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The next day, I made it to White Sands by 6:30. The ranger-lead stroll was scheduled to start at 7:00. I had a few minutes, so I drove the loop at the end of the road. It didn’t look too promising. The skies were cloudy and a cold wind was whipping the sand into the air. It felt uncomfortable on the skin, and I only had on shorts and a tee shirt. The weather forecast was for a little warmer temperatures than I was experiencing.

You can see the virga, which is precipitation that evaporates before it reaches the earth.

I watched and waited to see if the sun would come out.

A few times, I decided to leave and I headed for the exit. It was too chilly for me to stroll with the ranger. But, I kept catching a glimpse of the sky in my rear-view mirror and it would stop me in my tracks.

I kept turning around and parking. It was getting interesting.

And then I left.

What a splendid show our Sun put on for those of us lucky enough to be there.

I was going to title this post “Tucson in the Rearview Mirror.” But I realized that when I’m hitched up and rolling, the only thing in my rearview mirror is Flo!

My stay in Tucson this time wasn’t exactly what I had been hoping for. I had a doctor appointment that was canceled and I didn’t get the repairs done on Flo that I had scheduled. And, it was heartbreaking to have to put Walter down. But, his time had come, I made an appointment with a doctor in a town I’ll be in shortly, and at least the parts for the repair came in. Now I just need a little help getting them installed.

And, I was parked right next to a lemon tree at the KOA in Tucson. They encouraged me to take lemons, and you can see that I did!

I made it to Alamogordo, New Mexico last night and got into my campsite at Oliver Lee Memorial State Park just as the last bit of twilight was fading. No further damage was done to truck or trailer.

I will be reporting on some places I was last month as well as keeping you up to date on where I am. Look for posts about Lone Pine, California and Joshua Tree National Park, as well as White Sands National Monument. I sure am lucky to be able to see all these marvelous places.

Thanks for coming along for the ride.

 

Before I wrap up my Death Valley Tales, let me dedicate a few lines to a summary.

Highlights and surprises

My biggest surprise was the amount of color I found in Death Valley. Every family in the color wheel was represented. Who knew that it wasn’t black and white?

I was also surprised by the drive through Titus Canyon. It was a reminder of what travel must have been like at the beginning of automobile tourism and even back to prospecting days, which really weren’t all that long ago. It’s not all that often this city girl gets to drive that far on a dirt road.

The Artists Drive was amazing! All those colors splashed across the landscape.

The swimming pool at Furnace Creek Ranch Resort and RV Park was a delight. A little bit of affordable luxury for a hot and dusty place. It is available to all visitors to the park, and only costs $5 to use if you are not a guest of the Resort.

Disappointments

It seems to be a bit whiney to say I was disappointed with the weather, but the wind kept me from fully exploring the park.

 

I did a bit of research on the wind, and found that when I visited, in April, was during the windier part of the year. When I return, I will try to schedule my visit for December or January, which has the lowest average windspeed, I found this information at traveltips.usatoday.com/weather-climate-death-valley-california-59318.html.

I ate a couple of meals in the restaurants at Furnace Creek Ranch Resort and RV Park. The best things I can say about them are that the food sustained life and didn’t make me sick. On the other hand, the kindest thing I can say is that the meals were uninspired. Oh, and the food is expensive. If you want a table indoors with someone else preparing the food, then the price is worth it. A better alternative would be to bring your food into the park with you.

Campgrounds

The site I had at Furnace Creek Ranch Resort and RV Park was nice, but the sites were so small that I had difficulty getting backed in. Two of my neighbors helped out by moving their vehicles. The plantings and the close quarters may have helped reduce the effects of the wind.

The fee to stay in a full hook up site $38, although they do have a campground without hook ups for $18. With both of these options, you get to use the swimming pool, shower facility, coin operated laundry and sports courts.

After my first night, I stayed at Texas Spring campground, which is across the road from Furnace Creek Ranch. The listed price is $14, but the machine that sells the camping permits only charged $12. There is a lot of room there, along with picnic tables and fire rings. The sites don’t have hook ups, but water and flush toilets are available at the campground.

The only National Park campground that accepts reservations is Furnace Creek, but there are plenty of campgrounds that are first come, first served. Don’t let the lack of a reservation stand in the way of planning a visit.

Next time

There is so much that I missed on this trip that I know I will be back.

On my next visit, I will try to schedule  my trip for January or February. The winds should be lighter and the temperatures should still be comfortable for outdoor activities. January’s average high is 67º and the low is 40º. February’s average high is 73º and the low is 46º.

Next time, I want to hike Mosaic Canyon and Darwin Falls. I want to spend more time at the dunes. I want to walk to Salt Creek and see the pupfish. Natural Bridge Canyon also sounds like a great hike. I’d like to see the Wildrose Charcol Kilns.

If I feel like a 27 mile drive one way over rough roads, I’d like to see The Racetrack, where rocks seem to mysteriously move across a dry lakebed, leaving tracks behind them.

I might even want to do the Titus Canyon drive again!

