Wednesday, Feb 1, 2012 Orange Grove RV Park

We left Death Valley at 8am this morning. It was about 5 hours to our next camp, so we stopped in Yermo for lunch. We ate at Penny’s diner. What a cute place!! It looked like a silver train car from the sixties. We had a great meal of burgers, quesadillas and a patty melt. We all bought T-shirts with the Penny’s logo on the back in hot pink!

We finally arrived at our last camp ground of the trip. This is a beautiful spot where you can pick all of the oranges that you can carry. The trees line every pull through space in the camp. I picked enough oranges to share with everyone back home!

We are fixing whatever we have left in the refrigerator for dinner, in our case, chicken.

This has been a GREAT trip!! It was our second time in Death Valley, and we plan on visiting a few more times. After all, it covers over 3,373,042 acres!!

It was so much fun hangin’ with the “S’more Friends” camping group, and meeting a few new people this year. As I have said in the past, I hope this blog inspires you to go out and see the good old USA! We have 28 states marked so far on our “Been There, Done That” map that we have visited! There is still SO much more left to see. Everyone, be sure and blog your adventures, I would love to hear all about them!!

Tuesday, January 31, 2012 Death Valley

This morning we headed to Darwin Falls. From Furnace Creek to the start of the road to the falls was about 50 miles. Along the way we passed through the little resort of Panamint Springs. Here there is a gas station, motel with 15 rooms, a campground and a restaurant.

We turned off the paved road to the washboard, dirt road leading to the falls. The road was really hard to see from the main road and some of the caravan missed the turn off. As soon as they found a place to turn around, we all headed very slowly down the dirt, avoiding rocks and holes along the way to the falls. Once we got to the small parking area, it was a mile walk to get to the falls. It was really fun! There was quite a bit of climbing over rocks and boulders, ducking under very dry and scratchy brush, and wading through ankle deep water and mud. Barb and I got separated from the group and apparently we took the low road while the rest took the high road. When we met the others at the falls, we were quite a bit muddier! Going back, I figured my shoes were already a mess, so I opted to walk along the water’s edge most of the way, rather than climb on the very slippery rocks with wet feet. When we got back to the car we ate our packed lunches.

On the way back to Furnace Creek, we stopped in the town of Stovepipe Wells to get ice cream and hit the gift shop. Right before our camp, we drove a short distance off the road to the abandoned Harmony Borax mine, the home of the “20 Mule Teem”. Barb and Marsha had never been here, and we knew they would enjoy the history of this spot and take a few pictures. Then it was off to the Visitor’s Center again to make last minute purchases!

We barbequed hot dogs over the campfire for dinner, and had S’mores for dessert!!

Monday, Jan 30, 2012 Death Valley

Today we decided to visit the ghost town of Rhyolite, NV. This was a pretty big city. It was established in 1905, one year after gold was discovered here. The population grew to about 8,000 in it’s heyday. When the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 happened, the funding for Nevada mines decreased substantially. By 1920, there were only 14 people left in the town. At one time, there were three railroads that served Rhyolite. As you left town, there was a small museum that was closed, a circular rock maze, huge plaster ghosts, and an oversized glass mosaic couch! Jeanette and I did the maze and got REALLY dizzy!

We then drove just a few miles to Beatty, NV. I thought this would be a pretty big town because a lot of the business owners in Oatman, AZ, and some of the docents from Scotty’s Castle in Death Valley live there. Well, I guess they are the only ones who live there – hahaha. Just kidding. They had a gas station, a few stores, some homes and a nice park that we ate our lunch at. In 2009, the town had 1,200 people.

After lunch, it was off to Titus Canyon. This is the largest canyon in the park! It was a 3 hour drive on a 26 mile dirt road that is accessible to high clearance vehicles. We literally had to drive pretty straight up the mountain on a very narrow, winding, road that had sheer drops around every corner, and switchbacks galore!! Look at the picture right after the ghost, that's Larry's truck behind us! Look at the direction our truck is facing in the picture going through the canyon, and look where the road is!!! We saw several abandoned mines, and the small ghost town of Leadfield. We climbed up the tailings to a large shaft on the side of the mountain!! It was closed off because of the danger these shafts pose, but we could see pretty far in. As we winded down the mountain, we could see the very deep and narrow canyon come into view. At the bottom in some places, the walls of the canyon on both sides of us were so close we had to be very careful not to scrape the side of the truck!

