A brief history lesson
In lieu of a proper blog post, I’m instead writing a brief history of the Valley of Fires area, starting with the Indians and Spanish conquistadors.
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The Spanish conquistadors discovered the Valley of Fires hundreds of years ago. Since conquistador is Spanish for "real estate developer," the conquistadors named this place El Malpais, which, translated to English, means "prime farmland." They sold this prime farmland to the Indians who already owned it, for some rubber tomahawks, a bucket of firewater, and a few silly hats.
The Indians tried to grow turnip greens, grits, and maple syrup on the land, but after a few broken plows, they decided the land was better suited for raising animals like chickens, emus, and crawdads. This didn't work any better because the chickens and emus broke their beaks pecking on the lava, and all the crawdads crawled away looking for water.
Not easily deterred, the Indians discovered after 100 years or so that it's hard to plow rocks. And farmland critters like goats and sheep couldn't eat the rocks, so they were at a loss as to what to do with this valuable land. But finally, one of the Indian chiefs named Lightning Nose, and yes, lightning did strike his nose, and after he woke up, he understood physics, calculus, how to play the piano, and why women act the way they do.
During one of his piano recitals at Carnegie Hall, he postulated that they should get rid of this land and write the loss off on their taxes, and the way to get rid of it is to make the white man think there's gold in the lava because the white man will do anything for gold. Chief Lightning Nose was correct, as soon as the word got out that the gold had been discovered at the Valley of fires, the great White Father declared the land part of America and gave it to the gold miners
The gold miners acted like gold miners scratching around in the rocks for a little while, and finding nothing but chicken beaks. They packed up all their belongings on the back of their donkey and headed over the hills to the next gold rush.
Being a stickler for historical accuracy, I have done much research for this brief history lesson, which is why it took me almost 15 minutes to write it all down. If you enjoyed these historical facts, you might also like the current paper I’m working on, which is a historical deep dive into Popeye's life! Was he really a sailor man? Did he actually go swimmin with bowlegged women? I’m sure you would like to know… so stay tuned.