Mesquite Flats Dunes, Death Valley

On Wednesday, we started our day with a walk into the sand dunes at Mesquite Flats.  

Most of the Death Valley floor is either a hard salt and sand mix with a variety of scrubby creosote bush, desert holly, and salt grass. In this area and in one other, the sand has been trapped by the wind currents and has developed into shifting dunes.

I found my trekking poles came in handy, but were not really necessary.  The top few inches of sand were soft and loose, below that I could feel a hard base.

I now have a tactile understanding of why camels have big feet.

When I got to the top I was quite warmed up and took off my windbreaker.  It was quite a distance.  Everything is farther away or bigger than it seems.

There were many footprints along the ridges and on the sides of the dunes closest to the parking area giving evidence to the many people who have walked there recently.  I don't know how much of a wind it takes to erase them.

I'm glad we were able to experience the dunes, knowing the damage we did was temporary. Our tracks will be blown away.  

The park information indicated the dunes extend about two miles, getting smaller as they go.  This was taken from the top of one of the largest dunes.  It was neat to see the sand mostly unmarred.

We had two other small adventures Wednesday, but I will leave those for the next post. 

Weather report:  First week of January 2013, Death Valley National Park.  Overnight temps in high 30's.  No worry about freezing water hose or pipes.  Afternoon temperatures very comfortable in the mid to high 60's.  Sunny.  Great for hiking!

For more great pictures of Death Valley, check out Carol K's blog.

 She and Dave were here at the same time.

Scotty's Castle and a Hike in Golden Canyon

In an effort to catch up, this post covers two of our days in Death Valley. 

On Tuesday we went to Scotty's Castle, a one time private "winter get away" with an interesting origin.  

Scotty was a con-man ... 

Well, you just have to go there yourself to learn the rest of the story. The ranger-guided tour of the house, basement, and tunnels were well worth the ticket price.   

Every castle has to have at least one tower!

The beams were hand carved on site.

It is difficult to pick which detail picture to include.  I loved this spread and headboard. Everywhere you looked there were priceless pieces of furniture and art.

The only negative about the day was the temperature. Because Scotty's Castle is at 3000 feet altitude it was much colder there than on the valley floor.  It was COLD!

On Wednesday we did a fairly easy six mile hike. We started up Golden Canyon, went up to Zabriskie Point, and came back by way of Gower Gulch. 

The day was perfect.  Warm in the sunshine, and cool in the shade.  The clouds varied almost as much as the rock formations.  

It seemed that every time you turned or looked in a different direction a new type or color of stone presented itself.

Colors!  Most were soft earth tones, but from time to time you could see violet, pink, green, ocher, and sienna all at once.

I did not expect Death Valley to be like this. 

I love it.

Dec 31, 2012 in Death Valley

Because we had no decent internet in the valley, we will be posting days behind real time:

[From Craig] The last day of 2012 was one of the best we've had since we started RVing, in terms of seeing things and recording what we're seeing.

First we drove to the Badwater area, which is the lowest place in the Western Hemisphere. Everyone who comes there is required by law to pose and be photographed with this sign.







Badwater has a mountain right behind it, with a sign that says "SEA LEVEL" nearly halfway up its face.  As photography and web technology advance, someday some may be able to take a picture like this, and someone else may be able to read the sign, probably on a larger image.  For now you just have to take our word for what the little white text says.

Since Badwater is the lowest place around, on the rare occasions when it rains in Death Valley (1.4 inches per year), the runoff wants to come here.  And because the ground in deserts doesn't absorb much water, a fair amount of it gets here and then evaporates leaving its minerals (salt) behind.

Next we drove up the road to a canyon that includes this rock formation called the  Natural Bridge. 

 It doesn't look delicate.

The canyon also includes this dry waterfall, which was carved by the runoff from the (hardly ever) rainfall.

The next attraction along the road was a place called the Devil's Golf Course, which features broken blocks of rock topped with thick salt "frosting".  Here's a closeup.  Every golf shot would be lost between the rocks!

The best place we saw today is called the Artist Drive.  It's a one-way winding road through mountains that have the best colors and contrasts in Death Valley.

By the end of Artist Drive, both Merikay and I were blown away with the beauty of the mountains.  

The last stop of our day was a change of pace: the Harmony Borax Works, which operated from 1882 through 1889 to refine borax for industry and home cleaning. 

 Here Merikay checks out one of the 20 Mule Team wagon rigs used to haul borax to the railroad.






After such a day, we didn't have much energy left for New Year's Eve celebrations. Dinner in the coach, a spirited game of Yahtzee, a bottle of champagne, and finally pickled herring (for luck in the new year) concluded 2012 for us.  Hope you had fun too!

To Barstow and Death Valley

So here we are, in Death Valley National Park on the last day of a very interesting year. 

Some of the other bloggers have written posts about their year of full time RVing.  We are not there yet, but I feel we’ve made significant progress in that direction!  

In the last 16 months we have bought a motor home, Craig has retired, we have traveled to four wonderful national parks, fulfilled my wish to see the Rose Bowl parade, and completed numerous projects on the house.  

Yes I would say it has been a good year (plus.)

What will the next year bring?  I hope that by this time next year we too will be full timing and house free.  Don’t know where we will be parked.

I never have been one for making resolutions.  I do set goals and make plans.  But this year I am making a resolution.

In the next year I resolve to do at least 12 good deeds.  12 things, big or small that I have not done in the past.  I hope to be a better person.

Now on to the RV post!

Our drive from Desert Hot Springs to Barstow was a bit more hectic and a bit longer than  expected.  

Craig’s glasses are not the run of the mill “Lens Crafters” variety, and thus he needed to find a real optometrist office rather than just an optical department to fix them.  But because it was Saturday our choices were limited.  We decided to head to a bigger city, Riverside, since we also needed to get our propane filled and top off the diesel fuel, and Gas Buddy told us the prices were lower in that direction.

