8-22-2025 Hawthorne, NV

Since we’ve stopped here many times before, I thought I could get away with no more t-logs.  However, we keep discovering and learning new things about which to tell stories.

 

In the beginning, the main ammunition manufacturing facility in the US was in New Jersey, the Lake Denmark Ammunition Depot.  In 1926, it exploded and it was necessary to find a new site.  By 1928, that site was established and ground-breaking took place in Hawthorne, NV.  By 1930, ammunitions were being shipped and stored and the area was protected by the Marines.  Over time the facility was expanded and it is considered the largest ammo depot in the world with 2,000 buildings, 2 million square feet of ammo storage, 200 miles of railroad tracks and a boundary of 250 square miles.  At its peak during WWII, employment was nearly 6,000 military and civilian personnel.  They built bombs, torpedoes, guided missile warheads, depth charges, mines and cartridges.

 

Now we get to the next part of the story.  Like Hanford (north of Richland), there was a, “reservation,” for civilians outside the military base.  The town was called Babbitt.  It was occupied by thousands of patriots from all over the USA during and after WWII who were employed at the ammunition factories on the base.  It was a regular city with thousands of duplexes, movie theaters, saloons, a bowling alley, medical facilities and so on.  The young women who lived in Babbitt were invited and transported by Jeeps to the base for big dances and parties with the sailors.  Yes, it was a naval base at the time.  Nearby Walker Lake was used to train pilots to drop bombs and torpedoes.  A portion of Walker Lake is still cordoned off and protected from people who might want to dive and explore because some of the explosives that were dropped did not detonate so there are potentially live explosives in the water.

Babbitt babes at a USO party.
Note the TIME Magazine in the
back with FDR's picture on the cover.

 

Babbitt was active until the late 1980s.  At that time, it was abandoned, decommissioned, razed and plowed under, like Hanford.  Not a molecule of Babbitt exists today.  And here’s where we come in.  Our favorite RV park, Whiskey Flats, sits on what used to be Babbitt acreage.  In fact, the park sits right on top of the Strategic Air Command radar station!  Here we thought Hawthorne was just a waypoint with a cool RV park, a good pizza parlor and an ordnance museum and not much else.  Instead, we learned all this new stuff! 

Best pizza on earth for Rob

Lovelock Pizza's work of art
for Lindy

 

Whiskey Flats RV Park and
surrounds

Entrance to Whiskey Flats

The base is still active but it is now Army.  The function of its factories is to, “demil,” explosives, meaning to render them inert.  It is still, however, the world’s largest and heavily-guarded ammo dump facility.

 

Two years ago, Rob and I spent time documenting, printing and framing Dad DeLaMare’s pictures and list of assignments during his military career.  We had all of his military duds dry cleaned;  his fatigues, dress blues, whites and tan linens.  Then we drove everything to Hawthorne and donated it to the Hawthorne Ordnance Museum.  We also donated a sum of money (with Boeing company-match) to the museum to build a display cabinet for Dad’s memorabilia.  We stopped in at the museum now, 2 years later, to see what progress they had made along those lines.  Sadly, Dad’s duds are still hanging in plastic bags.  However we found his framed pictures and dress hats on display and are somewhat happy about that.  We did give them a little grief and a nudge to get off of top-dead-center and build a proper display cabinet.  We’ll spin the plates on this and check on it the next time we blow through Hawthorne.  Dad retired as a Lt. Colonel USA, 4^th Armored Division.   He served in WWII, Korea and Viet Nam and we are profoundly proud and grateful for his service.

Dad's framed pictures and info and dress hats.

Dad's unis.  Bottom row, 
the three bags on the right.

 

This is a picture in the museum
of a replica of Bin Laden's compound. 
It is on the Army base and the
Special Forces guys use it
to practice invasions.  We are not allowed
on the base but they said you can
see it from the road.  We didn't.

Camel saddle used in
Afghanistan.

