Warning: long and picture heavy.
People either love deserts or they hate them. I have met few who were neutral. I am one of those that love deserts – the vastness, the stubborn plants surviving in harsh conditions, the adapted animals, the massive empty skies, the mountains showing their bones without being hidden by extras like trees. Death Valley National Park is my second favorite national park behind only Yellowstone. We are here for two weeks, and I love everything about it except the lack of internet.
First, DVNP is huge! It is the largest national park in the lower 48. It takes a long time to get from one major site to another, so you can’t do lots of activities scattered across the park in a short time. We got in on Monday, 30 October, and found a primo site in Sunset campground at the east end of a row with nothing between us and the mountains. Since we had driven through two time zones in the last two days, I was hurting! I managed to stay up until 9:30 Pacific time, but it was hard. We had planned on activities on Tuesday, but I was so tired we just stayed at the Furnace Creek area across the street from the campground.
This is a sunset picture from our campsite. No editing, just my little point and shoot camera on a “low light” mode. Pretty impressive, huh?
We went to Pahrump on Wednesday to get an ATT phone and data plan, hoping it would give us better connectivity. It did, but not in DVNP. They use a private network, and pretty much nothing else gets through. Oh well, it should help other places.
On Thursday we got to Father Crowley Point, a canyon overlook where fighter jets from the numerous air bases nearby do training. We were lucky enough to get five flybys from a combination of F-18 and T-38s. Nice! I couldn’t capture a photo, but the sight of aircraft flying below you through a tight canyon is pretty impressive. There are aficionados that go out every day with radios to track the flights, and a pair of them were kind enough to announce the flights just before they showed up. Along the way we stopped at Panamint Spring Resort for lunch and a bit of WiFi. Well worth the cost of the sandwich. Of course I didn’t catch up, but I made a small dent in my backlog.
We have friends arriving too, and it was enjoyable sitting around the propane fire pit (no wood or charcoal fires allowed). It has been hotter than average, so we had to wait u til after sunset to get comfortable each evening. I really don’t like heat, so we gave in a few days and ran the generator for air conditioning.
On Monday, 5 November, we took a trip with the Death Valley 49ers for a private tour of the Cerro Gordo mining town on the west side of the Panamint range above the Owens Valley. Fantastic!
See that little cage in the bottom center of the last picture? That is what you would use to travel 900’ down. This is an unusual headframe in that it was completely inside a building.
Oh, and just in case anyone tells you the desert is just brown, you can show them this.
On Tuesday we did the Westside Road along with some friends. This is just a rough, sandy road on the west side of Badwater Basin with a number of historic sites. We got a nice surprise when we ran across the 49ers wagon train making their way to Furnace Creek.
Wednesday we didn’t do much, though I got some sewing done. I now have all the blocks for the RV quilt completed and we even laid them out, using the bed as a “design wall” to determine layout.
Thursday we drove Titus Canyon. This time our friends went with us in the Jeep since their dual real wheel pickup would have been challenged in a few spots. This is one of my favorite drives in the park, and I think you will see why. It starts with a long drive through sage into the mountains. Eventually you get to steep, rocky switchbacks with great canyon views. Eventually you go downhill a bit to the ghost town of Leasfield (a total scam that blew upon the investor’s faces), though I didn’t take any pictures this time. It was COLD with a nasty wind so we didn’t wander around like we usually do. Then there are more switchbacks until we got to the canyon wash you follow to the end.We were about the first through the canyon since we left early, and we were lucky enough to see four quail and even two desert bighorn ewes. The latter were a first for us in DVNP.
Remember I said it was windy? Here is a view of the dust storm from the exit of Titus Canyon. This is mostly in the area of the Mesquite Sand Dunes.
One of the other fun things to do at the Encampment is to hear from the historical reenactor they bring every year. This year Steve Hale acted the part of Bill Keys, pioneer jack of all trades. He even had others at the Encampment play roles including Kenn McCarty who brings the Belgiums and wagon plus the blacksmith who was demonstrating his skills. There was a tie in with Death Valley Scotty, but the material spent most of the time on Keys’s time as a miner and rancher in what is now Joshua Tree National Park. We visited his ranch when we were there a couple of years ago. It has been preserved by the NPS as a significant historical site. Steve Hale really gets into character. Last year he was a rich and very proper insurance executive.
Friday was the big wagon train arrival, always a highlight. The last Marine Corps mounted color guard lead the way, though I seemed to have posted the pictures in the wrong order!
There were lots of other wagons and riders, but my phone data connection is giving me fits on pictures.
I can’t leave this post without talking about the music at the Encampment. There is lots and lots and lots of music! An amateur group plays in the campground every night, and professionals play on Thursday through Saturday nights. Most of it is old Western songs with some more contemporary western music thrown in for good measure. Last year there was some bluegrass too, but so far we haven’t had any this year (sigh).
To end this incredibly lengthy post, I will give some results of our motorhome experience. This is the first time we have boondocked for two weeks, and all the systems worked very well. I LOVE the solar installation! At most we run the generator for an hour to do the bulk charging, and the solar tops off the batteries easily even on these shorter days. We have decided to be generous with our water usage and dump every 5 days at about 80% full. We could go longer with a few modifications of our routine, but the dump site is close and easy to use here. The sewing machine works great on the inverter, but the iron(even my small one), pulls down the batteries quickly (not a surprise). I sew quite a bit, then do all my pressing at once with the generator on. The Instant Pot takes a lot of power, so I won’t be using it on the inverter except for shorter cooking times – no ribs for 25 minutes! It worked fringe for souls vide style egg bites though. The microwave works great on inverter to heat something up for a few minutes, but is too big of a battery hog for more than that. Another thing I discovered is that I really, really don’t like going without internet access for long periods. After 3 days, I was antsy to read my mail and some news so we would drive to Stove Pipe Wells or Pahrump to get data access. Lesson learned! I had to drive to Pahrump to get enough data access to upload the pictures for this.
We leave tomorrow and head to Needles KOA. We will be storing the motorcoach until we come back after Christmas. Sigh. Lots of cleaning up to do before putting it to bed, and we have to figure out how to get the bikes stored inside! I really don’t want to drive to Iowa and back with them, and I doubt the Iowa weather will be good enough to do much riding between Thanksgiving and Christmas.