Road Trip 2016: The End of the Road

October 7, 2016

Friday was the last day of our trip.  I took a few final photos of Red Rock Canyon, most of which ended up blurry because I'd been shooting stars with the lens set to manual focus the night before and forgot to change it back to auto focus.  D'oh.  I lucked into a couple of in-focus shots, though.  That'll teach me to wear my glasses, you'd think.

César E. Chávez National Monument, CA

We bumped into the César E. Chávez National Monument on the way home, so we stopped for a quick visit.  It was quite early, so the visitor center wasn't open yet.  César and his wife appear to have been laid to rest there in a beautiful garden area with a couple of fountains.  It's an unusual little park.

César E. Chávez National Monument, CA

From there, we bombed our way back home.  Of course, Pongo was very excited to see my wife and our other dog Charlie.  I was expecting to find one or two foster dogs in the house, but for the first time in over a year there was none.  Hooray!  Pongo ran crazy for about five minutes then curled up in a ball on the couch and went to sleep.  I did pretty much the same thing.

Interstate 5, CA

Soundtrack:

• Jeff Buckley -- Mystery White Boy

Road Trip 2016: Death Valley National Park

October 6, 2016

It's about a nine hour drive from Las Vegas to home for me.  It takes about the same amount of time to get from Death Valley to home.  So, it might seem a little weird that I would go through Death Valley on my way home knowing full well that I'm no closer to getting home from Death Valley than when I left Las Vegas.  It's a drive I've done before, though, and one I really enjoy.  If I could pick one park that I consider MY park, the one park I would choose to visit if I could only visit one, it would be Death Valley.

Las Vegas, NV

Las Vegas, NV

It felt strange to leave Las Vegas having not set foot inside a casino.  I enjoy casinos.  I have a fairly low, hard limit ($200) for losses in a night of gambling which I've never actually reached.  I don't think I've been to casinos more than three times in a single year.  It's fun, though.  Drinking.  Gambling.  People watching.  I'm usually ready to shed myself of this town when I leave, though.  This time, I could have spent another night.

Rhyolite, NV

We stopped in Rhyolite, NV before entering Death Valley.  It's a cool little ghost town with a nearby large sculpture exhibit.  The idea of visiting a Wild West ghost town is cool.  This one doesn't quite live up to what I imagine a ghost town should be,  Still, it's a fun stop.

Death Valley National Park, CA

Death Valley National Park, CA

So, what is it about Death Valley that I like so much?  Part of it is the devastating solitude.  All one has to do is stop just about anywhere in the park and walk a couple of hundred yards away from one's car.  It's easy to imagine that no one has ever stood exactly in that spot.  Then the quiet hits you.  It's like no where else.  All you may hear is wind, and if the wind isn't blowing it can be dead silent.  In certain spots you might look around and see not a single, solitary living thing for miles in all directions.  It's an amazing feeling to be that isolated and yet out in the great wide open.

Death Valley National Park. CA

Death Valley National Park, CA

Meep! Meep! -- Artist's Loop, Death Valley National Park, CA

Artist's Loop, Death Valley National Park, CA

Artist's Palette. Death Valley National Park, CA

It's also interesting to imagine what it must have been like for people trying to traverse this place in wagon trains.  To have crossed the Mojave just to run into this?  I can't imagine.  Even worse, to somehow get through Death Valley and over the Panamint Range and then through Panamint Valley and over the next mountain range only to run smack into the tallest section of the 10,000 foot tall, 200 mile long, 60 miles wide sheer granite wall that is the Sierra Nevadas?  Poor folks.

Death Valley National Park, CA

Mesquite Flat Dunes, Death Valley National Park, CA

I saw three coyotes coming down the mountains and into Panamint Valley.  They all seemed to be begging for food.  I'm guessing people feed them on the roadside.  Jerks.

