Parks – Page 3 – RV Travels in Europe and North America

February 5, 2020 Cathedral Gorge SP

I decided to begin pointing towards home last night. I am beginning to miss Ton. But I wanted to try one more Nevada Park before leaving. A couple of years ago Ton and I swung thru Cathedral Gorge State Park without stopping. I wanted to check it out so that was the target for today.

The day began with a bit of a mishap. I woke up just after dawn so I decided to take a walk to enjoy sunset as it was only a three hour drive. It was a nice walk and the red rocks of Valley of Fire were spectacular. When I arrived at the campground I met a nice couple from Washington out walking their dog. We chatted for a while about different places before I went in to finish up preparing to leave. I needed to brush my teeth and I reached into the bag I keep the toiletries in and instead of grabbing my toothbrush I grabbed my razor and managed to cut the end of my index finger pretty deeply. I threw a band-aid on it and started to finish up packing. While I was putting up the electric cord I noticed my finger was bleeding considerably, so I grabbed the first aid kit and tried to stop the bleeding. I finally got the bleeding somewhat under control and was heading out when I saw the couple from Washington waving at me vigorously, I thought how nice, but then they shouted at me to stop. I had forgotten to close the door, and left the steps down on Scout. How embarrassing, fortunately my finger was starting to drip blood to show the reason for my incompetence as a RV’er.

The drive to Cathedral Gorge was uneventful. When I arrived at the park around 12:30 I debated whether to stop, it is going to be cold tonight and since I am heading home why not get in another 3 or 4 hours towards home? I drove in and after checking the excellent campground complete with electricity I decided to stay.

The Tower in the center was built as water storage in the 1930’s.

Cathedral Gorge is another beautiful site. It is a box canyon with interesting sides eroded to look like cathedrals if you have imagination.

Some of the “Cathedral” in Cathedral Gorge.

In the 1930’s during the depression the Civilian Conservation Corps built some interesting structures including a water tank and a picnic area that have survived until today.

This picnic area made of Mesquite trees and roofed with Willow branches has survived since the 1930’s.

They also have a nice trail system that is well signposted and easy to follow. Someone did a nice job with interpretive signs describing the flora and fauna of the area. It was a nice easy walk to make the day. As I am typing this I am watching a beautiful sunset to confirm my decision to stay was the right one.

Part of the trail system with a grove of Mesquites.

February 4, 2020 Valley of Fire SP

Valley of Fire State Park has been on my list for this trip since the beginning. Ton and I stopped here last year and it is really spectacular. The name is apt as the hills in the park are a bright red.

The drive over was even windier then yesterday and the temperature has fallen nearly 30 degrees. The sky is blue but the wind chill is at or a little below freezing. Scout was getting blown around pretty good on the highway as I made my way thru the desert from Laughlin to Las Vegas. I decided to by-pass Las Vegas by cutting thru the Lake Mead Recreation Area. I do not have to pay the entrance fee with my senior pass and there is no traffic on the scenic highway thru the recreation area, making for a much more relaxing drive.

When I got to the Valley of Fire I had to pay my entrance fee (no free entry for State Parks, only National Parks.) When I went by the visitors center to check things out and pay the fee, the ranger told me that as it was so cold there may be a couple of spots available in the full hook up area with electricity, but if I was interested I needed to head right over there. Since it is going to below freezing tonight having electricity to run the heater seemed like a good idea so I hustled over there and claimed the last electric spot.

Enjoying the Petroglyphs, picture courtesy of a nice German tourist.

A few hundred yards from the campground is a Petroglyph site. It is pretty high up a canyon wall so they have built a nice ladder and platform so you can observe the Petroglyphs. As i climbed down I saw a group clustered around a rock a couple of hundred yards away so I wandered over there to see what they were looking at. It turns out it was another large set of Petroglyphs at ground level that the park does not advertise. It was fascinating to try to interpret the symbols. Some are pretty obvious and some are not obvious at all to me.

After finishing up I decided to take a short hike thru a rock formation that I suspected would loop around and return me to the campground. After about 30 minutes walking thru the desert looking at the red rock formations I popped thru a narrow wash and came right into the campground feeling like a real adventurer.

Part of my walk. The rock in the left center reminded me of a throne in 3 dimensions.

After warming up for an hour or so I took another short hike to a display I saw off in the distance. It was late afternoon and the wind was getting even stronger and the display was disappointing so I called it a day and returned to Scout, turned on the heater, cooked supper, and put on The Sand Pebbles with Steve McQueen.

