The town of Death Valley Junction was our next stop on the long ride through the Mojave Desert. Marta Becket revived this former ghost town after falling in love with the place when she stopped because of a flat tire in the 60's. She's opened the Armagosa Opera House where she has been performing weekends for the past 35 years and at 79 is still dancing on pointe. Marta has painted beautiful murals of a 16th century audience to fill the lonely building with people. The whole area is spooky and many think the town is haunted. A big black wild stallion was interested in our mares and woke us one night but no ghosts were seen.

Leaving the eerie Opera House and a large herd of wild horses, we rode out past the Nevada border and entered the town of Pahrump, NV. The next town we came to was Blue Diamond, NV. There, the manager of the general store tried running us out in fear our stock would scare off the wild horses who walk freely through the town to graze at the park. The uneducated woman failed in her attempts after calling the police, BLM Rangers and animal control on us. We spent a couple days visiting with the clannish locals at their three-sided building in the private park called The Tree Bar. This is where the residents would gather daily to socialize, drink beer and play music.

After saying goodbye to our new friends in Blue Diamond, we rode past the wild horses to try our luck in Las Vegas. We made it in time for the "World's Party" of 400,000 people celebrating New Years on the Vegas strip. Las Vegas is a tough city to ride in. There are tourists who have no idea how to drive in a big city along with those who have not slept in a couple days or have lost their life savings. There are also a lot of young hot-rodders, trying to pick up dates, who have no respect for horseback riders. The streets are slick, since the city has a lot of traffic and little rain causing oil to build up on
the roads. This does not mix well with the metal horseshoes! We rode down the Strip by Mandalay Bay Hotel, but that was as far as we dared due to the slick roads and heavy traffic.

We were desperately low on funds when we rode into Las Vegas and found jobs managing a new horse ranch. We gave many horseback rides to guests of the Ritz Carlton and Hyatt Regency Hotel Resorts. We had a beautiful two-story house all to ourselves with a dramatic view of Las Vegas and the valley. Our job was training horses, giving directions to Mexican laborers, running errands, and working on the owner's boats. I had to oversee new construction and help design new construction on the ranch. I was also performing electrical, plumbing and carpentry work on the ranch and at the owner's other houses along with boat and car mechanics. We took guests out on horseback through the desert to the
upscale Lake Las Vegas Resort where a waiter at the Ritz Carlton would greet us, offering up a silver platter with cold water and cloth napkins.

Caring for the horses was extremely hard in the desert where we were working up to 13 hours a day, 7 days a week most of the time. Temperatures soared to 120 degrees making it impossible to work horses past 9:00AM. Relief was found in grooming and washing the stock next to the air-conditioned tack room and water cooler. Our living expenses were accumulating and there were compensation and benefit problems with the owner, so this was our cue to ramble on. This life of luxury had a terrible price and one we could gladly do without. Though the desert was searing hot in the middle of summer, we had a good escape route to higher ground, cooler temperatures and less expense. We are now at peace and able to concentrate on the Expedition.