Texas Springs Campground, Death Valley, California.
Awake again at 6:30am - no wind last night despite the Ranger warnings. We made coffee and hot chocolates (Amelia addicted to hot chocolate, I think) and made eggs for breakfast. Kids finished their Jr. Ranger booklets and by 9:10am we were departing the campground (with a stop at the sani-station and filled with water).
Our first stop was Zebrinski Point Overlook. On the drive over, we saw one small creek flowing beside the road. That's the only natural water we've seen here in this rocky, desert park! We reached Zebrinski Point around 9:40am. Stunner views of ridged and folded mountain ranges. It was fairly chilly and kids were not in the mood for adventure at this point.
Below you can spy our little home on wheels in the parking lot.
Next on the itinerary was the 20-Mule Team Canyon. A one-way drive (we discovered why!) that was restricted to vehicles 24ft or less. This is the site of "Jabba the Hut's lair" from the Star Wars movies. It felt right out of a sci-fi movie set. When driving around Death Valley, there were very few vehicles around and this drive was no exception. We saw two heavy duty motorcycles drive up the road and they managed to squeeze by us when were were stopped for a photo. It's a super narrow and winding gravel road carved through the rocks. Our Navion looked so little and lonely in this landscape!
These monkey-heads stayed in the rig for most of the time... Jonathan and I hopped out to check out the landscape on the drive at 20-Mule Team, but the kids were kind of over it.
Next we carried on driving several more miles to Dante's View which was the highest accessible point in the park where you can look over a sweeping vista of the salt flats. We stood at the overlook and gazed over the salt flats and incredible views of Death Valley National Park. This is the same view that Obi-Wan and Luke stood gazing over Mos Eiesly in Start Wars! Kinda fun. We checked that off our "Star Wars film Set" List.
View of "Mos Eisley" (Dante's Peak, Death Valley)
"You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. We must be cautious."
- Ben Obi-Wan Kenobi
Jonathan was the only one who wanted to hike up to a summit for an extra high view. It was pretty cold here at this peak, and the kids didn't want to walk up with him so he went on his own.
There's Jonathan up the trail... that little black dot! and below is his view from the peak.
We left Dante's View around 11:45am and reached the Visitor Centre at Furnace Creek around 12:30pm. It was warming up now and not being at the higher elevations, the temperature was a pleasant 21c. Inside the visitor centre the kids presented their Junior Ranger booklets to the Rangers at the desk and received their Junior Ranger badges for Death Valley NP. Oliver bought himself a compass.
After about 1/2 hour in the centre, we topped up the fuel with 4 gallons of diesel. I have numbers written in my notes here saying 340km and also 190km within park. I've no idea what this means exactly, but guessing we've maybe driven 190km within the park boundary (it's huge!!) and maybe we had 340km to drive today. It was always cautioned that we have as full a tank of gas/diesel as possible since the stations were few and far between and you DID NOT want to get stuck somewhere (cue: stories of death in death valley).
Above is a snapshot of the Furnace Creek "resort"... a little oasis of green in the midst of 100's of miles of gravel and rock landscape.
We drove next to the Salt Creek Interpretative Trail, but it was closed. Apparently this was where you might be able to see the little blue Death Valley Pupfish (aka Salt Creek Pupfish).
1:20pm : Next stop was the Mesquite Flats Sand Dunes (aka Tattoine Dunes where C3-PO and R2-D2 landed in their escape pod!). We parked explored the sandy and cracked dunes. Amelia sat and "carved" a solid piece of sand, and Oliver explored a bit then sat under a Mesquite tree.
Back in the rig for some food - Jonathan made a smoothie, and we had "Stampedas" and salsa (tortilla chips that Amelia keeps calling stampedas instead of SantaRitas). And Ollie enjoyed a grapefruit he picked off the trees in Tucson. Dessert were red and green "Christmas" oreos... quite disgusting as they had so much dye in them. Impulse purchase begged for by the kids at Walmart.