This tank was purchased
from Canada by the museum
for $135,000.

Photo of a B52 dropping
cluster bombs, Viet Nam
War era.

Cluster bomb.
Each one of those
blue balls is a grenade.

Gestapo helmet, WWII era

These two shadow boxes were
found at Goodwill.  The soldier
had won 2 Congressional
Medals of Honor.

Napalm bomb, Viet Nam War era

Today, Aug. 23rd, we are on the final leg of the summer trip, heading for the homestead at 1640.  We say, “thank you,” to all of you for traveling along and sharing our stories.  Till next time, love to all.

8-19-2025 Likely, CA

Here we are, camped at Likely Place Golf and RV Resort.  The town itself is small, consisting of a post office, a general store and this resort.  It’s a really nice resort, actually, if you golf, which we don’t.  There are many activities including golf, bocce ball and golf.  And there’s a big, serene, quiet lake for paddleboarding and 13 pickleball courts.  OK, I lied about the lake and the pickleball courts. 

 

The town of Likely was a bustling little community back in 1878 and was originally named South Fork, as it lies near the south fork of the Pit River.  There were two grocery stores, a hotel, restaurant, saloon, leather shop, a peat moss plant and a post office.  Ranching and the lumber industry were the heavy hitters.  Back then, the USPO wanted all towns to have short, unique names.  (That wouldn’t explain Escanaba and Winnemucca.)  The townfolk could not agree on a name but lore has it that somebody looked around and said, “Is it likely that this town will ever have a name?”  Another replied, “Well….  Let’s call it Likely.”   When the railroad was established in Alturas, 20 miles north, it brought on the demise of Likely except for a few hardy souls.  Today, those hardy souls add up to 63 belly buttons.

 

I wanted to drop a card in the mail and I asked Kathy if the RV office had a mail drop.  She replied sadly, “No, but there’s a post office in town.”  I asked if she had a map of the town so we could find the PO.  She said, “A map?!”  She tilted her head a little and smiled.  Here's why:

Beautiful downtown Likely Post Office

Metropolitan Likely, CA

The jail and the saloon in Likely.
Not operative, of course.

 

As I mentioned, Alturas, CA is 20 miles north and became the focal point for the Nevada-California-Oregon Railroad.  It serviced the lumber, farm and ranch industry, primarily, also a few passengers.  Alturas is a Spanish word that means, “summit,” or, “height.”  I assume that this means that the town was built at the top of the highest point in the local foothills but I could be wrong.  It was initially established in 1879 as a trading post and supply center;  the railroad augmented that and it still serves the community of 2,715 souls.

A large Basque restaurant sits on the north side of town.  Being big fans of the whole Basque culinary experience, we decided to retrace our steps 20 miles and travel to Alturas for a meal at the Brass Rail Basque Restaurant.  It was 3 o’clock.  The establishment does not open until 5:30.  Ugh.  This little cloud had a silver lining, however.  An Italian chef created a fine dinner for us at nearby Antonio’s Ristorante, a little hidden gem.  Sometimes, what seems like a frog is actually a handsome prince!  (Not that I have anything against frogs.  After all, it’s not that easy being green.)

Antonio's in Alturas

Lasagna Boy!

 

The Elks Lodge in Alturas used to be
the NV-CA-OR Railroad Depot.

Inside the beautiful Elks Lodge

Tomorrow is our second longest drive of the summer trip, 278 miles.  It’s OK, we got this.  Our homing beacons are going off and the doctors need our business.

VIVA CALIFORNIA!
(We didn't gas up here!)

8-16-2025 Burns, OR Part II

Yes, we passed through here on the outbound leg of this trip.  But when the distance between two camps is too far, a midpoint is necessary and this was it.  I suspect that many others in this park think the same way.  They come in for the night and the next morning, they are outta here.  It’s a midway overnight stop.  We’ll be here 3 nights, though.  Just a decompression stop.  Nothing to do here, really, so we’ll fix a few small Noobee issues, pick up a few groceries, have a beer at Central Pastime (now, one of our fave diners, drive-ins and dives) and do the laundry.  Slow it down a little.

This little rascal lives next door
to our Burns camp.

 

It was an awful, squiggly drive from Pasco to Burns.  We took the direct route south.  Why?  Because we’ve never been on this road before and we avoid freeways for the back roads whenever possible.  OMG.  We like to switch off driving but when I got behind the wheel, my heart was in my throat.  Yes, the scenery is beautiful, rolling foothills, cattle, horses, hawks, geese, rivers and beautiful, tall trees.  But when you are driving, you don’t dare take your eyes off the road for a nanosecond or you are launched off a cliff.  They will find the remains in about 10 years.  I drove for 10 miles and then turned the wheel back over to My Beloved.  He is very confident and stable.  No problem for him.  Bottom line:  It took us 6 hours to drive 268 miles and Rob was exhausted from driving and I was exhausted from planning my memorial service.  Never again.  (The highway from Durango to Montrose is also a, “Never again highway,” for us.  But you don’t know what you don’t know, right?  “Wisdom is wasted on old people.”)

Some of the scenery was not so
beautiful.  OR seems to be the
mother lode of forest fires.

 

I forgot to tell you a few facts I learned at the Manhattan Project Visitor’s Center in Pasco.  One display was a SADM (Special Atomic Demolition Munition) that was used by our military parachutists during several wars.  It is also known as a, “Backpack nuke,” or a, “Suitcase nuke,” with a capability of 1 kiloton of TNT.  With fuses and all detonation devices included, the pack can weigh up to 150 pounds.  They were primarily used when infiltrating behind enemy lines for blowing up smaller stuff than cities, like bridges, dams and power plants.  The SADM is no longer a part of the armed forces’ arsenal.  Question:  How big is the chute that is necessary for a fully-equipped soldier carrying a 150-pound backpack nuke?!

This is how it's done, folks.  Easy-peasy.

SADM

Next is this:  As you know, Albert Einstein was a central figure at the Los Alamos site and his equation, E=mc2 published in 1905, changed the face of Physics to this day.  E is kinetic energy.  M is mass.  C2 is the speed of light.  “Einstein concluded that because the speed of light is constant, mass and energy are equal.”  Question:  How can mass and energy be equal?  I have a deplorable amount of mass and no energy. 

Good ol' Al.

 

Next stop:  Likely, CA.  I know, I know, CALIFORNIA?!  For shame!  It was on the straightest line home and a reasonable distance.  I didn’t have any choice.  Time to head for home and doctor appointments.

8-13-2025 Pasco, WA

In the, “You Learn Something New Every Day,” department:

 

I sorta knew what a, “coulee,” is.  It’s a dry river bed or ravine.    But I never knew what a, “reach,” is.  A reach is a straight stretch of river with a bend on each end.  We are in the Tri-Cities area.  The cities are Richland, Pasco and Kennewick and everywhere here, they use the word, “reach.”  Now, back to, “coulee.”  The Ice Age had carved a new path for the Columbia River and left the original river bed dry and barren.  The Grand Coulee Dam backed up the water in the Columbia and it was pumped into the coulee to create Banks Lake, which irrigated and turned eastern Washington into vast fertile farm and ranch land.  But the Grand Coulee Dam was destined to provide another service during WWII. 