Coyote -- Death Valley National Park, CA

Coyote -- Death Valley National Park, CA

Coyote -- Death Valley National Park, CA

Coyote -- Death Valley National Park, CA

Coyote -- Death Valley National Park, CA

Coyote -- Death Valley National Park, CA

Coyote -- Death Valley National Park, CA

It wasn't quite 4:00 when we hit Panamint Valley, so I decided to drive on a little farther to Red Rock Canyon.  It has a camp ground I've been wanting to stay at.  That turned out to be a pretty good decision.  The night was warm and there was little wind.  It was very quiet, with only a handful of other sites being occupied.  We had a nice dinner while listening to the baseball playoffs on the radio then slept soundly after the game.

Panamint Dunes. Death Valley National Park, CA

Rainbow Canyon, Death Valley National Park, CA

Red Rock Canyon State Park, CA

Red Rock Canyon State Park, CA

Red Rock Canyon State Park, CA

Soundtrack:

• The Beatles -- Let It Be
• Loretta Lynn -- Van Lear Rose
• Woody Allen -- The Night Club Years [1]
• Lou Reed -- Rock 'n' Roll Animal
• Left of the Dial [2]
• The Dead Weather -- Horehound / Sea of Cowards

Yea, Though I Walk . . . Red Rock Canyon State Park

Getting There

April 27, 2014

Soundtrack:

• Sonic Youth -- Murray Street
• The Smiths -- The Queen Is Dead / Strangeways, Here We Come

I spent the weekend down in Death Valley.  Woot.

Western Kingbird -- Merced County, CA

There's magic in the wind in Death Valley, but I'll get to that in later posts.  Getting there and coming back is part of the whole experience.  This post is all about the drive down.

Merced County, CA

Interstate Five, Merced County, CA

I drove down I-5 to Bakersfield.  That's one of the least interesting stretches of highway I've ever been on.  There's a lot to like about California's Central Valley, but somehow the engineers who put this road together figured out how to hide almost all of it.  If you look for it, though, you can find things to keep you entertained even on this crusty stretch of interstate.

Cliff Swallows -- Buttonwillow, CA

Take birds, for instance.  Stop at any rest area and you're bound to see a variety of species. As you're driving over overpasses, you may notice large numbers of small birds in the vicinity.  Those are cliff swallows.  They don't live on cliffs anymore.  They like to build their nests on freeway overpasses.  There's a large colony in Buttonwillow.  Hmmm.  Colony?  Flock?  Village?  Metropolis?  I don't know what the right term is for what the birds have built here.  In the Spring the adults will be flying around gathering food.  I like stopping to watch them feed their young 'uns.  It looks like a lot of work for those poor parents.

Red Rock Canyon State Park. CA

After heading East from Bakersfield, I stopped at Red Rock Canyon.  This place has nothing on Southern Utah, but it's still a fun place to stop and stretch the old legs before making the last stretch into the Valley of Death.

Red Rock Canyon State Park. CA

Of course, before Death Valley comes Owens Valley.  There aren't too many prettier stretches of highway than those that course through Owens Valley.

Owens Valley, CA

One hundred years ago Owens Valley was filled up by Owens Lake.  There's no lake there anymore, just salt flats and ponds.  The lake was drained dry by Los Angeles.  The city diverted the lake's main tributaries to sate the city's thirst.  The same thing was happening to Mono Lake as well until Congress put a stop to it.  The story of Owens Lake is ancient history, though.  It's been mostly dry since 1924.  Some water has been diverted back to the valley, so perhaps someday the lake will be restored.  Not in my lifetime, I'm sure.

Owens Valley, CA

It was getting dark by the time I was pulling into Panamint Springs.  I've stayed here every time I've visited.  It's on the Western edge of the park and not actually in Death Valley proper, but just above Panamint Valley.  It's got the best views of any of the campgrounds in the park.  I always try to get one of the sites up against the desert.  At night it can feel like I'm out there all by myself without a soul for miles around.  Well, as long as I don't turn around to see the lights of the bar, anyway.

Death Valley National Park, CA