Departed around 2pm and headed for Stovepipe Wells - built in 1926 it is the oldest resort in the park.
After that it was Mosaic Canyon. This was 2.5miles up a dirt road (10min drive). Kids were whiny on the drive, and somehow the chips and a grapefruit fell on Ollie's head. I don't know how that happened, but it's in my notes here, haha. Perhaps Oliver can recount it later.
The kids were full on grumpy by now and so Jonathan and I decided to walk into the canyon for 15min and then back to the rig. We left the kids locked inside armed with the walkie-talkie. Jonathan and I really wanted to check it out as it was supposedly a really beautiful hike. This was our compromise!
The stone was particularly beautiful here... one side had a rough mosaic of stones embedded in the concrete-like store, and the other side was smooth as marble. You walked between the two undulating walls of stone as it snaked along. Super cool. Kids would have loved it. We met a fellow hiker along the way. She was an older woman dressed in full proper hiking gear and was wedging herself between the walls of a narrow portion so she could shimmy her way up the hip high ledge. Her knees couldn't handle trying to step up, so she had this "tried and true" method to get up this portion, as she'd hiked it many many times. She was on her own and seemed quite vulnerable, yet was very confident in her abilities on this particular hike. She accepted assistance to get up once at the top of the ledge, and she raved about the hike saying it was too bad we couldn't hike the full distance as it just got more and more beautiful and interesting.
Jonathan and I hiked (walked) for our 15 min and then headed back, admiring what we did see of this gorgeous section of the park.
It was around 2:45pm when we departed Mosiac Canyon and we were now on our final journey to head out of the Death Valley National Park. It was about an hour's drive to Panamint along a steep road up and down over Towne's Pass (elevation 4956ft). We stopped at the gas station to fill up at USD6.449/gallon!), then back out onto Panamint Valley Road. It was much rougher pavement so it was loud, but at least it was FLAT!!!
We drove 74km along a super desolate road, and even saw some wild burros! Miners back in the early 20's had their mules and burrows here during their attempt for borax and other minerals then abandoned them when they left the desolate valley. Apparently they are a nuisance in the park and are periodically rounded up by a rescue group and adopted out.
By 4:40pm we were driving through Trona, a small industrial town. Lots of Burro X-ing signs along the side of the road. The town seemed built around the Searles Valley Mineral Co. - Borax, Pot Ash... Lots of boarded up and patched up homes, broken down cars. Pretty rough, depressed looking town in the shadow of a big chemical plant. Feeling grateful for Marshall Street every time we drive through a town like this.
We kept driving another 40km or so to Ridgecrest and hit up the Walmart there for supplies. Passed the Burro Round Up area where they remove burros from the BLM/National Park areas in the wild and bring them here for adoption.
By 5:15pm we were pulled into the parking lot at Upjohn Park and playground as the sun was almost set. It was 9c outside! brr..... Kids had a huge play on the awesome playground while Jonathan made some phone calls and I made some pizza. Didn't leave the playground until 6:50pm (we were tempted to stay there overnight as there wasn't anything except open spaces to the south of the playground... but there were houses on the other side and we didn't want to risk having someone call about us.
*our imitation of the Las Vegas poster at Sam's Town*
by 7pm we were at the Walmart down the road in Ridgecrest parked near another camper. Home for the night! Oliver upgraded his stop motion app to the "pro" version to get more out of it... they are into stop motion again these days. Jonathan prepped the RV shower by removing all our things from the shower stall! He had a luxurious shower in the RV at the walmart - as you do! haha.
Ollie and Meems made stop motion videos using a green screen. It was cold this evening. I crawled up top into the bunk to snooze and stay warm. Jonathan made popcorn around 9pm then we put on Star Wars on the laptop so we could see the Dunes/Artist's Palette/Desolation flats, etc that we'd just seen in person at the Death Valley N.P.
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