January 21, 2020 Round Mountain NV

The original plan was to drive to Tonopah NV which was about 250 miles. I woke early and while I took my time getting going and doing a trip to Walmart to get some supplies I was still on the road at 8:15.

The route thru central Nevada goes thru some more remote land, though not quite as remote as yesterday. The roads are pretty good, straight as an arrow and posted at 70mph. I took it easy and cruised at 65mph, and while there was not much traffic it was all faster than me including tankers and semi-trucks.

I’m not sure what this thing was, but I was diverted to the shoulder so it could get past, and it had another truck hooked to the back to push.

The highlight of the drive was a giant gold mine at a place called Round Mountain Nevada. Gold was originally discovered there around 1880 and it was a very large and initially easy strike as it was surface gold. Over time while there was quite a bit of gold still around it became much more difficult to get at, and according to the signpost at the mine all of the different techniques for gold mining have been used there. At one point it was abandoned, but as mining technique became more sophisticated the mine was reopened and now it is quite a spectacular operation. It is now a pit mine and there are extremely large trucks moving the dirt form the hole to the site where it is processed. I stopped and watched these oversized dump trucks run up and down the hill for a while before moving on to Tonopah.

The Round Mountain Gold Mine with one of the giant dump trucks moving dirt from the pit to the processing area.

It was only about 12:30 when I got to Tonopah, and thanks to the miracle of satellite technology I was immersed in the Arsenal v Chelsea game on the radio so I decided to press on to Death Valley today. This turned todays drive into 380 miles. I arrived about 3 and went into the visitors center to register when I realized I was now eligible for the Golden Age pass which is a lifetime pass for all of the parks in the US. It also gives you 50% off at campgrounds. So taking advantage of my senior status and $80 I now have lifetime access, and half off in the campgrounds. Publishing this is probably going to be delayed as there is no internet at the campground, and really marginal phone service.

Sunset looking at the Panamint Mountains from the campground.

February 1, 2018 Lake Mead National Recreation Area NV

Ron woke up a little early to go for a walk and chase some big horn sheep around for a while trying to get pictures. Ton’s from yesterday were better.

After breakfast we set out to explore the rest of the park. We took a couple of short hikes and really enjoyed ourselves. The weather was perfect for hiking, mid to high 60’s, and we picked a couple of easy places that still gave us wonderful views of the Red sandstone that gives the park it’s name. We really enjoyed Valley of Fire, it is a nice size and has a variety of places to visit. It is the equal of many National Parks for things to see and do.

This Raven kept an eye on us for a few minutes while we were walking.

Our next stop was planned for Lake Mead National Recreation Area if you are wondering what the abbreviation in the title for the day is short for. Ton and I were both surprised by Lake Mead as we thought the Lake would be front and center, and for the first 40 miles it was almost invisible. Instead we had a drive thru a typical Mojave landscape with occasional burst of Red from Sandstone deposits. It was not at all what we expected. We are staying at a campground called Las Vegas Cove. Once again we are parked along a river and the Lake is far away. We enjoyed a nice dinner watching another colorful desert sunset. We managed to actually drive less than 100 miles and were content to park up around 2pm. Maybe we can slow down.

January 31, 2018 Valley of Fire State Park NV

Our alarm was set for 4am so we could get up to witness the eclipse/Blue/Blood/Super moon. The skies were clear, but it was really cold. The temperatures had fallen more than we thought and it must of been around 20 degrees. Ton stuck her head out of the truck and told me to call her when the moon turned Red. I stuck around and watched the eclipse from the inside of the truck. When the moon turned Red I told Ton and she reluctantly rolled out of bed to take a look. After a few minutes she could not get a good picture and was very cold so she decided to get back under the blankets. I followed her a few minutes later. So while we witnessed the eclipse/Blue/Blood/Super moon we have no pictures to prove it, you will have to take out word for it.

Ton loves Joshua trees, we passed this one on the way to Valley of Fire.

After a little nap we got up and headed towards Las Vegas to Valley of Fire State Park. It is about 70 miles from Las Vegas and is quite striking. It has very Red Rocks throughout with many different shapes and forms. As we were arriving we noticed about 100 RV’s parked on BLM land just short of the state park and Lake Mead National Recreation Area. We assume camping is free there and we were tempted to park there for the night, but decided to opt for the State Park and pay the camping fee.

