RenoVous

  I picked this up from a used bookstore sale because the cover was interesting.   And I like a good haunting. I don't always like journal entries as a narrative, but I can feel it building up to something. *** Today is the birthday of Douglas Adams, author of the superb,  A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I read the complete series back in 2020, and I definitely recommend. In addition to those novels (which includes a short story), he also wrote Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency  and The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul .  He co-wrote a short story with Monty Python's Graham Chapman, which was based on a skit. "The Private Life of Genghis Khan" So what are you reading?

 Harriet Tubman Day honors the day of her death, 1913. She was born into slavery as Araminta Ross in 1822, but married a free man, John Tubman, in 1844.  Any children they would have would be enslaved though, and by 1849 she was in the process of being sold, so she decided to escape. She returned from Philadelphia to Maryland to help free her family.  One group at a time, she got them out of the state, guiding others as well.  They called her Moses. After the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, she had to travel farther north into Canada. In 1858, she met John Brown and helped him plan and recruit supporters for the raid on Harper's Ferry in 1859. During the Civil War, she was a cook and a nurse before becoming an armed scout and spy.  She guided the raid at Combahee Ferry, which liberated 700 enslaved people.  She is thus credited as the first woman to lead an armed military operation in the United States. After the war, she helped establish an elderly home for Af...

  Olympian Eileen Gu at the Grand Diner de Louvre Event. Olandria Carthen Diane Kruger Elsewhere in Paris, it's Fashion Week. Chappell Roan Naomi Watts Laura Harrier Maude Apatow And elsewhere elsewhere.... Lisa Ann Walter Sheryl Lee Ralph Scott Evans

 Dr. Steve Boyes has spent the last 10 plus years searching for a species of elephant he believed still exists in the Angolan highlands. Before Civil War in 1975, there were around 70,000 elephants in this area - they were killed for ivory, and they were killed by land mines.  Many fled. There was noted evidence of a small population, such as footprints and dung.   "You can sense them, but you can't hear them.  They're ghosts." Boyes worked with local KhoiSan Master Trackers, and called that experience, "the birthplace of science." "There is no scientific mind that I know that can, in the moment, consume so much data and bring out a conclusion in almost real time." Master Trackers are indigenous experts with over 100,000 years of ancestral knowledge, capable of interpreting and trailing wildlife in the Kalahari and surrounding areas.  While these skills were once used for hunting, they are now focused on conservation efforts as well as ecotourism.

  Out in the desert of Goldfield, junk cars are the canvas of The Last Church. "More akin to a druidic henge than any Christian chapel."

 Goldfield, NV was the largest city in the state from 1906 to 1910. Founded in 1902, it was once considered "The Greatest Gold Camp Ever Known." One of the first buildings in town was the Santa Fe Saloon, built in 1905. The courthouse and Goldfield Hotel were built in 1907. I remember reading a book about it being haunted. Goldfield has remained the seat of Esmeralda County even when the town was dead.  But we were surprised to see some liveliness this past weekend.  We stopped in a boutique and the owner was very excited about the new gas station set to open soon. Tomorrow's photos will show why we drove down there.  ^_^