Randsburg - they call it a living ghost town. This century-old mining town still has year-round permanent residents and maybe a few ghosts too. It was ghosts for us anyway - ghosts from our past.
Randsburg is about 150 miles south of Bishop out in the middle of the Mojave Desert. We took a little motorcycle ride there last weekend and had a great time reuniting with old friends from the Foothill Hawks Motorcycle Club.
For nearly half a century members of the dirt-bike racing club roamed the great Mojave Desert on their powerful motorcycles. Many of the old-time racers are "mature" now, in their 50s, 60s, even 70s, and their children and grandchildren have taken up motorcycle racing. Like Steve Hurd and his son Roger, it's in their blood.
The club started way back in 1950. More than 50 of the old-time members gathered together last weekend for a ride around the familiar old high desert mining town and a visit to a special monument out in the desert that remembers and honors many of the deceased dirt-bike racers. They have gone on to a bigger and better ride.
After the ride we all went over to the town's 100-year-old Opera House where we had a delicious "Thanksgiving dinner" prepared by Julie and Jim Cooke, who organized and hosted the great reunion party. We met old friends and new friends and several riders who were members of the Foothill Hawks in the old days and now live here in Nevada.
California has closed down lots of public lands to off-road-vehicles and now there are only very limited areas for them to ride in. Residents of Nevada better be careful when we go off-road-riding here and we should ride only on the established trails and not make any new ones. If we don't take care of the land, the government will take away our right to use it, just like they're doing in California.
Garden corner: I don't know why it's called Jerusalem artichoke because it's certainly not an artichoke. And the name Jerusalem has no connection with the Holy Land. But I can tell you that it is very easy to grow and it's growing real good right now in our vegetable garden. First off, it's a perennial so we don't have to plant it every year. It can be left in the ground over winter and then it comes up whenever it feels like it. When you first plant it, you start with tubers, the same way you would potatoes and the harvest begins about 100 days after planting.
The plant looks a lot like a sunflower and it grows to over 6-feet high and has lots of bright yellow flowers that turn toward the sun. The tubers are knobby-looking and can be eaten all the ways that you would cook potatoes and many people say it's delicious raw. (I wasn't one of them but its OK dunked in ranch dressing.) The Jerusalem artichokes spread easily and can become a pest, so we dig them up every year and just save a few for replanting. Happy gardening.
-- Linda Monohan can be reached at 782-5802.