After we settled in we went for a short walk near the campground to a site of some Indian petroglyphs. They were quite impressive. Our reward for ponying up for the campground came in seeing 5 big horn sheep a couple of hundred yards from Scout. While we have been in lots of places with signs warning us to watch for big horns we had never actually seen one until today.

January 30, 2018 Caliente NV

I love the west. Today we drove a ridiculous distance thru the Mojave Desert. We wanted to position ourselves to see the Blue Blood Super Moon eclipse tomorrow and decided a good place we had never been before would be Kershaw-Ryan State Park near Caliente Nevada. So to explain tomorrow is a blue moon, the moon is supposed to turn red after the eclipse, and it is a super moon. The only problem it was over 400 miles away. But we decided to go for it and if we were tired in Tonopah we would shorten up the trip.

The drive from Reno to Caliente is thru mostly unoccupied desert. Quite often you do not see anything built by a human for miles and miles. Our route once we got clear of the urban area around Reno was US 95 to Tonopah, US 6 to no were in particular NV351 to a small town we forgot the name of already and US 93 to Caliente. We are familiar with US95 from Fallon to Tonopah as it is the route we take whenever we go to see Alex or to Death Valley, we had one of our flat tires on US95 near Hawthorne a few years ago. We had never been on the rest of the roads on the trip but they were fun and really isolated. Route 6 goes thru long empty valleys with nothing to stop you. The roads are straight as an arrow for miles and miles. Ron began looking at how many miles it was before curves in the road and we had stretches of 11, 14, and the longest of 16 miles of perfectly straight roads.

This stretch of highway was 14 miles without a curve.

NV351 is also known as the extraterrestrial highway as it skirts Area 51 where everyone knows the government is secretly keeping the aliens that come to earth. The businesses along the road know a good thing when they see it so they have set up souvenir stands. We of course stopped and bought a magnet to put on the fridge at home.

Ron could not resist getting his picture taken with an alien.

Our stop for the night was at Kershaw-Ryan State Park, Ron was a little worried about arriving late in the day as it is a small park. There was no need to worry as we have the place to ourselves. it is a pretty location in a little canyon, and all of the facilities look brand new. We went for a short evening stroll, and the Blue-Blood-Super Moon gave us a little preview.

May 14, 2017 Las Vegas NV

We visited the Red Rock National Conservation Area outside of Vegas today. It is run by the Bureau of Land Management. The conservation area is just outside of the city and was quite busy. The visitors center was quite well done. Showing both the land and native plants and animals in a very interesting and engaging way. We did the loop and it was quite beautiful and exceeded our expectations.

We met Alex for dinner at a casino that Ton declared the worst buffet in history. The good news was due to teacher appreciation week Alex’s buffet was free.. After dinner Ton, Alex, and Dang went to the strip to do some tourist stuff and Ron took Scout back to the park to do some maintenance.

August 23, 2015 Great Basin NP

Today we left Utah behind reluctantly. Our target for the day was Great Basin NP which our son Dylan highly recommended. It was a long days drive and we needed to take care of some shopping so we arrived too late to do the cave tours. Surprisingly the Campgrounds were pretty full and we had a tough time finding a spot, so we got a late start exploring the park.

The park is famous for Caves and Bristlecone Pines. We knew that the Caves were out for the day but hoped to see the Bristlecone Pines. Some of the Bristlecone Pines in the park are over 5000 years old which is pretty incredible. We drove the road from the campground at 7000 feet to over 10,000 feet for the trailhead to the Bristlecone Pine. Unfortunately we realized when we got there we did not have time to do the 5 mile roundtrip so we also missed the Bristlecone’s. I guess we will have to do another trip to Great Basin in the future.

Today we had the most unlevel camp spot ever, despite using every leveling block we had we still had a distinct tilt to the rear of the car. Despite that we slept well.

The very unlevel camp spot at Great Basin.

January 23, 2020 Death Valley NP

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.

January 22, 2020 Death Valley NP

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.

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.

January 28, 2019 Death Valley NP

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.

January 27, 2019 San Diego CA

Today is Dylan’s birthday so we planned a big day around town to celebrate. We started out with a seafood brunch at Point Loma Seafood. It is part fishmonger and part restaurant, definitely a laid back California experience, but the food was really exceptional, and was a good start to the day.

