A New Dawn, Joshua Tree National Park, California

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Joshua Tree National Park, with it's piled, granite boulders and otherworldly yuccas, was a fitting place to end the Milkweed Journey.

That journey is done. The milkweed seed balls have been scattered to every corner of the Lower 48, and even a few in Canada.

Goodbye, Liz.

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Smog, Kings Canyon National Park, California

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Can't make out the grandeur of Kings Canyon? Neither could I. Smog from California's Central Valley goes right up the mountains, up 7,000 ft. or more, to poison the trees and blight the view.

Here's what you're supposed to see.

All through the Central Valley, and Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks, the air was hazy with ozone, dust, soot, organic pollutants, and cow shit. I'm talking hundreds of miles in every direction, even in the farm country.

Being in the filthy air made this the worst couple days of my trip. Walking through and breathing smog even up here in the Sierra Nevadas literally brought me to tears, like the Indian in that 70s pollution commercial.
I always thought California pushed harder clean air standards because they're more crunchy. No. They have a miasma that needs healing now.

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General Grant by Cars, Grant Grove, Sequoia National Park, California

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Technically, General Grant, the giant sequoia, is in Kings Canyon National Park. But I chose this picture to represent Sequoia National Park because the cars give you a good sense of scale.

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Pink Wildflower, Pinnacles National Park, California

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The California drought is terrible to behold. What grass remains is yellowed, and even the oaks in some places wither brown. But life holds on in crevices where water seeps: trees, herbs, mammals, birds ... And even, here and there, a bit of color.

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East From Olmsted Point, Yosemite National Park, California

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Looking east from Olmsted Point is the tiny blue splash of Tenaya Lake among glacier-carved domes of white granite. This view, more than any other, captured for me the primeval grandeur of Yosemite. Yes, even more than looking up the Yosemite Valley at Half Dome and El Capitan.

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Mud Pit, Sulphur Works, Lassen Volcanic National Park, California

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I couldn't resist leaving a milkweed seed ball near this boiling, sulfuric mud pit at Lassen Volcanic National Park. Being planted near the fire and brimstone honors that part of Liz which played Lotto, drank alcoholic milkshakes, was ready with a sarcastic comeback, and lusted after Patrick Stewart.

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Sign and Septic Truck, Lady Bird Johnson Grove, Redwood National Park, Orick, California

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As a Texan, I was surprised and delighted to see our First Lady honored. She was instrumental in creating Redwood National Park and many other conservation projects.

In Texas, she led saving our state flower, the bluebonnet, from extinction and helped jumpstart planting highway medians with wildflowers. Texas highways in spring are an incredible sight, thanks to her. Since her passing, Austin renamed Town Lake to Lady Bird Lake.

In back is a septic truck, which was doing the needful and disgusting job of pumping out the vault toilets. I can't say the aroma added to the beauty of Lady Bird Johnson Grove.

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Mesquite Groves, Furnace Creek, Death Valley National Park, California

On the so-called “Death Valley” floor is the treasure that kept Timbisha Shoshone here for over a millennium – an oasis with honey mesquite groves.

Didn’t know that Native Americans lived in Death Valley and are still living here? Neither did I until I arrived a few days ago. They’ve managed to thrive in the harsh conditions and outlast mining companies and efforts by the U.S. government to kick them out for centuries. And it’s all because of their close relationship with the land.

"The Timbisha people have lived in our homeland forever and we will live here forever. We were taught that we don't end. We are part of our homeland and it is part of us. We are people of the land. We don't break away from what is part of us," wrote tribal elder and former Tribal Council Chairperson Pauline Esteves.

The practical root of that endurance has always been the Timbisha relationship to the mesquite groves.
Old-school anthropologists would probably have described the Timbisha as hunter-gatherers. But that is a weak understanding. They managed – and still manage – the honey mesquites as an orchard. To maintain their orchards, they pull out competing plants, coppice trees for lush foliage and renewable wood, prune dead branches, etc. As Charles C. Mann emphasized again and again in his wonderful book, "1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus," Native Americans were far, far more technically sophisticated and “civilized” than Eurocentric mythology (née history) every allowed.

In olden times, the valley’s honey mesquite was the foundation of their diet and a valuable trade item. Today, it’s still a part of their diet and a source of pride. 

