We realized that the cold rainy forecasted weather did not materialize so we headed into Death Valley. It has been a beautiful day, with most of the temps in the high 70’s.
Leaving Pahrump, heading into Death Valley, we were struck again with all the variations. Deserts, palm trees, tumbling weeds, mountains with snow! Our first stop was Zabriskies Point in the park, which had a great view. We bypassed a couple of other stops, hoping to find a camping spot. Furnace Creek and Texas Spring were full, so we ended up in Sunset. It’s not too bad, just featureless….a big gravel parking lot. At least it’s not totally full.
Plenty of snow in the higher elevations
After securing our spot, we wandered a bit. We started out to find a virtual geocache and ended up exploring Furnace Creek Ranch, a private resort in the park. We followed a coyote for a short time, hoping for a good picture. The cache was part of the Borax Museum, which had a lot of interesting information, displays and old equipment. The resort itself is quite extensive, with a golf course (lowest one in the world, they say), swimming pool, horses, stores, restaurants, etc. The RV section looked pretty dismal, though, so we decided having a hookup definitely wouldn’t be worth it.
We weren't the only photographers
We walked on to the Furnace Creek Visitor Center and got some advice about spring wildflowers. We drove south along the Badwater Road, almost the whole way to the bottom of the park and Jubilee Pass. The flowers are something to see….hillsides of mostly yellow, in the middle of the desert. We don’t know the names of any of them, but saw white, and purple in addition to the yellow. On the way back, we stopped at Badwater Basin, the lowest point in North America at 282 feet below sea level. It was very strange to see a sign up on a rugged hill, stating it was at sea level. It doesn’t feel any different, especially driving. If we were pioneers walking alongside wagons, we’d surely have noticed the difference. Badwater Basin had some displays, and then a boardwalk that ended on salt flats. We saw some people in the parking lot unpacking their suitcases to take out their shoe brushes. They were cleaning the bottoms of their shoes. (must not have been Americans. Who travels with shoe brushes?) Harris didn’t want Howie to be full of salt, so we didn’t go far off the boardwalk, although people are allowed to hike 5 miles across the flats if they wish. This part of the park looks the most like our mental picture of Death Valley….shimmering salt flats that seem to go on forever. What we never pictured was the mountains all around the valley.
A logging cart
We also took a loop drive called Artist’s Drive, which was twisty and full of different mineral colors. Sometimes the road went through canyons with rocks on either side so close we could have reached out and touched them.
Back to camp, cooking dinner on the stove because there are no fire rings here. We played Quarters. Even though Judy won the first game, she got very frustrated because she inadvertently discarded wild cards, which Harris was quick to pick up. He won the second game handily.
The flowers were in bloom!
One of many scenic views while driving
Right before bed we went outside and sat in our chairs and stargazed. The night sky was ink-black and as it has been said many times, “you could reach out and touch them”. The wind was light and the temp was in the 70’s at around 9:30. The only spoiling factor was the kids that were hollering at each other a few camp sites down, but we felt it was a small price to pay.
Tomorrow we plan to explore more of the park and then probably move on to a different part of California. We’re glad we came here. It feels like summer.
Can you spot the "sea level" sign above Howie?
No comments:
Post a Comment