Well gee, let’s wake up even 15 minutes earlier, shall we? Yep … 4:15. Painful for this girl, but so it goes.

We got ready, packed up, and Dan loaded the car. Then off we went. Bye bye Beatty.

First stop: Mesquite Dunes. I was surprised to see tons of brown eyed primrose, and another flower I think is another sort of primrose. It’s always amazing to see what can grow in the dunes. I took some shots of the big picture but even more of flowers with my macro lens.

I tend to run out of steam before Dan, and today was no exception: I headed back to the car long before he did. I got a good amount of reading done.

Once Dan returned we went up a gravel road and set up breakfast. Fighter jets roared above us … so much for a quiet breakfast! I shot a few more photos because why not?!

We went to Stovepipe Wells to see if they had a DEVA wildflower book but found nothing. Books must not be popular for tourists.

Then it was goodbye Death Valley.

We decided to go out a different way. The brittlebush was plentiful.

We made our way to Father Crowley Point, where fighter jets practice above what is called Star Wars Canyon.

I walked around to see if I could find flowers. A higher elevation meant fewer flowers, but I did find some. When I went back to Dan he was chatting with a guy. As we stood the younger man pointed … a jet. It flew right past us! The noise was deafening. Dan may have gotten some good shots. Sadly I was just frozen due to the surprise … really shock! … of it all.

We stuck around a good long time but didn’t get another low flying jet.

Driving on Dan opted to take a dirt road detour on the way to Saline Valley.

There were a lot of Joshua trees, and this one was the first we saw.

More dirt road, another tree, among many …

Back to the main road, highway 190. Soon the Sierra Nevada came in to view.

We drove past Owen’s Lake a the tiny town of Olanche, and started looking for a spot to set up lunch. it wasn’t a tremendously scenic spot, and we opted not to get out our chairs and table, but food was eaten.

Next up was a rather ho-hum under one hour drive to our lodging for the night. Hello Ridgecrest.

But OH! A king-size bed is quite welcome, as was a hot shower and change of clothes. I’m a clean machine.

Then it was feet up (clean feet!) and get this blog entry going.

Finally, it was time for dinner. We had a couple of ideas in mind. The first place we were planning on checking out was a French restaurant called Mon Reve. We got there, walked in to see if there was a menu posted, and … well … never mind! We were seated and that was that. Forget the other choice! The server was also, I’m sure, the owner. He did the serving, and his wife, I believe did the cooking. It was just a lovely spot and we really enjoyed a relaxing, end-of-trip meal. (My meal is pictured: salmon and scalloped potatoes.)

Back to our hotel we went, for some reading and rest.

Tomorrow we are homeward bound, although you never know how many detours we might take.

Goodnight!