 

On our first day in Pasco, we paid a visit to the Reach Museum, one wing of which is devoted entirely to the Hanford branch of the Manhattan Project.  Col. Franklin Matthias was a member of the project’s brain trust.  When a site was needed for a particular process in producing atomic energy, the requirements were several:  1)  sizeable land to build the facility, 2)  10 miles from the nearest highway, 3) 20 miles from the nearest town of 1,000 people or more, 4)  a water supply with a flow of 25,000 gallons per minute to cool the reactors and 5)  an electrical supply of 100,000 kilowatts minimum.  Matthias found the perfect place north of Richland, WA.  Enter the Grand Coulee Dam (see items 4 and 5, above).  The 670 sq. mi. Hanford Engineering Works or, “Site W,” was constructed in 1943 with astonishing speed by thousands of patriots dedicated to the war effort.  It was essentially a reservation, complete with housing, 8 mess halls each the size of a football field, churches, taverns, schools, a swimming hole, movie theaters, dance halls, stores (Sears Roebuck for one), bath houses, gardens, banks, a post office, doctor and dentist offices and a hospital.  Due to the critical and secret nature of the project, the mission of Larson Air Force Base (mentioned in my Moses Lake t-log) was to protect the Hanford Engineering Works.

Sign from the Hanford Site

Hanford Construction Plant

 

At its height, the Hanford Site employed more than 40,000 people;  secretaries, chefs, engineers, doctors, nurses, skilled and unskilled laborers, scientists.  Each person had an assignment and was sworn to secrecy.  If any person so much as whispered his thoughts about what was going on (No one really knew the whole picture at the time.), he was not just fired but exiled and sent away.  They only knew that they had jobs and were grateful after the Great Depression.  What was actually going on?  Nuclear reactors at the site were splitting tons of uranium 238 to create plutonium, the energy source for Fat Man, the bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945.  When the Hanford Site employees learned that Japan had surrendered and that their labor to create Fat Man’s plutonium had essentially ended WWII, they were stunned, proud and jubilant.  The war was over, thanks in large part to them!

This is a framed copy of 
the Richland Villager
newspaper printed on the
day Japan announced its
surrender, exactly 80
years ago today.

This is a framed copy
of the Richland Villager
newspaper dated
8-6-1945, the day
Little Boy was dropped
on Hiroshima.  
Employees finally learn
the whole story.

Statistics of the
food required to feed
Hanford employees.
30,000 donuts per
day?!  Holy buckets!

 

In case you are wondering, Fat Man was a plutonium bomb and Little Boy was a uranium bomb.  The scientists at Los Alamos decided to build one of each to guarantee that at least one of them would work.  (Little Boy was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945.)  Japan announced its surrender to the Allies on August 14, 1945.

 

Hanford was not done though.  The Cold War followed WWII and the Hanford Engineering Works was back in business.  It wasn’t until 1989 when the Cold War ended and ICBMs were invented that the Hanford facility was decommissioned.  Hanford no longer exists.  It was not just decommissioned and abandoned, it was razed and totally plowed over.  Nothing to see here, folks, absolutely nothing.  Tens of thousands of people, now unemployed, went back home to places all over the USA.  So, that’s all I know about that.

 

I am proud to announce that we found yet another place to paddleboard.  A quiet lagoon on the Columbia River!  That makes three new lakes for us on this trip, so far!  It has been unseasonably hot here, 102-104F, so an hour or so in the breeze on the water was a relief.

 

Yesterday, we drove a 150-mile loop out into the country.  We paid a visit to the Wanapum Dam on the Columbia, had a nice lunch at the Gard Public House and then stopped to pick up 40 pounds of very-high-protein flour from the Cascade Milling Company in Royal City.  To let you in on my secret, this flour makes the best Italian-style bread on Planet Earth.  Mission accomplished, Krauser.  (Yes, you can get this flour online, but the shipping cost for 40 pounds of flour made my eyes water.)  Next stop:  Burns, OR on the antepenultimate (Great word!) leg of our trip back to the homestead at 1640.

Walleye dinner to celebrate 36
years of marital bliss (mostly).

At camp.

Relaxing on the mighty Columbia River

OK... being silly at camp.  Fun times.

Well what to our wondering eyes
should appear?!  The ship we sailed
on a few years ago from Astoria to
Lewiston... parked
in Pasco for the evening!  