Unfortunately, competition for water from Death Valley National Park’s tourism facilities and introduced palm and tamarisk trees has threatened the groves. But a few years ago, the Timbisha started the Mesquite Traditional Use Pilot Project in cooperation with the National Park Service to compare mesquite health in traditional managed orchard plots vs. a control of unmanaged plots.

I’d like to find out how the project is going. If successful, Timbisha knowledge could be a windfall for permaculturists, gardeners, preppers, and others interested in using mesquite as a food source again. I mean, the Southwest is covered in mesquite, yet poor folks go hungry! In Texas, they call it “range weed”! I’m going to contact the tribe and see what I can learn.

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Coyote in 2016 Super Bloom, Death Valley National Park, California

I was thrilled see this coyote watching me from the Death Valley National Park super bloom. But local Timbisha Shoshone say he’s a warning, an omen ...

This particular golden-haired fellow was among the super bloom of desert gold and other flowers along Badwater Road. I stopped and he (or she) didn’t run off. El Coyote watched me watching him, in no hurry to leave. Perhaps he’s grown accustomed to humans?

That would explain why I saw another coyote (or El Coyote?) the next day walking into the Timbisha Shoshone village in Furnace Creek (Death Valley Indian Community). In broad daylight. By the main road. Unhurried. Looking at me.

I was driving to the tribal meeting hall, where Shoshone ladies sell Indian Tacos, shaved ice, and other treats to hungry tourists. Seeing El Coyote rattled me, but I put him out of my mind …

Until I overheard something unnerving. Standing in line to order an Indian Taco, I was behind two Shoshone ladies from another, related band visiting the park. They were talking to the Timbisha woman behind the counter. The older visitor mentioned seeing the coyote walking into the village and said it was bad luck. The Timbisha woman agreed, saying it was a warning.

Coming down to earth, the Timbisha woman added that the coyotes are a local road hazard. She also said that they’d been coming into the village mesquite groves to get water. (There are springs in Furnace Creek that water the mesquites.)

Before she took their orders, though, she re-emphasized: El Coyote was a warning. But about what? And for whom…?


Now, Learn a Bit of Shoshone!

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Ivanpah Concentrated Solar Power Plant, Nipton, California

No, this isn’t Mars and it isn't science fiction. It’s the Ivanpah Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) facility – the largest CSP plant in the world to date. It’s in the Mojave desert in Nipton, Calif., close to where I-15 crosses the California-Nevada border.

Source: "Ivanpah Project Facts," BrightSource Energy

Basically what you’re looking at are three fields of “heliostats” (curved mirrors), reflecting and concentrating the sun’s rays onto their respective solar receiving towers. The tops of these towers get so hot that they glow white! All that heat is transformed into superheated steam, which runs electrical-generating turbines, just like a traditional power plant.

To give you sense of it’s size, I took the somewhat blurry photo above from more than 15 miles (24 km) away. The facility covers about 3,500 acres (14.2 km²), and the towers are about 459 ft. (140 m) tall.

BrightSource Energy's 392 MW Ivanpah plant by came online in 2014 to much hooplah, but it’s had it’s problems and detractors. First, it was incredibly expensive: $2.2 billion. Of that, $1.6 billion came from a loan guaranteed by the U.S. government. After all that money, it only produced 40% of the predicted electricity in its first year of operation. Some people consider it a boondoggle. But by the first quarter of 2015, they’d increased output by 170%.

To run Ivanpah, though, it takes a lot of natural gas. … Gas? But I thought it’s solar, you say? Apparently, they have to preheat the water every morning. During that time, their CO² output is twice what California energy standards normally allow for the amount of fuel they’re burning. The state gave the plant a special dispensation. On balance, however, that natural gas only would have produced 124,000 MWh of electricity in a conventional plant, compared to 524,000 MWh at Ivanpah, a more than fourfold increase in efficiency.

The other ongoing concern is the perhaps hundreds of thousands of birds killed yearly by the concentrated solar rays. They’re just fried up in the sky. The power company is working on ways to keep the birds away. Hopefully they’ll succeed in reducing those deaths. I consider, though, as sad as it is, that many, many more birds will die if we don’t get ahead of global warming. It’s a calculated sacrifice. I feel the same way about windmills. Mind you, I think we ought fund a bunch of ornithologists to find a solution!

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