The Pegleg Monument

On your left, that ragged heap of rocks sitting alone in the creosote is the Pegleg Smith Monument. It doesn't look like much. It isn't supposed to. There's a worn sign here that invites every passerby to add ten stones to the pile, and people have been doing exactly that for the better part of a century, so the whole thing keeps quietly growing, one handful of desert rock at a time. Here's the lovely part: this is a monument to a lie. A beloved one. Somewhere underneath all those donated rocks is the memory of a one-legged mountain man who swore up and down he once filled his pockets with gold out here and could never, ever find the spot again. Whether you believe a word of it, the desert has decided to keep telling it. If you'd like to stack a stone of your own, this is the spot. And when you're ready, settle in and let me turn this one over to Ranger Boone Merrick, because the story of old Pegleg is exactly his kind of tall tale.