Death Valley, CA - Mar. 30, 2005 - Apr. 2, 2005

Wednesday, March 30, 2005
 
We arrived in Death Valley on Wednesday, after a white-knuckle drive over some pretty narrow and steep roads. The worst was State Route 190. For any of you who have traveled it, I am sure you have a good sense of what we encountered. In it's narrowest, curviest, steepest areas it reminded me of our trip down to Baja. The road was 9 feet wide (our rig is 8 feet wide) with a guardrail on the right protecting us from dropoffs (500-800 feet) and drivers coming at us on the left in their own narrow lane. Susan closed her eyes to avoid looking at the very steep drop-offs and I tried not to run other drivers off the road as I steered away from the edge. I am happy to report that we were both successful!

We camped at the Sunset campground near Furnace Creek. It is little more than a large parking lot with restrooms and a dumpster. No hookups were available for our rig, but that is ok since we are happy with dry camping and the cost was only $10/night. If you have been following our story so far, you know that we have encountered wind much of the way. Well, it was no different at Death Valley. During our first night, the winds blew hard and kept us awake much of the night.

Thursday, March 31, 2005:

Today we took a trip up to Scotty's Castle to take in one of the Living History tours. It was very impressive (and expensive at $11 per person) and we took lots of pictures. We visited the Ubehebe Crater too and walked up to the top edge in peered over to see a very impressive hole in the ground formed by volcanic action. After leaving the crater we found a rough dirt road and drove 1 ½ mile up it to hike a modest distance into Titus canyon. On our way back out the dirt road we met Ricky Racer coming the other way in his "hot" truck. He raced by us in a very narrow section of the road. I had to drive up on the bank on my side of the road, but our side mirrors still connected. Although there was no damage, Bill was quite unhappy about the affair and had much to say about the idiot on the way back to camp. Susan endured.

April Fool's Day:

After driving a lot yesterday, we decided to take it easy today. We scraped the bugs off of the bikes and took them out for a ride. It was Susan's first extended bike ride since her knee surgery. She did great! We visited the Death Valley Visitor Center first. They had a nice film orientation and many books, videos, "stuff" about Death Valley to buy. Then we rode a short distance (1-2 miles) to see the Harmony Borax Works. This is where the "20 Mule Team Borax" term originated. This refers to the wagon train used to haul refined borax out of the valley a grueling 165 miles to the railroad in Mojave.

After that we rode back to camp and relaxed until sunset. We wanted to get some pictures of the sunset on the desert hills so we grabbed our chairs and walked a short distance away from the campground. It was pleasant to sit there and snap pictures in the quiet of the early evening.

Saturday, April 2, 2005:
 
On our last full day at Death Valley we wanted to head south, take a hike and see Badwater. We drove to an area known as the "Artist Palette Drive". It is one of the most impressive drives in Death Valley, but is currently closed for road repairs from their heavy rainfall this season. We decided to hike up the drive approximately 2 miles one-way. While we didn't hike the full nine miles of the scenic drive, what we saw was impressive. Following the hike we drove further south to Badwater. It is 280 feet below sea level and full of water. We walked out a salt-encrusted path to the water's edge.

Most impressive though, on this day, and throughout our stay in Death Valley were the wildflowers. The media has not been exaggerating. The wildflowers are spectacular and more abundant than we expected. They are also what have caused the outbreak of the butterfly/moths, aka, mustard bombs, as Susan describes them.