Life in the Hottest Driest Settlement in North America - Trippin' Around Tecopa Part 2

Rockhopper here and welcome to one of the hottest driest settlements in North America [Music] in part one we talked to Roger and Tony saw the funky town of tacopa hot springs and met YouTuber Wonder hussy possibly the town's most well-known resident Chuck Wallace and machine guns I like it now we're out Beyond China Ranch which I'm going to show you later but right now here's an intriguing fine come on I've got something interesting to show you let's go all right we're going through this well it looks to be a cave at first right or a tunnel Maybe and it's gonna get pretty dark in here oh it's getting really dark dang it oh can't see where I'm going and if I found the Rock all right let's go and slow oh another rock okay and keep on going through here and [Music] keeps on it going and you think okay he's just gonna show us a tunnel no I'm going to show you more than that look up there's a hole in the Earth where it collapsed and you can keep going on through and there's more but wait there's more so we'll keep on going through here walking through the tunnel in the desert which is not far from China Ranch which is not far from tacopa and you come out through here and then you find unnatural mud Arch a little berries on the desert Holly can provide a tasty little salty snack so let's head over to tacopa we're just driving up over the hill here and down the other side to What's called the triangle right there where the road splits here at the triangle people put things out in case anybody needs some particular item they can come and just take it although these shoes look like they've seen better days don't say this place doesn't have heart let me give you a quick tour of tecopa trust me it won't take long they've got the church a few residences post office and the final place you can eat around here granted service might be a little slow so when you place your order think about the Next Generation they'll be happy to see the food and this is the inside of the kid fox Cafe plenty of pictures up here of the local area and this is Frank pastor of the church I just showed you and he's originally from New York how did you Brooklyn New York I've been here for 44 years October 1978 came out here looking for an oasis in the desert and I felt like if he led here by God and I ended up finding China Ranch which I highly recommend and uh when I found it I found that that was the place I was looking for and in the meantime I also found Jesus Christ also with my blood and savior So within a few months I was coming to the church and I was pretty much then anchored into Jesus Christ and last Is 2020 maybe 20 years now I've been the pastor of the church seems a little out of place out here doesn't it and what desert town would be complete without barking dogs I'm standing beside the Amargosa River not much of a river you might think but considering this is one of the driest places on Earth it's amazing that this thing even exists at all and it is an important component of the local ecosystem and it is designated a wild and Scenic River it might seem a little dingy coming out here but I like it with these rows of apartments that concludes our tour of tacopa foreign [Music] now that we've seen the Tiny Town of tacopa let's head on up to the place they refer to as tecopa Heights where most of the area's permanent residents live we're heading out of tacopa and we're heading up to a place known as tacopa Heights along the way we passed tacopa Francis School which hasn't been in use for many years thank you foreign water in this region until recently there really wasn't much at all they just put in a water dispenser up at the heights put in your quarter and get some water back here's a look inside the school pretty much just an empty shell now having drinkable fresh water here has traditionally been a real problem I used to get water from here I don't anymore you're not supposed to take any water from here maybe they're you know there's too many minerals or maybe too much arsenic in the water when I would come down here I would get water from here and it never affected affected affected me at all so I don't know what the problem was it's definitely starting to get cold here at nights that's ice this poor little lizard died right here maybe he had some of the water only about a mile away from tacopa is the region known as Dakota Heights so I'll show you a little bit of that so here's a look at the Copa Heights [Music] you've got some nice houses that are well taken care of and others which maybe not so much [Music] it's a mishmash of different properties in different conditions [Music] [Music] [Music] I've been in that house it's actually not bad the people in the blue house are from Ohio and they use it as a winter residence I'm here with Susan and Michael and they are part-time residents here in tacopa and they're going to tell us a little bit about how they ended up here and some of their experiences so far well we first started coming to the desert when our daughter lived in Los Angeles and we wanted to do a little family get-together so we went out towards 29 palms and and did Joshua tree and then Desert Hot Springs at the other end of Joshua Tree National Park and then we had decided we wanted