Coming out of the canyon we were again on the flat desert floor. We drove another 30 miles on the dusty and rocky road to the Ubehebe Crater. This is a huge hole 750 feet deep, and 2,000 feet across. It was caused when the hot magma deep in the earth rose up and came in contact with the settling ground water. This caused the water to flash into steam with such force that a huge explosion was directed straight up, blasting away the mountain above. Cinders and ash were thrown from two to five miles in every direction.

After a long day of driving, we decided to have dinner at the little 49er Café in Furnace Creek Ranch. We waited at camp for everyone else who took their own adventures today, then drove to the restaurant. It was nice to sit at the long table and listen to all the stories everyone had to share. It was quite cold today, so being inside to eat all together was nice.

Tomorrow is our last day here. We are going to see the Darwin Falls, and anything else that time permits.

Sunday, Jan 29, 2012 Death Valley

After breakfast in our RV, we headed out to explore some of the closer areas of the park. Our first stop was Badwater. This is the lowest elevation in the Western Hemisphere at 282 ft. below sea level. Although two other spots in the Valley can at times sink to a few feet below this, Badwater holds the record because of it’s consistency in it’s elevation. This is also the hottest place in the world. Beating Libya’s high of 136 degrees in 1913, Badwater tipped the mercury at 140 degrees!!!

Or next stop was Ashford Mill. This is where they processed gold ore from the nearby mountain in 1913. We wondered why so very few structures were left at any of the old mines and camps. The ranger told us that wood is a very precious commodity in the desert. When a town closed up, any structure made of wood was taken down and used at a new location for fuel.

Back on the road again, we came upon the Devil’s golf course. This area was a huge salt pan that rivals Badwater for the lowest elevation in the Western hemisphere. Depending on the upheaval and salt deposited and eroded each year, the elevation comes within a few feet plus or minus that of Badwater. As the groundwater rises to the surface carrying salt with it, evaporation and crystallization buckle the crust and form strange orbs and pinnacles. Because of wind and rain erosion, theses formations become razor sharp. If you stand very quietly, you can hear the snapping sounds of the growing formations. As we started back out, two coyotes crossed the road! We stopped to get a picture and they kept running back and forth around our car. I think they were waiting for a handout! The picture you see on this entry is not just a dog, but the real deal!!

Our next stop was the Artist’s Pallet. In this area the rocks are formed by ancient volcanic ash. The colors are rich blues, violet, pink and green. Although the chemistry of this ash is all the same, the effects of erosion (whether it’s wind or rain) on the mica minerals explain the color differences.

On our way back to Furnace Creek, we stopped at the Visitor’s Center to do some shopping. Back at camp, we all pooled our food for making Taco’s.

Tomorrow we head out into the depths of Titus Canyon, and the ghost town of Rhyolite.

Saturday, Jan. 28, 2012 Death Valley

This morning we had a great breakfast at the clubhouse. The people who fixed the meal said they get up at 5:30am to get everything started. They had about 8 tables with coffee cups, juice cups, salt and pepper, and creamer in the center of each one. They offered waffles, eggs, sausage and biscuits with gravy. We got the meal cafeteria style and they served the coffee and orange juice.

We headed out at 9am for Death Valley. The wind was still pretty strong all the way to Amargosa. This little town consists of a small café and ice cream shop, a hotel and an opera house. They still have weekly performances here, given by Marta Becket, a 86 year old ballet dancer! She has been here performing since the early 1980’s, and all of the artwork inside the theatre (and there are wall to wall and ceiling murals) were painted by her. There were posters up that advertised her final performance here to be held in February. I’m not sure where the audience comes from, but it would be the death of this town if no one steps up to fill her shoes.

Having already had lunch in our RVs before we got to Amargoza, we headed on into Death Valley. We met two other couples when we arrived, so now we have 8 RVs in the caravan! We were very lucky to get sites all next door and across from each other! We set a community table in the center for our meals and all of us fit around the fire pit in our camping chairs. We all prepared our own meals tonight and shared sides. Before we retired, we made S’mores!!!!!!! Tomorrow we will take off exploring the valley!