Getting lost in Mouse's Tank

A Paiute renegade named Little Mouse was notorious for looting nearby settlements around the 1890’s and was known to get crazy and violent when he was drunk. Rumor has it that he gunned down a few prospectors and because he was wanted for murder, a posse was rallied to bring him in. He was able to escape his pursuers by climbing around in what is now known as Petroglyph Canyon in the Valley of Fire in Nevada.

Petroglyph Canyon in the Valley of Fire

This canyon is narrow and tricky to navigate, so anyone who was not familiar with the landscape would have no idea where Little Mouse escaped. Legend has it that Little Mouse was able to hide out from his pursuers in that canyon for a long time because he knew where all the rain water collected in cisterns throughout that canyon. This picture is what is now famously known as Mouse’s Tank.

Mouse’s Tank

This tank is about a couple hundred yards back in this narrow canyon and, in my opinion, was not his main source of water since that water looks like it has been stagnant for millennia with all sorts of bacteria growing in it.  Mouse, the outlaw, was caught a few miles from the canyon by a spring, which today is called the Muddy River. The official story is that he was surrounded, refused to give up, and he was shot.

My experience with Mouse’s tank is as follows: When you enter the narrow canyon that leads you to Mouse’s Tank, you immediately notice the ancient petroglyphs carved in the sandstone canyon walls. If you are able to go quietly and alone (which is hard to do with all the tourists) some people say you can still hear the whisper in the canyon wind of what sounds like a man proclaiming his innocence. I was lucky this last visit to catch a ghostly figure of a mountain goat peering down at me from a nearby cliff. Then it disappeared into the landscape as supernaturally as it appeared. If only I had a telephoto lens.

Petroglyphs

The legendary story of Little Mouse is hard to research since he seems to have been just a local nuisance. If you know any more details about the legend of Mouse’s Tank would you please enlighten me in your comments below?

I love vacationing in the desert. How about you?

Facebook needs to go away (part 2)

Facebook has been getting stricter when it comes to enforcing people creating bogus profiles on their site. I have a friend who claimed to have encountered this problem when he tried to create an account for a made-up person. He claimed that once he had entered in all of the information to set up an account, the Facebook server sent him an automated message saying, “We think this may be a fake a person trying to start an account with us. To prove you are real give us your phone number.” Once you have given them your phone number it then says, “A numeric code has been texted to your phone. Please enter that code below to continue.” First of all, I feel Facebook is discriminating the older potential users of their network. It won’t allow anybody to enter the year of their birthday if they were born before 1920. It assumes that only baby-boomers and younger exist in the world. Also, what about people who don’t have cell phones or text options? That is downright rude.

There were a few profiles I caught that were created before they enforced this rule. Profiles like:

 Darth Vader

John Daker

Hank Hill

Everybody knows those profiles are fake and just plain funny. I want to know:  Do you think creating a bogus profile on a big social network is unlawful and unethical despite the fact that it is obviously fake and only there to get laughs?

If you answered yes to the first question, I want to ask you: Do you think the same about people logging onto other peoples profiles who are not them? I know four people in my family who are guilty of this. If the real person gave them permission is it okay then?