to do a Death Valley and some friends of ours from Ohio had come out to the national park and enjoyed it and so we went to ferns Creek stayed in a little cabin for a week and liked it but we knew there was more to see and do here than the National Park and so we looked around we found a nice little BNB here in tacopa the Villa Adida and came down and stayed with Carlo and then Aaron for a week and uh yeah we just kept coming back ever since each winter we stay a little longer go ahead we got into hiking we had been into hiking but we hooked up with uh with a couple of people that did a lot of hiking and so we ended up making quite a few friends hiking and uh as Michael said stayed longer each time and finally decided to buy our own place took a couple years because it's all word of mouth when something's going to be for sale down here and found this place and and we love living out we don't like to live in town we haven't lived in town since we were in Pittsburgh in what 1983 2 83.84 we were in Pittsburgh since then we've always lived out we live in a rural area in Ohio and we homesteaded in a very rural West Virginia back in the 70s and uh Now We're Here people who know us back then say you've returned to your young adulthood you're fixing up a funky old place again and you were telling me this place was incredibly funky tell us about that it was indeed very funky and the woman we bought it from was right up front about it she said really buying this half acre of property uh the house ain't much don't get your hopes up you might want to tear it down and start from scratch the floors had no support everything had rotted out and so as not to fall through they had put little pieces of plywood and bits of shelf with gaps and four or five layers of carpet and rugs so if you stepped in a spot between boards you've got a little trampoline effect but at least you didn't hit the ground and all of those carpets were and rugs were saturated with desert dust because you can't keep it out even from a tight house but this one had a missing window with a piece of Plexiglas tacked over it so it you know anything but tight anything but tight yeah and it was completely Jerry rigged wasn't it for the most part foam core board for the walls which we still have the entire ceiling was foam core board you know it's like quarter inch thick it's floppy it Flaps in the breeze which indeed it did when we bought the house and if the breeze was strong enough then we'd get the rain except it was not water it was sand it does so we just decided well first of all should we tear this off well gosh how can we tear it off we'll be covered um so came up with the bright idea leaving it and putting boards over it to hold it up in place so that foam core board's still up there and a ton of sand still up there but hey nobody knows it and you're telling about this guy Shippy that built the place he built the place people called him Shippy ship and I don't know what his first name really was no but uh Leanne The Unofficial mayor of tacopa heights um said she watched him build it and he was known to be very Thrifty and he didn't have much money anyway so he used whatever he could find whenever he could get cheapest studs are miscellaneous distances apart sometimes as much as 30 inches uh uh so yeah things were were definitely funky the bedroom Wing is all made out of um sawdust glue board inside and outside it's exterior siding but it's on the inside walls as well so at least those were a little more sturdy than this kitchen and living dining room wing but we were lucky enough to find a couple of uh really good handy guys had to rewire the place entirely as we mentioned the the stove electric stove was wired to a 110 outlet um things were shorting out so we completely had the place rewired and uh had to shore up and replace the joists under the floors um and add a bathroom it did not have a bathroom we turned to Copa not having a shower or hot water is not really all that bad because you go to the springs and they have great showers there and you know that's not that big of an issue our bathroom facility consisted of a toilet in a closet and the toilet would have had some unique features about it including a pink toilet seat which when we sent a picture of it to Susan's sister she was so enamored of it that she insisted she had to have it so we went and shipped her this pink toilet seat right not not the cover which was really heavy he still had the cover but the pink toilet seat she wanted to give to a friend who uses a picture frame laughs and and the kitchen cabinets were shades of pink purple and blue in varying combinations with white um that was definitely you know a 70s vibe to some extent we ever used a lot of those old cabinets and we also got some new ones but I'm glad that we were able to reuse them and color scheme them was his yes guidance and this guy Shippy yeah you're saying he would build one room at a time and only build them so big so he could avoid the taxation apparently we that's what we understand was that there was some law that if a room was less than and I'm not sure of the number you know 10 by 12 or you know eight by ten or whatever he built on one room at a time um so that it didn't count toward additional any kind of interesting right thanks right yeah right so that you