Macabre Blog – Talking about Wickedly Decadent items

The Macabre staff went to visit the Grand Canyon. We tried to do this years ago with a couple friends and mistakenly went to the North Rim which it turns out is closed in Winter – to this day we will swear that there was a giant tarp over the canyon to close it and just refuse to believe it really existed (ok just silly hyperbole but you get the point)

We traveled to the South Rim (open year round)  figuring that the crowds would be a lot smaller in the cooler weather. Being from the northeast our intrepid staff had no issues with the temperatures. A daytime temp of 46 was still warmer than December back in the mid-Atlantic.

We camped in Mather Campground the first night, burned some wood, had some cocktails in the woods and then set out the next day along the Desert View drive to see all the overlooks of the canyon culminating with the Desert View tower.

I wish that the camera could really show the scale and depth of the canyon. There are points where, from the rim to the river at the bottom, the elevation changes by as much as 5,000 feet.

The colors are spectacular and we saw a lot of cool wildlife – at one point a herd of deer wandered along the road stalling traffic. We saw the biggest crows we’ve ever seen in our lives. These things were almost the size of our dog and utterly fearless. They would come into our camp looking for scraps and not flee even when a human with a dog approached them. We kept seeing signs for mountain lions but none ever showed their faces.

The Desert View tower is a spectacular structure which is modern but made to look like ancient native construction. It has 5 floors with views of the canyon but you better be in shape to climb all the steps – which by the way are very narrow and gave Media Minion a real challenge with his size 12 feet. It’s full of traditional art, actual artifacts and there were even a couple Hopi craftsmen in the lobby level demonstrating their craft.

If you ever get the chance to visit the canyon – do so;  you’ll love it.
We hope to do a trip to the West Rim at some point and Media Minion would love to go down into the canyon someday.

As always, click on an image for a larger version.

Media Minion takes HORRIBLE selfies.

To celebrate the birthday of one of our founders, the Macabre Mercantile staff went to visit the Old Town at Bonnie Springs Ranch out in Red Rock Canyon.

The surroundings are beautiful. The rebuilt replica of an old mining town was better than some we’ve seen but was also kind of disappointing. There was a REALLY BAD melodrama at the Opera House that we managed to survive about 10 minutes of before leaving. One actor was really good, knew how to project etc but the other guy was just a mumbler. We’ve become too jaded having spent many weekends at the Maryland Rennaisance Faire watching quality plays (even ones done badly on purpose).

We missed the hanging because we needed to visit their petting zoo. Sorry we didn’t get photos of the zoo. The animals were so cool we got caught up in that and forgot the camera. We petted and  fed a donkey who brayed just as we arrived – dang thing was like a fog horn, didn’t realize they were so loud. We saw these beautiful wolves. It was a joy to see such beautiful creatures but was also very sad to see them stuck in a cage.

We only took a few photos of the small train you ride up to the town and the terrain that surrounds the ranch. We were VERY disappointed that the wax museum was locked up – what did we spend $10 each for if we couldn’t get into the wax museum to see the statues and ghosts?  Did I mention ghosts? Yeah the ranch is supposedly haunted hence our visit. We didn’t see anything creepy – except maybe a few of the other visitors.

Someday we’ll find a cool ghost town rather than a cheesy tourist trap.

Happy Halloween my ghoulish friends. That’s right the holiday is finally upon us and the staff at Macabre Mercantile have decorated their abode for the season.
A lot of their decor was purged in the great moving sale in VA but they kept the best items and have put them out.

This will probably be their only chance to do trick or treat before opening the store so they are really excited to have all the little monsters in the neighborhood stop by on Halloween night. Next year Halloween will be a major event at our Vegas storefront.

Oh BTW our favorite author Edmund de Wight is giving away a free book as part of All Hallows Read. Go to his Facebook page and comment on the pinned post to get one of 10 free copies.
Just click HERE

No candy yet
The demon dog is NOT a prop, IT’S ALIVE!!!!

As darkness fell, Media Minion did a walk through

Hi all,

Media Minion is back from his emergency trip across the country and is able to once again fulfill orders. Thank you for your patience while we handled this issue.

There’s still time to get your Halloween pretties so let the shopping commence!

The Macabre Mercantile staff decided on an excursion that was not so spooky. We traveled to the northern side of Vegas to beautiful Floyd Lamb park at Tule Springs.

This is a historic 2,040-acre (830 ha) park in Las Vegas, Nevada. The park is centered on Tule Springs, a series of small lakes that formed an oasis in this part of the Mojave Desert. One of the larger urban retreats in the Las Vegas Valley, Tule Springs was once considered to be far out of town but is now encroached by development. The park includes the Tule Springs Ranch, Tule Springs Archaeological Site, Tule Springs Wash and four ponds available for fishing. (from Wikipedia)

We love going there just to enjoy nature and look at the cool animals. There are peacocks galore, geese, ducks, rabbits and this time we even spotted a road runner.
We took a couple pictures of peacocks and rabbits but the road runner was WAY too fast for a good picture and the geese were busy chasing each other to get to the ranger with the food so no pics there.
We also visited the historic adobe house which used to serve as a way point back in the old days.