We first tried a Walmart Optical Department and they directed us to an optometrist that was open and could help us.  I won’t go into all of the details, but driving a 54’ RV rig (including toad) through a strange city is not fun!  Getting into the UHaul lot for propane required several passes around residential streets to get to the entrance that we could drive into and thru without unhooking the car! But we did it.

The stop at the optometrist went smoothly with me dropping Craig off and driving the Alfa to a side street and waiting for his call on the walkie-talkie before going back to pick him up.  This optometrist fixed the glasses with a spot weld because he did not have a screw that fit either.  Hopefully this will be the last time we are on this chase.

Craig even managed to get the McRib sandwich he wanted after seeing all of the McDonald billboards. I dropped him off and waited in a Walmart parking lot next door. (I had a salad.)

Driving out of Riverside and to Barstow we had another first. Rain. Craig had installed new wipers on the Alfa and between them, the new front tires and alignments and the new shocks, the rig handled nicely. We are beginning to think there might be a “break-in period” with the new shocks.  The ride is definitely smoother now.

As we approached Barstow we saw many clusters of RVs boondocking in the desert. 

As I said before, we are not there yet.  We had our reservation at a little inexpensive ($27) RV park with drive-thru and hookups.

Although since it was only an overnight and freezing temperatures were a possibility, we only hooked up the power. The place was small and old, but clean and loved. 

We pulled out of Barstow about 11:00 AM for a sunny 200 mile drive.  Although I would never want to live in the desert full time, the ever changing views of the mountains are a feast for the eyes. 

We are now at the Stovepipe Wells RV park, with full hookups for five nights.    

Happy New Year everyone!

Death Valley

Internet so slow here I will catch up in a few days..

Desert Hot Springs

We really lucked out on choosing the Caliente Springs Resort in Desert Hot Springs, CA as our first stop after Christmas, and our first Passport America experience. In fact the 50% discount pays for our first year membership! If we hadn't had PA, we probably would not have stayed there because $50 per day is a bit rich for our budget. But $25 per day is not.

The resort was easy to find, had nice smooth paved roads and large spaces. It's mostly park models, which are simple structures that are common in sunbelt communities. 

We could make a reservation with PA for only two nights.  After January 1st, a one month stay is required because they primarily cater to Snow Birds who stay for the season.

The best feature of the resort is the hot water pools.  They have four smaller pools ranging from warm to very hot. There is also a large warm pool for regular swimming, water aerobics, and what was going on Thursday night, water volleyball.

I am a firm believer in the restorative powers of hot water! In past years I had memberships at 24 Hour Fitness where I went for water aerobics and a hot tub soak at least three times a week for many years. I dropped that membership a few years ago, because the club was over 20 miles from the house, and I had gotten a treadmill at home. I got more exercise and it didn't take as long. But I miss the pool.

On Friday we went on our first desert hike. We went to the Whitewater Preserve and walked a four mile trail along a desert river bed. There were many different colors,  all soft and muted. 

The weather was very nice.  I think it was close to 60 most of the day.  No wind to speak of and brilliant sunshine.  A perfect day for a walk. 

Most of the walk was on the Pacific Crest Trail. Recently I read books about women hiking the Appalachian Trail and the Pacific Crest Trail. I was excited to see this sign and realize we were walking the same path as the gal in the book did. 

I didn't remember to take my hiking poles along, but most of the path was quite easy.  We did have to cross the river, but it was easy.

 In the afternoon we went over to Indio to the Shield Date Garden. I had read about it in one of my travel books and then again in Howard and Linda's blog.    






We bought a couple of boxes of dates and a couple of date shakes. They were yummy!

We ended the day with another soak in the hot pools.   Craig thinks it helped the pain in his toe, which I think is arthritis.  It just made me feel good all over!  

Saturday will be an easy drive of about 100 miles up to Barstow. We want to find some kind of optical shop that is open along the way, because Craig's glasses have lost a screw. We also need to get propane in the Alfa.

Our stopping point in Barstow is not exciting.  It is just a place to overnight.  We probably could just boondock somewhere, but we like hook ups.

Our reservation in Death Valley starts on Sunday night. Stay tuned for a post from there...

Christmas 2012 - San Diego

Having arrived at our daughter's home three days before Christmas, we had some time to help her with the holiday preparations and hang out with our grandsons. The boys are into chess just now and they played together, with Craig, and with their mother.  I don't play!

Over the weekend I took several walks along the cliffs that are two blocks from their home. I had a great walking partner, Sandy, their Golden Retriever.  My daughter has a sore foot and was unable to come along.

My daughter and I went grocery shopping together, and I prepared Eggplant stacks for the Christmas Eve meal.  It was also fun to work side-by-side with her to make a wonderful beef Wellington dinner on Christmas Day. My son-in-law made a delicious Pavlova for dessert and the men  did the cleanup and the dishes!  

Christmas morning was dedicated to gift giving and present opening.  The boys were happy with all of their gifts and did not seem to be disappointed with anything. 

Our younger grandson loved his camo-Snuggie, and wore it all morning.  He had also made or collected small gifts for his stuffed animals and unwrapped them for each of the critters.

On Christmas we Skyped with our son in Seattle and with our son-in-law's parents in New Zealand.  Far flung family!

My daughter set up a very complex jigsaw puzzle that we all worked on.  Eventually everyone but Craig drifted away.

Games with complex rules seemed par for the day.  Our older grandson explains the rules to his mother!  (Notice he has the periodic table of Minecraft on his tee shirt!)

The days went by way too fast.  Tomorrow (Thursday) we will be leaving for Desert Hot Springs in the Alfa.


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