t know what channel Hotel Hell appears on. And, in the meantime, I’ll try to remember some of those old stories and write them down.

 

 

 

MY FIFTH BORDER CROSSING

Thanks to Arizona Ranger, Ed Suckley, I had my fifth border crossing. We had heard horrible tales about how dangerous this crossing was and Jim was reluctant to go there with  the recent drug wars and problems. Ed put him at ease and assured us that a tourist  crossing into Nogales, Sonora, Mexico for an afternoon was as safe  as in Nogales, AZ, US. He even recommended a nice restaurant. Ed had a Boston accent and I got a kick out of listening to he and Jim reminisce about familiar experiences back in Massachusetts. And Ed’s story of how he came to be an Arizona Ranger after living pretty much all of his life on the East Coast? He was still kind of stunned it seemed that he and his wife had made an enormous change in their lives, were warned about living in an “awful” place like Nogales, and they both love it.

Ed’s partner, Ernesto, explained to me how the Rangers work and how much they enjoy this volunteer job.  The rangers were formed in 1901 to combat cattle rustling and wild lawlessness. They did such a good job, they were abolished in 1909. This small museum in the Old County Courthouse is where they preside.

Today, the rangers, reformed into a volunteer group in 1957, still carry colts like those the old-timers used. Between 1901 and 1909, the official rangers only numbered 26 men,  a grizzly bunch who preferred to go about their business operating as cowpokes. Her is a description of them from a newspaper article in 1942:

A colorful part of the old west is now a colorful part of the new west. The current rangers are a legal law enforcement assistant organization. Ernesto explained that their volunteer services probably save the State of Arizona a million dollars a year. When they are not called upon to help the Border Patrol, the Sheriff’s Department or other law agencies, they hold two major fund-raisers that raise money for charities that benefit children.  They are deputized and legal law enforcement assistance.  There is a lot of history in this little room. They have a website at with several short links at :    http://www.azrangers.us/

 

We left the Courthouse and stopped in to the Pimeria Alta Historical Society Museum. The building is chock full of good stuff. A large collection of wonderful old black and white photos. All volunteer run, no charge, they ask for (and need) a donation. The highlight here was the docent who explained how the local Indian lands stretch across the border but she now has to have a passport to enter her native lands on the other side of a fence. It was quite an education to learn that the names applied to Indian peoples, such as Pima, Yaqui, and others I didn’t retain, all mean nothing or nothingness. When invaders arrive in your land, you tell them nothing. Eventually, they are working on getting their true Indian tribal names changed.

Herman “Ace” Lawson, a Nogales resident, was a Tuskegee Airman and wrote a book about his experiences. He was scheduled to speak at the Museum but we left before he arrived, headed for the border.

This is the only crossing I’ve made where you can actually see Mexico and the fence that divides residents that used to move freely between cities as neighbors. It serves its purpose of keeping aliens from crossing but also keeps animals that one time used territory in both countries from crossing. It seems offensive to me, like the Berlin wall.  I haven’t read the link about this fence but Jim has a link to it in his blog.

We walked through the gates. I’ve crossed at Tijuana, San Luis, Algodones, Las Palomas and now Nogales.

Normally,  we eat at a hole in the wall “joint” when we’ve visited Mexico, so this was quite a change.  The beautiful lobby of the Hotel Fray Marcos De Niza.

The food was good and economical, and the comfort was more like home. But, we kind of missed the charm of  the hole in the wall “joints”.

Nogales, Sonora is a much more “westernized”  city; obviously more affluent. The town is huge and is the major port for truck shipping into the U.S.

We stopped and looked into this 122 year old church.

A beautiful stained glass window.

And yes, the boulevards were modern, but we still found those junky alleys with all that fascinating “stuff” I like to see.  I love doing it, but never buy since we have so little room to carry anything in the motor home.

 

 

A fun day.