DEATH VALLEY…PART 2

Friday, May 4 – Death Valley is vey different than what we expected.  It's not just a big flat desert.   It is like Yellowstone, so diverse in its landscape. It has mysterious sliding rocks, a massive blast crater, ghost towns, sand dunes, mountains, canyons, brightly-colored badlands, and mines to name a few. Also, the Timbisha Shoshone Indians live in Death Valley.

Badwater Basin was next on the list. As stated in the last blog, it is the lowest point in North America and a busy and popular stop for the tourists.

The thirty or so people at this stop was the biggest crowd we saw all day. A neat addition to Badwater Basin, is a sign high in the mountains indicating Sea Level, 282 feet above the Basin floor.

See the sign Paul is pointing to…find the white arrow. This is how far below Sea level he is.

This is what the sign reads.

Here is what we look like at 282' below sea level. Don't think we look any different.  Taller and thinner…maybe!

Amazing this could even be done.

Image crossing the desert floor pulling one of these. Oh my goodness!

Artist's Drive and Artist's Palette were next. A dipping, diving, curving, one-way road that weaves through striking ravines and colorful rock formations.

Pink, green, purple, brown and black rock provide a visual feast to the visitor. Artist's Palette, highlights the drive with sea green, lemon yellow, periwinkle blue and salmon pink mineral deposits splashed across the barren landscape.

We then stopped at the Visitor's Center to pay our entry fee (remember, we entered free with the Senor Pass). A pretty crazy way to collect entry fees.....we're almost done viewing the park!

It was here we decided to continue on, to the extreme North end of the Park, some 55-miles away and visit Scotty's Castle. It's a long drive, one we were told by friends not to miss, and we're glad we stopped.  Death Valley is huge.  More than you can see in a day or in  a week. Scotty's Castle is next.  Come back and see this magnificent structure. 

Marsha wanted to share some of the lovely flowers in bloom at the Escapee park. She just loves her flowers.

Bird of Paradise bush.

This little guy was really busy.

They have a beautiful rose garden.

Just a few close ups of the beauty.

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

 

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.