Sharon, I would like to do Randsburg and any of the days would be OK providing I can make arrangements for Julia to get home from school. I give that about a 60% chance.

Sharon,

What time were you planning on being in Randsburg?

Sharon,

I have received a kitchen-pass for Tuesday to go to Randsburg, if you're still up to it.

I'll be dropping Julia off at school in Rosamond about 7:20 so I should arrive in Randsburg about 8:20. It's not a large town so you shouldn't have any problem finding me but just in case my phone number is 816-8278.

Sharon, you mentioned meeting in Rosamond but I didn't address it. Was it your desire to go in one car or separate? And if one car then what time would you be going through Rosamond?

Sharon, that works well for me. I'll see you there.

A hazard of being an early bird is you miss the important messages. Sharon, sorry I missed you.

After dropping off Julia at school I headed North but didn't make it as far as Mojave before a scene caught my eye. There were several windmills over by the Tehachapi mountains that were right at the edge of the fog. Of four that were in a row the one in back was mostly in the fog and the front one was out of it. This made for an unusual scene but, unfortunately, there were some power lines in the shot that may be hard to remove and I didn't want to drive two miles up a dirt road to get past them.

Continuing along, as I approached Randsburg about 8:30 I noticed smoke coming from several chimneys that were backlit by the morning sun. By the time I got set up there was little smoke and the effect was gone. I wandered around for a couple of hours taking copious photos. The only ones that were different from what everyone else takes were of the inside of the church. As it happened there was a lady cleaning the church and she let me in to take photos. Some of these may come out interesting.

From there it was on to Johannesburg the back way. It's actually closer than I remembered. That road comes in above the town so I got a series that may make up a good panorama. Coming into town there was little that was distinctive though some of the houses were old and quaint. This town does not seem to be interested in tourists so there weren't all the shops and such. To me it looked like something between Randsburg and Rosamond of 40 years ago.

A couple more miles and I was in Red Mountain. About half the town looked like a garbage dump with houses scattered throughout but the rest of it was clean and kept up. Again, there were some interesting old houses that, in the right light, would make great photos. Even without a camera this would have been an interesting and enjoyable trip.

I left the Randsburg area about noon (apparently just missing Sharon) and headed to the Cantil area which is North of Cal City. There I found many abandoned houses and buildings that Mother Nature was reclaiming. In one area someone had stripped the desert clean of vegetation and the blowing sand was trying to bury a community of about 50 houses. This made for some interesting photos. Wherever the sand was not being cleared regularly houses and vehicles were going under. At one abandoned house only the top of the picket fence was above the sand. Another house had sand in the front and back all the way up to the roof. You could see motorcycle tracks going up onto the roof in the back.

Other than having missed Sharon it was a great day and I'm looking forward to sorting through about 300 photos for the handful I want to keep, and maybe even print up a few. Paraphrasing Forest Gump, taking photos is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're going to get.

Here's a photo I took in Cantil. It's an old couch on the porch of an abandoned house that the sand and time are wearing away at. The photo was in color but I tried to put some age into it with B/W and just a touch of Sepia. I also blurred it just slightly.

You should have seen the rest of the community. I'd guess that there are dozens of dramatic scenes like this one. I didn't stick around long and there were many side roads and abandoned buildings I didn't check out. If you're into photographing people you could probably get some great "dustbowl" type of human interest photos, especially on days the wind is blowing strong. Google Images has quite a few examples under "dustbowl."

If you're interested you can find the area on Google Maps. It's adjacent to Neuralia and Munsey roads, close to the map designation for Cantil. Also in the area are many abandoned settlements, houses, and buildings in various stages of deterioration. The general area North of Cal City to Redrock-Randsburg Road probably deserves at least a full day to explore.

This sounds like a great idea, I just need a few days to recover from the last few trips and sort through what's on my flash card already.

This place is only about 40 minutes from Rosamond so it doesn't need to be an all-day trip, though it could be.

Sharna,

Please see the new thread "Local Trip, Cantil, Jan 09."