*warning... loads of photos to scroll through! a big day!
Awake at 6am. Again.
Ollie hopped into our bed for a snuggle and then he and I proceeded to pester Jonathan while Jay was trying to read in bed. Hee hee.
We had leftover banana cream pie for breakfast, and coffee.
It was a beautiful blue sky morning here in Death Valley! Chilly in the morning light. The ranger came by around 7am and we paid for our night ($16). Kids had a run around the campground for a bit while we got organized for our day. There were only a handful of campers in the lot this morning.
We left our site around 8:20am and drove the short distance to the Furnace Creek Visitor Centre (you can see it in the distance from our campground). We checked out the exhibits inside and marked off some pages in the Junior Ranger booklets. Lots of information and forewarning about being prepared with gasoline/water/rations etc. We got some maps and decided to do the Golden Canyon hike that leads the Red Cathedral Trail. It turns out that is where the Jawa scene in Star Wars was set! super cool.
Jonathan tried to take a photo of me and the kids for me, but they had the sillies so I said I wanted one of just me... which of course inspired the kids to come and attack me and try to "ruin" the photo op! rascals. We had Jawas of our own on this little hike, it seemed. We enjoyed the hike through the golden coloured rocks, but kiddos were a little weary and I had to haul out the little bags of skittles for bribes again.
We hiked 5.57km from 10:15am to 11:50am.
Super cool view when we reached the Red Rock Cathedral Trail... we hiked a bit of it for the view and then turned around. We had other sights to see today!
After Golden Canyon, we hopped in the rig and drove to Badwater Basin for a short walk out to see the lowest elevation (282ft below sea level!). We had a quick 1/2 hour stop there to look at the salt flats and have a walk out on them. When you were out on the boardwalk you could look back and just barely see the wooden sign embedded in the mountain side that showed where the sea level marker was. Crazy!
Tried our hand at a panorama photo with kids hopping into the picture a bunch of times. Needless to say, we did not perfect this technique! haha.
We drove on again across the rocky and dry landscape to the Natural Bridge Hike. We arrived around 1:20pm and this trail had a super rough and steep 1.5mile gravel road to drive up to get to the trailhead. It was VERY dubious that we were attempting this in the rig. At some point there really wasn't anywhere to turn around even if we did decide to bail on it. Our poor RV was getting its bones rattled to the max. When we finally reached the tiny parking lot, we saw another smaller sprinter van camper with a couple sat outside it. When we got out, the husband commented to Jonathan that his wife was complaining that "we should NOT have driven up there on that terrible road, and YOU showed up in THAT thing!!". haha! it was very questionable that either vehicle should have tackled that road, and we agreed that it should probably have been marked as 4x4 access only.
At any rate, we were there! and ready to hike the Natural Bridge Trail which had a beautiful and equally dubious natural rock arch over the old dry riverbed. It felt pretty daunting to stand underneath it when we got there. Kids were tired, but managed some rock scrambling amid a few "refusal to walks". We managed! It was a cool hike and we were up there for about an hour.
Around 2:30pm we slowly trekked our way back down the awful road, apologizing to the Navion as we drove. Poor thing.
Next up was the 9mile scenic "Artist's Palette Drive"... The stone on the hills were many different colours... greens, yellows, purples, reds, browns. Very cool. There was a small hike here and Amelia as D.O.N.E. and so we left her in the rig with a walkie talkie as the rest of us scrambled up the short hike along the various ridges in view of the RV. We called her on the walkie and waved to her, then walked back down.
Back at the rig, we drove on back to the main road, passing Mars Hill where the surface resembles Mars so much that NASA actually tests its Mars Rovers here! Kinda neat. Our "Just Ahead App" has been working so well for us here in Death Valley. Tells us all kinds of snippets of information as we drive. It's been a great purchase.
Next stop on our Death Valley whirlwind tour was Desolation Canyon. Our App told us that this is the Bantha Canyon from Star Wars Episode 4: A New Hope was filmed and where a Bantha was played by a costumed elephant! We needed to ask the Rangers for more starwars information, as I forgot to download the National Parks info about StarWars on my N.P.S. app before we entered the park and there's no wifi or cell signal here.
At the end of our day (around 3ish), we stopped in again at the Furnace Creek Visitor Centre and asked at the ranger desk if they had any maps for exiting the park (we were trying to figure out the best route out of here to California coast, as the weather forecast was for SNOW in the mountains and we had some passes to conquer). While we were chatting, I told him of my dismay that I had forgotten to download the starwars info and he said, "Oh! would you like a copy of the Star Wars filming location sheet?" -- Ummm, YES!!! So great! We now had a fun hit list for tomorrow and some tips on exiting the park safely (we decided Yosemite was a no-go for us... too snowy and sub zero temps)
We drove back to the Texas Springs Campground just up the road, paid our $16 for site B83 via the little machine that we somehow missed the night before in the dark, and settled in for a nice sunset. Not long after, the ranger drove into the campground and stopped at each of the few campers to advise that there would be 30mph winds tonight and to batten down the hatches and secure any loose items. Eek!
We got camp chairs down, set up the fire and read books for a bit before it was too dark. The kids and Jonathan played with our soft pizza frisbee, and then Amelia made some rock art of Mr. Nibbles! We realized it was this same day 2 years ago that we brought Mr. Nibbles home from the pet store! He seemed to be still going strong under Grandma and Papa's loving care.
When it got too cold and dark, we packed up the chairs and things and went inside to get cozy. Kids made lego stop motion movies on the dining table. I made a quick pasta with canellini beans that could be eaten amid the lego. Poor Jonathan had the skin itches again.
We played our most successful game of Sabateur so far. A fun card game that we are figuring out, where dwarves are mining for gold and one of you is a secret sabateur. Turned out this game, Daddy was the sabateur.
I was exhausted and fell into bed around 9pm... got a nice little leg massage by the kids. Jonathan took a Benadryl for his itches and he and the kids went to bed around 10pm.
Another day under our belts!! Quite the adventures in Death Valley. x
No comments:
Post a Comment