know unsubstantiated but but uh what we've heard and he was building this place originally in the 1950s is that correct apparently yeah some sometime around then yeah and you know some things like that metal kitchen cabinet are definitely 50s so did you have any um Critters as residents well there was a pack rat that had been living under where our bathroom is now um and but since we've moved in we really haven't found a dead mouse in a water pail right but uh other than that we have a gopher snake and uh last year as the weather got warm this giant snake literally six foot long this big around crawling towards the corner of the house and I said I want this thing in my house so I I was working on the piano tool I had a rig and I tried to I didn't try to stab it I just tried to kind of flip its head and try to get it to go another Direction I had to steer it in another Direction no no way it just kept coming and it kept striking at this at the rake so I finally gave up and let it get to the house and it followed the periphery of the house all the way around right against the edge of the house until it found one place where part of the original Foundation a concrete block turned on its side with the openings through the concrete block under the house so the first thing we did after that was come in the house open up the cupboards under the sinks and fill every opening where pipes came in or went out with steel wool and stones and you know stuff so that it wouldn't get inside we are pleased that the steak is not in the house when we returned yes but we did see a very smooth track coming out of there and swishes in the sand so we believe that the gopher snake is still under the house and they told this is good luck that they will keep away the rodents the rats the mice and also keep way Rattlers there so we're quite fine with the snake living under our house well that's that's great you've got a little Guardian here yeah there you go exactly a guardian snake but one of the other things we love about jacoba is that there's a lot of artists and musicians around here there is an underlying artistic Flair to this place and if you roam around enough you'll discover that our first experience with uh Villa Anita was the overwhelming amount of art that they have over there and uh I'm uh a Potter mainly but I do some found object art and some painting um mostly I carve and paint on my pots these days but I've done some painting here in the house the ends of cabinets and things and uh plan to do a mural outside on the roofing tin fence that we have at the back of the property but a lot of art going on here um and quite a bit of music and that's another thing that I especially really enjoy about jacoba living here for the time that we're here what would be your favorite things about tacopa and what would be your least favorite things about living in tacopa my favorite thing is hiking up in the mountains and finding these long lost Springs old mines and ruins and the Native American relics Trails petroglyphs the hiking around here is just amazing the Wilderness I mean we're between Wilderness areas here we're surrounded by Wilderness areas and it's just it's beautiful and it's otherworldly in places it's like what this remember there's one night we were hiking up into the nopas to find a guzzword and we did find some some bighorn sheep skulls by these guzzlers and uh and anyway I was we were hiking up the hill here and this old guy turns next to me said what plant are we on I said no I know I'm not sure yeah but it's beautiful let's keep going so that that's what gets it for me is just the Wilderness and the rugged beauty of how about you Susan well same for me as uh an artist you know everywhere you look is something beautiful and we live in heaven in Ohio as well we live inside a national park and it's green and it's beautiful and we're in the flyways for Birds hibernate are not hibernating migrating um and it's absolutely beautiful and we don't we're not ready to give that up but this is also beautiful in a totally different way and it it's beautiful here I love the community here in tacopa as well we've we've experienced great acceptance and and people don't put on errors here that you are who you are and people accept you for who you are and and I love that I really love that and and for me another big thing and I know for Michael as well is the hot springs um we we are dedicated soakers sometimes twice a day you know a nice thing to do after a hike go for a soak first thing in the morning we like to go after the campers are gone and have the place mostly to ourselves we love love Hot Springs as well what else yeah yeah least favorite things uh the enemy here is the wind the dust storms and the dust storms yeah you know especially located where our house is The North Wind really gets us we it comes more than 50 miles right down the Amargosa River Valley and uh you just you're trying to go to sleep at night you just wish you could turn it off and you can't turn it off it just blows and blows and blows one day we had North Windstorm for like not one day two days it kept going uh 48 hours or so so that that would be a least favorite yeah that big wall of dust coming down yeah the haboob they call it yeah coming down from Eagle Mountain yeah but we did a couple times we went in