We were pleasantly surprised this morning, it turns out we both slept well. We’re not sure if it was because we were really tired, or if the freeway noise acted as a kind of white noise, anyway it was one of the best nights sleep of the trip.
We let the traffic die down for a bit before heading out. It was easy to know when traffic had lightened up as all we had to do was look out the window of Scout to get an up to the minute traffic status.
As we were heading to Death Valley the GPS was routing us thru Pahrump Nevada. Ron finds the name fun to say, and by the time we got there, everyone was coming up with different reasons to include Pahrump in the conversation including at one point a chorus of Little Drummer Boy.
Sunset on the Dunes at Death Valley.
Death Valley is one of Ron and Ton’s favorite parks. It has a stark beauty that really appeals to us, and we were looking forward to introducing Dang and Noi to it. I don’t know if we oversold the park or they hit a wall, but they did not seem as impressed as we hoped. They did enjoy sunset at the dunes, before we headed back to the campground for the night.
We are both still struggling a little bit with our medical issues so it is time to head home so we can see see our proper Doctors. Ron prefers to drive home east of the Sierra Nevada mountains rather than deal with the heart of California so we left San Diego and headed north and east towards one of our favorite National Parks to spend the night.
The drive to Death Valley was pretty uneventful, even the traffic from San Diego to San Bernardino while dense was moving pretty well with no significant slow downs. After you get out of the southern California metropolis, you quickly get into the Mojave and go from bumper to bumper freeway traffic to almost no traffic as you travel thru the desert.
When we arrived at Death Valley we checked in to see what had reopened after the shutdown. It turns out only a couple of the campgrounds have been re-opened so we are in a big gravel lot across from the visitors center with about 100 other RV’s. We took a walk and Ton got some nice sunset pictures, and we had a couple of short conversations with some of out other campers before settling in for the night.
I woke early and prepared Scout for the trip to Las Vegas. As I was leaving the park we drove by Zabriske point and it was sunrise so I pulled in for a quick look at what is my favorite view in the country. While beautiful it was different than yesterday and colder with some wind. I took one picture and then moved on for the day.
Another look at Zabriske point.
With an early start I rolled into Las Vegas about 9:30 am and the check in for the campground was noon so I got directions to a car wash to knock some of the grime off of Scout. I can now touch the side of scout without having to wash my hands. A quick stock up at the grocery, and I headed over and the campground let me check in early.
I met my son Alex for an excellent Mexican meal at a Freida themed restaurant in the arts district. The arts district is an interesting part of Las Vegas. It looks to me like the old downtown before gambling took over the town, and Las Vegas was a rail and cattle stop. After the meal we walked the four or five blocks looking at some funky stores and bars that could fit into Portland, Seattle, or San Francisco. Las Vegas’ little center of hipsterdom.
I woke up early and decided to head over to one of my favorite places. Zabriske point overlooks the gold canyon, and after today I think it is my favorite view in the US. I have been thinking about places that I really enjoy, and Zabriske point at sunrise is hard to beat. My writing style (military log book may be the best description) does not allow me to do justice to the beauty of Zabriske point at sunrise. The way the light cascades over the desert and hits the different colored light is magical to me. I could spend days on end watching sunrises there and never tire of it.
I do not have the photographic skills or equipment to do Zabriske at Sunrise justice.
Now that I was up early I had to decide what to do until my first planned event of the day which was a ranger talk at the old borax production site and mine. I headed over to the visitors center to watch the park movie to get some ideas. The movie was good and I enjoyed it but I did not get any ideas. So I finally just started driving north up the valley to see if anything drew my attention and before I knew it I was near Beatty Nevada which is the closest source of reasonable fuel so I decided to head over there to top off Scout. The fuel at the center of the park is $5.37 a gallon which must be close to the most expensive fuel in the US. There are two gas stations in Beatty one was $3.20 and the other was $3.09 when I tried the $3.09 the pump told me to go see the cashier. The cashier told me that their system was down and they could not do credit transactions, I asked about debit and she told me with a bit of an attitude that it was the same system and today was cash only. I went down the street and paid the higher amount with a credit card.
I ended up being late for the ranger talk due to my running around Beatty. I watched the last few minutes. A lot of the people at the talk were like me attending every talk while they were in the park so I was beginning to recognize faces. One guy told me I had to try the Indian Fried Bread Taco at the Timbisha Shoshone reservation in the park. The Timbisha are the native Americans who lived in this area. I decided to follow the recommendation, though I doubt this is really traditional fare of the tribe as beans, cattle, and corn would not have been native to this area. But as some one in France when I asked if a dance was traditional, he said no, but it could be in a hundred years. So Fried Bread Tacos may be traditional Timbisha food in 100 years. I now have had one, and I can cross it off my list.
One of the original 40 mule team wagons used to haul Borax out of the canyon in the 1880’s, the rear wheels are over six feet tall. The rear wagon is a water tanker as there was only water source on the 10 day trip.
I spent the afternoon hiking Mosaic Canyon a nice flash flood canyon with interesting rock formations. The road to the trail head was a mess and gave Scout a workout, but the first 400 yards of the trail were worth the drive. The ability of water to carve the rocks in the west never ceases to amaze me. The rest of the hike was nice but not super spectacular.
Mosaic Canyon had about 300 yards where water has cut down to the bedrock which is quite pretty.
I ended the day with a nice ranger talk at sunset at Mesquite dunes.
I started the day by heading over to the visitors center to see what ranger talks were available today. I was there as they opened and one of the Rangers was running up the flag for the day. I talked to her on the way back in after the flag was done, she told me there were two talks for the day and she was leading one of them.
So with a little time to kill until the first talk at gold canyon, I decided to do a little exploring. I had noticed a sign for another campground above the one we usually stay in here. The problem with Sunset campground is that there is no electricity so all of the big RV’s run their generators all day to power all of the stuff in them. They require generators to be shut down from 7pm to 8am, but nothing ruins sitting outside to enjoy the sunset than the buzz of three or four generators running around you. The Texas Spring campground costs $1 more than Sunset but is generator free and prettier so I moved up here and bought two nights.
Part of Artists Pallette Drive. A really nice one way drive in the park on the way to Badwater.
The first talk of the day was in gold canyon which is one of Ton and my favorite hikes in Death Valley. The person leading it was not a ranger but a young man on an internship at the park. He took the duty very seriously and one thing I learned is that some of Star Wars 1 The Return of the Jedi was filmed in the canyon. Besides that I learned a great deal about fan canyons which Death Valley is famous for.
Gold Canyon.
The second talk was at Badwater Basin which is the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere at 280 feet below sea level. It is one of the must stop photo stops in the park. Besides being the lowest spot in the West it is also an interesting salt flat, and does have a spring which is 4 times saltier than sea water.
Badwater Basin, the lowest spot in the Western Hemisphere.
I returned to Texas Springs for sunset and climbed a hill above the campground to watch the sunset. Since the mountains on the west side of the valley are about 5000 feet higher than the valley but quite close, sunset happens about an hour and a half before the light fades which is kind of weird.