Advice

If you plan to take the Titus Canyon drive, continue up the road to Beatty, Nevada and fill your gas tank. Gas is a lot cheaper there.

Take plenty of food. You won’t starve there. You can buy food and eat in restaurants, but you will probably be more satisfied with the selection you bring with you.

Don’t worry if you can’t make reservations, unless you want to site at Furnace Creek Ranch Resort and RV Park. There will a place for you.

 

 

When you live on the road full time, life comes along with you. It’s not like a vacation, where you can imagine that things are on hold for a while.

Case in point, my intrepid traveling companion, Walter the Cat, has crossed the Rainbow bridge, as people like to say.

He was a wonderful traveling companion. When he’d hear me start hitching up Flo the Airstream, he’d get get settled down in his traveling position – under the covers on my bed.

When he’d hear me returning, he’d be at the door meowing. I always imagined him saying, “Hello! Now get in here and feed me!”

At the end of the night, he’d follow me to the bedroom and jump up and get cozy. When it was really cool – or even cold – he’d snuggle under the covers with me.

In the last month or so, Walter really started failing. First he started refusing to eat. I tried him on all sorts of canned food. For a while,  he would lap at the sauce and eat a bit of the meat. In the end, he wouldn’t touch it and he would only sniff at his water.

One thing I have learned in my travels thus far is that there are always people out there to help. My thanks go out to Tammy and Dr. Devon at Valley Animal Hospital in Tucson, who treated me and Walter with great kindness.

Walter was a great companion to my father. He thought Walter had a limp, so he named him after Walter Brennan. Personally, I thought he had more of John Wayne’s swagger than Walter Brennan’s limp.

In any event, Walter has gone on ahead and there is a hole in my heart today.

 

On my way back to the campground from the trip to Scotty’s Castle, I took a bumpy dirt road to the mouth of Titus Canyon. It was one of those intriguing narrow canyons. It was about ten feet across and maybe a hundred feet deep with those smoothed off walls created by years and years and years of erosion.

The colors were fantastic! Even the pebbles on the ground were like gems glowing in the sun. My “beachcomber gene” kicked in and would take a step or two and then stop to admire the stones.

Now, I had seen Lucile Ball in “The Long Long Trailer” way back when Saturday afternoons were filled with old movies. The most memorable scene – well, the only scene I actually remember – was when Desi was having trouble towing the trailer over a mountain pass and he discovered that Lucy had been collecting rocks.

It is a good thing that collecting rocks in national parks isn’t allowed. It has been so difficult to keep my collecting urges in check. So, I satisfied myself with taking photos of the rocks.

By the time I had walked around admiring what was on the ground, I felt it was too late to hike into the canyon. I decided to return to camp and take the drive from the other end of the canyon the next day.

I capped off my day with a refreshing dip in the pool over at Furnace Creek Ranch and RV Resort. For a nominal fee, they let you use pool and shower. I swam and showered and then returned to the National Park campground, Texas Springs, right across the road. That’s a wonderful combination: a spacious campsite with a great view at a reasonable price and a dip in the pool to wash off the road dust.

After another windy night, I set off for my drive through Titus Canyon. The first step is to drive up and out of Death Valley.

I started out at my campsite at Texas Springs, about 100 feet below sea level and drove up and up and up to Rhyolite, Nevada, at about 3800 feet above sea level.

Rhyolite is a ghost town that started up during a mining boom in 1905, grew to around 4,000 people and started a rapid decline after the financial panic of 1907. At its peak, it had more than 50 bars, three banks, a hospital, a school, an opera house and a stock exchange as well as cement sidewalks and electric lights.

The most complete building in town is the Bottle House build by a miner named Tom Kelly. With 50 bars in town, he had a lot of free building material. The enterprising Mr. Kelly raffled the house off for $5 a chance.

After touring the remains of the town, I headed back toward Death Valley and the road through Titus Canyon.

The sign at the entry warned that this was a one-way road and that only high clearance  four-wheeldrive vehicles should attempt it. The road started out straight but bumpy. However, as I got closer to the mountains, it became apparent that this was going to be an interesting drive.

There was a whole lot of white-knuckle driving taking place. With the tight turns and switchbacks, at times I couldn’t even see the road. I just had to put my faith in the National Park system and their focus on safety that there was a road there, even if I couldn’t always see it.

The colors in the mountains were spectacular and unexpected. On one mountainside, I thought I saw pale green plants covering the ground. When I got up to it, I discovered that it was actually green soil or rocks.

I wish I had timed the drive. It seems like I moved along at a sizzling two miles an hour.  Eventually, the road started descending into the canyon. The road ran past two more ghost towns. You have got to respect people who picked up their lives and took off to try to find their fortunes through hard work, even if it didn’t work out in the long run. Leadville was a town with its own post office from August 1926 until February 1927.

After that, those hearty souls took off to try their fortunes elsewhere.

After Leadville, the descent into the canyon began in  earnest.  The walls grew taller and started to close in.

Toward the mouth of the canyon, the layers of rock in the wall changed to a twisted and polished mosaic.