the mud Springs that were whole different names for it the wild Springs and uh one time we went in a spot where it was too cool I think is the reason and we both got mud mites and those itch for two three days um that was not a favorite thing either so we really we stick to the community Springs now well anything else you can add about the region or any funky crazy things that have happened or anything like that well I mean there's a lot here for such a small community there's good food you know there's good beer you know the Death Valley Brewery has some darn good home brews and uh of course Eric down at stake and beer I mean this place is actually kind of famous our son Evan has a startup business and it's he's in the food business he makes and sells a dried fruit peacefulfruits.com yeah that little plug there yeah a little unplugged for we'll give you a sample for minus but Evans the guy that Evan brought in to help him with the marketing Bruce he was in the legal field previously and he had worked out here previously with some mine incident he was a legal guy and there was some problem at some mine and so he came out here to do some research about that and he had talking to him he had actually he said well you know we were out way out there blessed to Las Vegas and East and we stumbled on this little hole in the wall you know and just had the best steak I've ever had and the more you described the place it was clear it had to be steak and beer steak and beer so yeah we're here in the middle of nowhere so yeah yes we are and we love glom done it gets cold and clear at night you can see oh the Stars that's another wonderful thing about this area and it starts in the Milky Way are fabulous yeah City people don't get it they don't understand what real darkness is they don't understand what real quiet is they have never experienced true quiet or true Darkness at least you know on a natural setting and they're missing something and they've never experienced neighbors and locals quite like these either right that's for sure yeah say you know there's a lot a lot of out there wild crazy people out here and that's why we fit right in this is Susan's Studio here with the pots in the back I need glazing they have the glaze on them but haven't been fired yet those top ones it'll all be Just Ducky yes indeed this was Goofy Gover snake's whole entry portal he's got under the house and this is Susan's trusty pack horse that she keeps the Corral it's not hard to find a fixer-upper around here we're gonna head out for a little e-bike ride before the sun sets Red Rover ride rad baby all right we're going [Applause] we're on our way down to the desert we're heading out to the wide open desert down this road heading for the wild pool [Applause] don't tell nobody about the wild pool no we wouldn't do that would we trust your people Roger and I just met Brendan and Sophia and they are in the blue nose bus they're going to give us a tour of the bus inside all right come on in all right let's check it out we're going into the blue nose bus and you can find them on Instagram and tick duck blue nose bus hey this is pretty cool look at this welcome inside this is our bus that we made over the course of five months check that out right above the driver's seat nice look at that woodwork cool we had never held a drill before so it was a big project well that's pretty impressive it was pretty ambitious all right look at the kitchen here sweet oven we have a stove yeah as well oh look at that but we also have a diesel heater and a heat pump as well as an air conditioner I call it central air because it's right in the center of the Box our full-size fridge um and freezer a big pantry and our shower oh look at that that's pretty sweet yup and then we have our bathroom back here our vanity bathroom and then in the back we have our queen size bed with our AC unit you can go back in it's a little messy but it's all right I'll just get a quick shot there's the bed back there you get the idea all right very nice and this uh sofa pulls into a double bed so we can have gas over wow that's pretty cool yeah that's where we sleep all our friends when they come yep so yeah that's the bus excellent and there's the computer and yeah that's where I work during the daytime because well back to work well sadlys some of us do have to work whether it's YouTube or Tick Tock or whatever it may be or posting on Instagram right Bernie doesn't have to have to work well yeah Bernie doesn't have to do much except to eat sleep and play exactly exactly he's a 14 week old right dog and this is the wild pool that he was talking about it's not a hot spring it's just a warm pool well that was fun meeting the the blue bus there and now we're heading home and we're back [Applause] days are short the nights are long and chilly I don't feel like cooking very very simple so I just throw in a can of soup and cut up some veggies and put them in the pot and throw it on the Fire so that's what I've been doing lately keeping it simple for dinner coming up in part three we take a trip to China Ranch learn a little history of the region you can see the Tonopah and Tidewater railroad bed right there visit the remains of a house where Charlie Manson's second in command lived and experienced the raw beauty of the desert foreign foreign