Our next stop was Cabrillo National Monument on a bluff overlooking San Diego harbor. This was the first day it was open after the government shutdown and a lot of people were coming out to use the facilities. It is an interesting place located on former military property with stunning views of the harbor and the ocean. The monument has exhibitions on Spanish explorers, as it is believed the monument contains the landing place of the Spanish explorer who was the first European to land in San Diego. It also has a whale watching platform, some nice tidal pools, and exhibits on the military uses of the area. We really enjoyed it.

The Cabrillo Monument to the first European to see San Diego Harbor.

Next we headed over to another San Diego brewery located right next to Point Loma Seafood. We had a couple of rounds of really excellent Lagers and IPA’s and were quite impressed with Epigg Brewing. Our next stop was going to be Pariah brewery for Pizza and beer. When we got there Pizza was not available so we headed down the road for a great Mexican meal to wrap up the day. Thanks Dylan for a fun week in San Diego.

The shore line at Cabrillo National Monument.

August 18, 2018 San Diego CA

Dylan swung by to pick us up about 930. After a breakfast of noodles prepared by Ton we headed off to our first stop of the day the Tijuana Slough Wildlife Refuge. It is one of the areas that the office Dylan works in manages. He took us on a nice walk through the slough and he explained some of the challenges of managing wildlife refuges in a metropolitan area of nearly 3 million people.

The next stop was some shopping at the Navy Exchange and Commissary in San Diego where we saw a food cart advertising Thai Hamburgers. Of course we had to go see what Thai Hamburgers were. Well they are not hamburgers at all. Dylan actually guessed that the “rolls” would be sticky rice and he was right. The meat is barbeque pork that Thai call Meu Ping, and it was delicious. The three of us split a “hamburger” and pronounced it a messy but delicious meal.

The final stop for the day was to join the Timbers Army San Diego group to watch the Timbers. They were going to meet in a pub downtown so we headed downtown but were quite early. We wandered around for a while and blundered into one of Ton’s other items on her list, Oscars Mexican seafood. We each had an excellent Fish Taco, and some ceviche.

The game was a huge disappointment as the Timbers looked listless, and were never in the game. We left a little early to head back for the night.

August 15, 2018 San Luis Obispo CA

Today we started the day visiting one of our favorite places in central California. Near San Simeon there are beaches that are covered in Elephant Seals. We have visited this site three times previously and always enjoyed ourselves. This time we again enjoyed ourselves though as advertised there were fewer seals than normal, though many of the full sized males were there and really impressive.

The Elephant Seals were relatively sparse today.

After visiting the seals again we had a nice burger at a general store that had been in the same family since 1916. It was an interesting set up as they had a burger place selling Hearst Ranch burgers, a high end wine tasting bar, and a post office all in one large room. We split a burger as it was quite large.

A wine bar and post office. Only in California!

After heading over to Paso Robles to get some fuel we eventually headed back to our campsite and had a nice dinner.

February 6, 2018 Camp Pendleton CA

Ton brought up the idea of heading over to the coast. Our original hope was to stay at the Navy park on Coronado Island in San Diego, but as with every other time we could not get a reservation. We instead are at the Marine Base with an ocean front spot. We are not disappointed with not getting into Coronado.

We started out trying to get up for sunset but did not succeed. Ron ran out to try to get some just past sunset pictures but they did not turn out. On our way out of the park we stopped at one of Tons favorite spots the Cholla garden. The Cholla Cactus has one of the nastiest thorns of any cactus, but it has really nice flowers.

We took a back road from Palm Springs to Temecula which kept us off the freeways from Palm Springs to Temecula. The highway was called the Pine to Palms Highway and takes you thru the Santa Rosa Mountains. The climb out of Palm Springs is quite steep as you quickly go from Sea Level to 3000 feet. You go from desert to alpine and pass thru at least three different plant types. While the road is windy and narrow for Ron it is less nerve racking than dealing with Southern California Freeways.

We arrived at the beach and as we were setting up a nice couple came up and struck up a conversation about our drive down and the Tiger. Ron was hooking up things and Ton was outside speaking with the wife. A few minutes later Ron noticed water coming out of the truck. Sometime along the way one of us had bumped the water in the kitchen sink on. While we are driving we store some stuff in the sink so that was blocking the drain, and we had a flood. So tonight we are drying out the floor, and some of our dish towels and things are hanging up to dry.

We ended the day by doing something we have never done in seven or eight years of camping. We built a campfire and sat on the beach eating our dinner and enjoying the sound of the surf.