8-9-2025 Moses Lake, WA

For those of you who think Moses Lake was named after that old guy in the white robe and with the long white beard who brought the rules down from the mountain top, this is not the case.  Chief Moses was the tribal leader of the Sinkiuse Indians and apparently was a really nice guy.  They were a tribe of friendly hunters and gatherers that lived along the shores of the colossal lake in the 1800s.  As usual, white guys came along and there erupted quarrels over water and land rights in this fertile valley and we all know the final score on that one.

Chief Moses

 

The town itself was originally called Neppel and the 300 energetic residents labored in orchards, potato and onion fields and played a large part in the construction of Highway 10, ending decades of isolation.  In 1938, they agreed to rename the town Moses Lake to match the lake.  The roughly 12-square-mile lake is only 18-38 feet deep and is actually a reservoir created in part by the O’Sullivan Dam, constructed in the early 1900s.  Due to the fact that it is fairly shallow (compared to nearby Lake Chelan, which is roughly 1,500 feet deep), the temperature of the water is warm enough for a variety of water sports.  That includes paddleboarding for the geriatric set.

 

We spent one whole day driving around in search of the possible remains of Larson Air Force Base.  Originally established as Moses Lake Army Air Base, it has massively long runways and was the training center for the B-52 Stratofortress and during WWII, the P-38.  It was also used as a training center for the C-17 for some time.  The base was renamed Larson AFB in honor of Donald Larson, an Air Force pilot and WWII flying ace originally from Yakima.  He flew 57 missions and was shot down and killed in Germany in 1944.  Larson AFB was closed in 1964 due to defense budget cuts and strategic planning during the cold war.  We thought for sure we would find remnants of the AFB somewhere, possibly a museum or a few of the older mothballed planes or barracks but after hours of searching, we found one 787, which neither of us had seen in real life, probably the prototype.  Otherwise, we gave up and set our sights elsewhere.

Holy buckets!  A 787 Dreamliner!  Cool!

 

We began the search for an easy-access beach where we could inflate and launch our paddleboards.  Along the way, we came across Camas Cove Cellars, creator and purveyor of a number of fine wines.  We stopped in to nose around and, as luck would have it, were told by the proprietor, Kat, that we could launch our paddleboards right there at the dock of the small winery!  Well now, how convenient is that?!  Mixing pleasure with pleasure!  The hook was set for the next day’s activity.

 

We didn’t leave empty-handed, of course.  Kat gave us a taste of one of their signature wines, Thelma and Louise blend of chardonnay and roussanne.  The name is no coincidence.  Kat’s two grandmothers’ names are Thelma and Louise, what are the odds of that?!  Obtaining a bottle of this fine wine was obligatory and it paired perfectly with our seafood dinner.

Tiny and hidden, the home of
Thelma and Louise chardonnay-
roussanne blend white wine.

 

The next day, we killed an hour or so paddleboarding in the little lagoon that edges up to The Parr’s small boutique winery.  It was nice to be protected from motorized water vehicles with their noise and scary wakes.  It was quiet, peaceful, sunny, the water was warm and fairly shallow.  Really a delight.  And the treats just kept on coming.  We sat down on the pretty patio to relax with a glass of Thelma and Louise and soon, the Parr family began to gather around us.  The patriarch and founder, Dennis, sat down at our table and soon, Kat and John joined in.  It didn’t take long for more friends to settle at our table.  We felt like we were at the, “stammtisch table,” and I guess you’d have to say that we were.  Several hours of pleasant conversation was to follow and it was a wonderful way to wrap up our visit to Moses Lake.

Hi Rob!

Paddling on Moses Lake

Ready to dock.

Hi Krauser!

Mamma Duck and her pups
paddling along with us.

A glass of wine at the outdoor patio at
Camas Cove Cellars.

The Parr family's Camas
Cove Cellars pretty, serene
outdoor patio.