And then, the drive through Titus Canyon was done. I was so busy clutching the steering wheel during this long and bumpy ride, that I forgot to take pictures of some of the vistas. My thanks to the bloggers at ohtheplacestheygo.wordpress.com for sharing their photos to fill in some of my blanks spots.

This was an exciting drive, but all I could think of what my mother would have said at every hairpin turn and switchback: “Uff da!”

Traveling around with only a general idea of an itinerary is quite freeing. Not only is my agenda my own, so that I can stay longer or skip places as my interests dictate.

To tell the truth, I wasn’t all that excited about visiting Death Valley National Park. For one thing, there’s that name. Death Valley. DEATH Valley. It is a bit off-putting. And then, my main images of the place came from Death Valley Days.

An old black and white TV show that would come on when I was a kid. I expected Death Valley to be black and white. Oh, and small, because we had a small TV back then.

Is it any wonder that I expected it to be a drab place?

Since I was a little unsure about going to a remote place with the name DEATH Valley, I was going to make sure I had a reservation. I could only book one night at Furnace Creek Resort RV Park. The campground in the National Park that accepted reservations had nothing available. I wasn’t too disappointed. I had no expectations, so one night would be enough. Or so I thought.

In the first place, Death Valley is full of contrasts. Furnace Creek Resort RV Park is located in an oasis. It is lush and green and has a wonderful spring-fed pool. There is even golf there, for those who play.

So, I dropped my trailer and hooked up the utilities and  set out to see what I could of the park. First stop, Zabriskie Point. As you can see, the wind was fierce.

I continued my drive up to Dante’s View, which is about 5500 feet above sea level. The wind had not abated, and, with the change in altitude, it was actually chilly.

After that view, I thought it was time to visit the lowest place in the country, Badwater Basin, 282 feet below sea level.

I could see what looked like the salt in the soil. I saw a piece laying loose, so I picked it up and tasted it. It was salty! Since this is a National Park, I was sure to put it back down exactly where I found it.

The next feature I had in mind to see was the Artists Drive. The colors were incredible! Was I ever wrong about Death Valley being drab! The pictures don’t do it justice.

After that exhilarating day of surprises proved to me that Death Valley is an interesting place, I took advantage of the wonderful pool at the resort.

The next day, I hitched up Flo and moved across the road to one of the non-reservable campgrounds in the park. I learned something else: a non-reservable campground isn’t like an unassigned seating plan in an airplane. There was lots of room and it wasn’t crowded in the least.

I had a different view, and lots of space. But, the wind! I was looking forward to seeing the stars at night. The night sky is reputed to be one of the darkest in the country. No light pollution to dim the stars.

The wind was so powerful that it turned a neighboring site’s campfire into roaring furnace. It carried tents and tarps away. Out of caution, I decided not go out to look at the stars. It was pitch black. I was afraid that the wind might catch Flo’s door and rip it off the hinges. It was really strong. And, even if the door didn’t fly away, I was afraid that I would get knocked down with a sudden blast of wind.

The wind was a surprise to me. No, not that it was windy, but that there could be a wind chill effect when the temperatures were in the 80’s! That’s around 27 for my celsius friends. People were all wrapped up when they were sitting around. If I had sat around outside, I probably would have been wearing a sweatshirt, too.

All in all, I ended up staying four days in Death Valley, and I would like to go back and see things that I missed.

Ubehebe Crater is an explosion crater, caused by rising hot magma turning water to steam, which explodes. This crater is a half-mile across and about 500 feet deep. It’s the largest crater in the park.

Geology isn’t the only draw in Death Valley. There is also Scotty’s Castle.

This two story castle is a pastiche of Spanish Colonial Revival and Mediterranean Revival architecture built in another oasis in Death Valley. The only way to see the interior is to take a tour with a costumed guide who takes you back to the 1920’s when the it was built.

So, I took the tour with Miss Lucy, who showed told us all about the scheming Walter Scott and his patrons, Albert and Bessie Johnson. What started out as a con ended up as a life-long friendship. Scotty and the Johnsons would entertain themselves by telling wild stories of gold and wild times in the desert. After the stock market crash, they charged people for their stories and dinner.

The last stop of the tour was a music room. Miss Lucy played Bessie’s organ that reminded me of the automatic orchestras that old merry-go-rounds used to have.

I have a more to share about My Death Valley Days and I’ll save it for another post. Thanks for coming along for the ride!

 

 

 

 

 

Hello! I’m Kim and this is my blog.

One year ago, I closed on the sale of my house in Kalamazoo, Michigan and hit the road with Walter the Cat, Flo the Airstream and Bart the Big Ass Red Truck. My goal is to spend four or five years traveling the lower 48. I might even throw in Alaska and Canada, too!

I will share my adventures and misadventures as I go along. In my first year, I have had quite a few of both. In the meanwhile, as I get this blog up and running, let me share a few pieces of wisdom I have gained during this first year.

1. When towing a trailer, there is more than one direction to be concerned with.

2. When you are in the desert, be sure to drink water whenever you have the chance. As they say, if you are feeling thirsty, you are already dehydrated.

3. Never pass up the opportunity to use the restroom. (see item 2.)