DEATH VALLEY NATIONAL PARK

Friday, May 4 – We got an early start this morning, heading out to Death Valley shortly after 7 a.m. We had about an hour drive, just to get to the park. Being a National Park, we were able to use Paul's Golden Age Pass to enter the park free.

The drive to Death Valley was pretty flat.

Death Valley is the largest national park in the contiguous United States. It comprises nearly 3.4 million acres. It is about 100 miles long and averages nearly 20 miles wide. It can have some extremely HOT temperatures, but we were very fortunate today with temperatures in the low 80's. It was actually very pleasant.

Being such a large park, makes seeing everything difficult. To travel from one sight to another takes time (about a half hour), and the drives can be tiring. It is also, a long way from Pahrump – about an hour on the south end and over 2-hours at Scotty's Castle on the north end of the park. We planned on spending 2-days touring the park, but had seen most of it shortly after noon, so we decided to “bite the bullet” and finish it up in one day. That would save us more than 4-hours driving and quite a few gallons of gasoline.

Our first stop was Dante's View. A very popular viewing point, Dante's View is more than 5000 feet above the valley floor. From the top, you can see most of the 110-mile long Valley. With a short hike from the viewing area, you can spot the highest and lowest points in the contiguous United States.

The white salt flats far below is Badwater Basin, at 282 feet below sea level.   Across the canyon is Telescope Peak, towering 11,049 feet above the basin floor. Just west off Telescope Peak is Mount Whitney, the highest point in the lower 48 at 14,491 feet.

The hazy appearance of the mountains is due to a mixture from plant moisture and the wind.

Just admiring the view.

Right before we left, we spotted this guy. It has been years since we saw anyone taking photos like this. Paul went up to talk to him about the camera, but he just smiled and shook his head. We think he…No speaky the English.

Zabriskie Point (the Badlands of Death Valley) was our next lookout. A popular area for viewing sunrises and sunsets. We enjoyed a panoramic view of golden-brown mudstone hills riddled with rills and gullies.

On our ride to Devil's Golf Course, we saw this hungry looking coyote. 

A short ride down a bumpy gravel road is Devil's Golf Course.

A vast evaporating dish covering more than 200 square miles. It is crusted over with a variety of salts.

Paul gave it the taste test....yep it's salty!

This is just our first three stops in Death Valley. We will continue the tour in our next blog.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y'all back real soon.

GOOD BYE TO VEGAS…HELLO PAHRUMP

May 3  - We left the Boulder Elks much earlier than we had planned. The winds have been blowing big time for the last two days. Normally the mornings have been pretty calm, but about noon it picks up fast. This morning it was different. It was blowing tons fairly early, so we decided we better hit the road before it breaks loose.

The drive was uneventful and the wind wasn't too  bad. After passing Vegas, we had a pretty good climb through Spring Mountains National Forest. We had a slow decline into Pahrump.

What a gorgeous sky we had for our drive.

These mountains are so beautiful…they look fake!

We are staying at Pair-A-Dice Escapees Co-Op Park. We are in Site 28B. All the sites are pull though.

Yes, that small casita is part of our spot. We can use the patio and porch.

Our site is about 70 ft. long.

Looking to our left.

Looking to our right.

The roads and sites are all gravel. The landscaping is very nicely done. Our hostess, Laura, was very friendly and helpful. This is a very friendly park.

We will be here until at least Sunday. This is our home base for our visit to Death Valley.

Note: We tried this before, and it didn't work. We thought we would try one more time with the help from fellow blogger, Rick of Rick and Paulette's RV Travels. 

Here is the situation. We have Verizon as our Internet carrier. We are limited to 5Gs/month. Several readers have asked us to link our photos so they can click on them and they will enlarge. We use Live Writer to write and post our blogs. If we link our photo to an enlarged photo, both photos are uploaded to the Internet…thus more MBs are uploaded for each blog.

As a test to see actually how many MBs are uploaded, we are using this blog as a test. Hopefully, we have it figured out so that we are not using tons of MBs for each blog. So, knock yourself out clicking on any of the photos to see an enlarge version. Fingers crossed that this works.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y'all real soon. Have a great day.

VEGAS BABY!!!