8-6-2025 Leavenworth, WA

The earliest inhabitants of the Leavenworth area, not surprisingly, were native Indian Tribes, hunters, gatherers and fishermen living chiefly on the salmon from the Wenatchee River.  When white guys came along, the Indians were pushed onto reservations and lumbering became the major source of economic growth.  The population of the town (originally named Icicle Flats) in those days was roughly 2,500, two percent were women.  In 1892, James J. Hill, a railroad tycoon and owner of the Great Northern Railroad, gave the order to, “conquer the Cascade Mountains,” to pursue his dream of a cross-country railroad.  Thus, the town boomed.  Later, in the 1920s, both the lumber and railroad industries left town when all the trees that could be reached had been mowed down. 

 

Icicle Flats plunged into ghost town status except for about 200 hardy souls who persevered.  In about the 1960s, along came Ted Price and Bob Rodgers.  Both were born in 1923 and they were more than just friends, if you know what I mean.  They decided to buy a failing restaurant in Icicle Flats and create their own restaurant, which was known as the Squirrel Tree.  The architecture is in the Bavarian style to which Bob had taken a particular fancy while serving in the Army overseas.  With the demise of the lumber industry and the departure of the railroad, the impoverished townsfolk decided to carry the theme throughout the town in an effort to resuscitate the economy with tourism.  It worked.  Charles Leavenworth created the plat maps for the town and its name was changed from Icicle Flats to Leavenworth in his honor.

The Squirrel Tree restaurant building

 

All of the buildings in the town were given a facelift and plans for any remodeled or new business had to pass the standards and gain approval from the town councilmen to abide the Bavarian theme.  This still stands.  Even McDonald’s and gas stations must have their plans approved, their signs must be in Germanic script and murals are required on the buildings.  Not that there were many German families residing in Leavenworth.  It was just a style that they loved and it drew crowds.  The murals often tell a story of the folks who occupy or own the building.  Also, Leavenworth is now rated the # 1 Christmas village in the US and # 2 in the world behind Rothenburg ob der Tauber, Germany.  During the holiday season, a half million lights decorate every square inch of the town from November to February.

Very unique mural.
The man is on a ladder that appears
to be leaning on the actual window.
The little boy is standing on a real
roof grasping Christmas lights from
his sister.  

A photo of Leavenworth at
Christmastime.

The buildings and restaurant
gardens on Front Street.

 

Behind Rob is the Rhein Haus
built in about 2000.

The Squirrel Tree Restaurant went through a couple of iterations including a brothel, beauty supply shop and eventually was abandoned and fell into disrepair.  However, in the 1960s while Leavenworth was still undergoing its Bavarian facelift, a 20 year old young man carved and painted the dancing statues in the glockenspiel that still operates every hour on the hour in the old Squirrel Tree restaurant.  The building is now being restored and will become the town’s Visitor’s Center.

 

The glockenspiel opens on the hour and 
the dancers spin to wonderful
oompah music.

 

Every morning at 9:15 AM (Yes, I 
made it!), a man plays the
alpenhorn from the balcony
of the Enzian Inn.

Lovely.

Ice cream and a glass of wine.
Ein prosit!

Obviously, every town needs
an accordion-playing beer.  This
one stands at the King
Ludwig restaurant.

Rob gets his wienerschnitzel fix.

 The No. 1 Christmas village
would not be complete without
live reindeer to pet and feed!
Dasher, Prancer, Vixen, Comet and
Blitzen are pictured here!

Business booms in little Leavenworth.  There are American, Mexican and Asian restaurants, for sure, but if you seek authentic German cuisine, you’ve come to the right place.  There are 90 restaurants, myriad taverns, breweries, wineries and literally thousands of hotel rooms for a tiny town with a population of about 3,000.  The number of tourists per year tops 3.6 million.  It is a Bavarian baptism by total immersion to spend time in charming Leavenworth, WA.  But before you make a decision to relocate here, be apprised that the average annual snowfall is 8 feet.  Icicle Flats indeed!  Pack a shovel!

 

(Yes, I found a Steinbach nutcracker, an endangered species.)