February 5, 2018 Joshua Tree NP

Today we visited one of our favorite national parks. Ton really loves cactuses and Joshua Trees. It was originally in our plans for the trip with our friends last fall, but we cut it out due to time constraints, so we decided to head over on our way to the coast.

The drive took a little longer than we thought, and we ended up driving around for over an hour looking for a place to spend the night. At that point Ron realized that we probably needed fuel, so we ended up driving back out into town to the Marine Base to get fuel. The fuel there was 50 cents a gallon cheaper than in town.

Part of the trip was along an old section of Route 66.

We got back to our campsite just in time for sunset, and had a nice walk shooting pictures of the sunset, rocks and Joshua tree’s. It was also fantastic weather, clear and 79 degrees, so for the first time on the trip we will not need the heater.

November 4, 2017 Monterey CA

The day started out with a quest for a longer sewer hose for Elephant. The sewer hose for Elephant is about 8 ft long and we need one about 20ft long in our spot. We started out going to the PX at the old Fort Ord Army Base, but unlike most PX’s this one did not have any RV stuff, but Ton, Noi, and Dang enjoyed shopping. We next went to the Target, no hose there, but Noi, Dang, and Ton enjoyed shopping. Next door to Target was a REI, Ron knew they would not have a hose, but Noi, Dang and Ton enjoyed shopping. We next went to Wal-mart and they had a hose, and Noi, Dang and Ton enjoyed shopping. After the quest for the hose was complete it was now 1pm and while everyone had enjoyed shopping it was time to do some touristy stuff.

We headed over to Carmel to visit another spot we enjoyed on our Pacific Coast Highway trip a couple of years ago. Point Lobos State Nature Reserve is a great place to look at both sea animals and some really beautiful Cypress Trees.

We returned in time to whip up something and get a good nights sleep under the flight path for the main runway at Monterey airport. Fortunately it is a small airport.

November 2, 2017 Death Valley NP

We had planned to head to Zabriske point for sunrise, but everyone overslept. In the end we got there about an 90 minutes after sunrise. Zabriske point was the highlight of our first trip to Death Valley, and Ron in particular has fond memories of the place. We were happy to see that Dang and Noi were more up about Zabriske, so Death Valley had a happy ending.

We had originally intended to target Tehachapee for the day, but when Ton realized we would be there around noon, she extended the drive to Bakersfield. After arriving about 1pm we checked into Orange Grove RV park, which is a great commercial camp ground including you own orange trees in each site. If you are in the area I highly recommend you check it out. As it was still quite early we headed to Costco to fuel up, and see if there were any secret things in Bakersfield that we had not seen in other Costco’s. Yesterday California raised their gas tax by 12 cents per gallon, so even with the Costco discount we had our most expensive gas on the trip at $2.80 per gallon.

November 1, 2017 Death Valley NP

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.

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.

January 26, 2017 Death Valley NP

Ron had always wanted to visit the Racetrack Playa. Ton was a little nervous as the park service puts out very severe warnings about the road and particularly mentions long stretches of sharp rocks. Ron had done some research and several other Tigers had made it out there, though all of the owners had complained about the washboard condition of the road.

We started the day by visiting Ubehebe Crater. The crater is about a half mile across and 700 feet deep and is a result of a recent magma explosion in the park. The crater is quite impressive and a reminder of how suddenly things can change on the planet.

We set out for the playa and Ron thought it could not be much worst than yesterdays drive thru Titus Canyon. In some ways he was right and in some ways he was wrong. The road itself was pretty straight forward with no particular narrow places or washed out sections of road. Looking at it it was a typical gravel road you find in the west. But the washboard was the worst Ron had ever experienced and really beat up the truck and the people inside. We creeped along at 10 miles per hour along most of the way and still felt like we were inside a blender.

The valley approaching the race track is really beautiful and you feel like you are really on your own. For the day I think only about 5 vehicles including us went out to the Playa. About 6 miles from the Playa you come to Tea Kettle Junction where there is a tradition of hanging a tea kettle with your name on it. We were not aware of the tradition and did not have a tea kettle to leave.

We did not have a tea kettle to contribute.

Finally we arrived at the playa. How the rocks moved used to be a mystery, but apparently in November a group from the Scripps Institute were out there and saw the rocks actually moving. To make a short story of a long story it apparently takes a combination of a wet Playa, freezing temperatures that causes ice to build up on the rocks and high winds, and suddenly a 60 pound rock will move on its own.