Monday, April 30 – We left the MH at the Boulder City Elks under Bella's watchful eye and headed to the Marriott Spring Hill Suites Hotel on the Strip in Vegas. Our daughter, Carrie, travels extensively in her job and has an abundance of hotel points. She's offered us a free room in Vegas to “party the night away” and not have to worry about driving. An offer we couldn't refuse!

Can't believe these rooms go for this price. Amazing.

Very different bathroom arrangement. Left door to the lav area; right door shower area.

We arrived at the hotel for an early check-in and even got to have a hot breakfast at the complimentary breakfast bar. After delivering our luggage to the room, we headed to the Strip for some sightseeing.

We did have one “eye-opening” experience in the Paris Las Vegas Hotel. Wanting an adult beverage, we sat at the bar to play video poker and each ordered a Bourbon and Ginger Ale. $18.00! That was our most expensive two drink bar bill ever!

The closest we will ever get to the Eiffel Tower…Paris Las Vegas

The hotel was a couple blocks off the Strip so we took the advice of fellow bloggers, Kevin and Ruth, and drove the car to one of the hotels on the Strip that offered Valet parking. For the price of a $2 tip to the valet, we parked right in the thick of the Vegas experience. What a great way to solve the parking problem in a big city!

We did a little gambling or should we call it a contribution to the Vegas economy. We limit our playing to $20 each. We didn't even gamble away that much because we were too busy sightseeing.

This place is amazing.

Just look at the colors.

New York, New York. WOW!

The Cosmopolitan had the most unique bars.

That is a bar on the other side of those lights.

Luxor Hotel/Casino in the background.

With Marsha's recent bout with an aching back and hip, we kept the sightseeing to a half day. We returned to the hotel by mid-afternoon to rest up for tonight's visit to Downtown Vegas and the Freemont Light Show.

WOW! What a wonderful time we had in Downtown. We enjoyed this way more than our visit to the Strip this morning. It is much easier to walk on the covered street than having to use the elevated people bridges on the Strip.

The casinos aren't as large and glitzy as they are on the Strip, but they are so close to each other, it was like being in one huge casino anyway.

The overhead light and laser show begins at dark and is every hour on the hour. There are different themes for each show and they are utterly AMAZING!!! There was American Pie, Bon Jovi, Kiss, and others.

American Pie by Don McLean. "Peace Out!"

A generation lost in space.

Bon Jovi melody.

There were also street entertainers, music and of course, the ever popular “people watching.” You see everything imaginable here.

Guess whose favorite street entertainers these were. Marsha is not sure what there entertainment "specialty" is.

We vacationed here over 30-years ago and remember the 99¢ shrimp cocktails at the Four Queens Casino.

Wonder why they hid the price in amongst the higher priced items.

After an enjoyable night on Freemont Street we headed back to the Strip to see the million lights and enjoy the Strip at night. It sure takes Hoover Dam's power plants to help light this city. Another WOW and AMAZING sight!

We even drove out to the end of the Strip to get our picture taken at the famous Welcome to Vegas sign. Another memory from our last time here. Sure wish we had pictures from that trip to show.

We were just like a couple of kids. We stayed out  W - A – Y  too late, but we must practice the City Motto......”What happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas.” We'll leave it to your imagination!

We slept in a little the next morning, enjoyed the complimentary breakfast and returned to the Strip to finish our sightseeing. We used the Cesar Palace Valet Parking and enjoyed seeing this area of the Strip.

Our two favorite Hotels were the beautiful Italian/Roman architecture of Cesar's Palace and the Venetian. We thought the Venetian, with the gondolas floating down the indoor river, and the amazing architecture and artwork, was our number one favorite.

Venetian lobby.

This is inside the building.

The ceiling was GORGEOUS.

This is Paul's favorite view of the ceiling.

Outside of Caesar's Palace.

Marsha traveled to Italy with our daughter, Carrie, a few years back. Both these hotels gave her so many great flashbacks. She loved it.

This was one HUGE difference between our first visit and now…the traffic. The main drag had SIX lanes going one way and four the other. No wonder there are pedestrian walkways going over most of the streets.

If you plan to visit Vegas, do not miss Downtown. We enjoyed it much more than the Strip.  If you want to see more photos of our visit to Las Vegas, just click here.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y 'all back real soon. Have a great day!