Tuesday, November 20th 2012
Las Vegas - Ridgecrest
We decided that we would make the trip shorter and arrive in
San Mateo on
Thursday night (Thanksgiving). We had to adjust our plans a bit and make
Wednesday much busier. Even this day and going to Death
Valley was going to make for a long day. We left early (around 7
am) and got bagels for breakfast. We had smaller part of Las Vegas to drive through and then just
desert.
A lot of desert (or like looking landscape). We got gasoline
in Pahrump (Nevada) and were ready for Death Valley. Pretty nice day. There was not much on the
way to the park. We passed through one settlement (or something) that was just
weird. It looked like formal motel and another building with sign “Opera
house”. Hard to say.
We entered the park (no gate, just the machine for paying
the fee) and continue driving. The landscape did not change much. More hills
and a lot of desert. We finally had decent map and could look at whole day
plan. We decided to stop at Dante’s View, which was overlooking whole valley.
It was 13 miles drive (one way), at the end, it got really twisty. The view was
awesome. It was just parking lot on the top of the hill. We walked on even
higher hill and just enjoyed the view and breeze. It was great. Other viewing
platform was closed (they were shooting some weather channel show (about rain).
And … surprisingly we had to drive back to the main road.
More less in the middle of the park was Furnace Creek visitor’s center. On the
way there, we stopped at another viewpoint (just short walk). It looked (and
was) like Badlands. It was nice (but not
impressive). And there were four woman who were taking crazy pictures
(screaming and jumping). It did ruin the moment.
After that moment, we got to the sea level.
The weather was nice, sunny and probably around 80 degrees.
We were on other “detour” from the main road. There were few things we wanted
to see and visit. Natural bridge was first one. It was shorter hike to see a
bridge in the canyon. Two miles on dirt road (made our car dusty) and the
parking lot. Kind of “buzz kill”. The canyon was composed mainly from “dirt”,
so it was boring and grey.
There were mountain on both side (in distance) and next to
the road was huge (partly salty) flat land (basin). It was interesting, but
quite too big to absorb (like Grand Canyon).
At the end of our detour was the lowest pint in North
America – Bad Water (minus 282 feet). Again, too many people for
our taste (could be worse). A bit of water, nice walk way and “highway” from
people walking into salt field. It was really salt, I licked it.
Artist’s drive was next stop. It was nine mile loop from the
main road. There were some interesting rock formations and colors. Again,
probably because of the size, it did not have that “wow” factor.
At one moment on the way to the Furnace Creek, we saw car
stopped in the middle of the road. When we got closer, they were taking
pictures of small coyote eating something on the road. We stopped pretty close
to it and he just continued eating. Really “wild” life.
Back to the intersection with “sea level” sing. There was as
well a lodge (forgot the name) that was looking really nice. Apparently, when
the mining started going bad, they decided to go with tourism and built the
lodge. Visitor’s center. It was 79 degrees. I asked about the places to see for
the rest of the day, but she was not helpful (just repeated what I saw in
booklet). Gas price in the park (see the picture). Horrible. And I guess early
tourism picture from the exhibit. Nice.
Pretty close to the center was small interpretative loop
from the time they were processing some mineral (borax, I think).
More driving. We made quick stop at the Sand dunes. It is
really interesting how the country is shaped. We walked into the dunes (the
flat part) and looked around. The evening was approaching, so we had to speed
up some.
We still made one more stop by Mosaic Canyon,
which was marble rock formation combine with other formation looking like
mosaic. Another dirt road and dusty parking lot. Short walk uphill and then
just walking within pretty narrow canyon (small one). It was really interesting
to see something else then “dirt” piles (most of the valley seemed to be made
from softer rocks or dirt).
At that point, we had to head towards Ridgecrest for the night. It looked like
endless road. Just going, going and going and nothing (pretty much). It was
long day. It was getting darker (and I do not like to drive in night). We
passed through the town, which looked like “dump”. A lot of empty (boarded or
crumbling) houses and couple of mineral processing plants. I do not know, but
it looked so sad and bad.
And added bonus, pictures of us, again:
