I had heard about the ghost town of Rhyolite near Beatty. I stopped to explore on my way to Beatty to pick up material to fix my fender (see prior post). This is not a middle-of-nowhere place, but a nice place to explore and be reminded of how temporary, the man made portion of our life can be. The town started in 1905 and in 1920 the population was close to zero. I often compare these ghost towns to my prior Seattle home. It was built in 1900 and still provides shelter and warmth today.  

I found different explanations on the web about the penguin. The one that is repeated often is that when Shorty was out in the desert and would take up drinking from his bottle of O, be Joyful, after a time he’d look behind him and see a penguin following him around. He didn’t see pink elephants, he saw penguins.