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.
Today began even earlier. Our alarm went off at 4:30 AM. Too early, but up we rose and we were on the road by about 5 o’clock, this time with cups of bad hotel coffee for our enjoyment.
As we were driving, we were talking about staying in Beatty. There’s the advantage of saving quite a bit of money. I think it was nearly $1000 less, which is nuts. But the added drive almost makes that savings not worth it. Plus sometimes I’ve been able to get better deals at places in Death Valley.
Our first destination was Lake Manly. Dan had some ideas of where he wanted to shoot for the sunrise, so we pulled over, he got out his equipment, and I got out my phone and did a bit of walking while he shot. Sometimes I’m just not in the mood to pull out the camera. Besides, lots of the flowers were not quite open yet… I think they slept in more than we were allowed.
Of course, eventually I did have to get out of the car. I just can’t resist the flowers, even if they are looking sleepy. And then I found some that I hadn’t seen yesterday so that required the camera for sure!
After shooting those, I wandered a bit more and found other flowers— things I’d already shot yesterday, but why not try some more? I primarily use the macro lens, but did remember to snap a few on the iPhone. Including one that showed the terrain. If one was to look from the road, you might not even notice the flowers.
Later I walked to where Dan was shooting , warning him to watch for sneaker waves. (Yes, I’m really good with jokes. Or not.)
Then we drove a bit to find a nice breakfast spot.
From there we went to Devils Golf Course. (They leave the apostrophe off, so I will too.) Last time we were there I neglected to take a photo, so that was remedied.
Artist Drive & Artist’s Palette was next on the agenda.
We had seen a large bike group heading up the grueling climb. They cheered when all had reached what seemed like the top — Artist’s Palette (I wonder if they knew there would be more climbing, though not nearly what they’d done.
Natural Bridge was a surprise … tons of desert five-spot flowers. I took a lot of photos of those and other flowers with my macro lens.
We didn’t do the entire walk, but we did go past the natural bridge.
Lunch was at Texas Spring, on a rather astounding table and benches.
After checking messages where we had a signal Dan drove toward Ubehebe crater. We stopped briefly at a place prior to that.
Then the crater. I walked as closely to the edge as this wimpy girl could, but had to back away. I did manage a few iPhone photos of the crater and other views, though.
Another drive and it was dinner at Stovepipe Wells. (No photos.) Finally it was the final drive back to Beatty: tomorrow we are elsewhere.
Today began at 4:45 AM. Too early! But so it goes. It also began with putting air in a tire that appeared to be low. Maybe.
Then to Death Valley Dan drove. Without even getting coffee. Horrors!
We first went back to Salt Creek, hoping for a good sunrise. I noticed there were almost no pupfish to be seen. Hmmm do the hide in the mud at night? Guess I’ll have to research. I did a small amount of photography. Dan did more.
Back to the car. Driving and stopping on occasion. I can’t name all the spots where we stopped, but breakfast was enjoyed at Ashford Mill Ruins.
While there I finally found the desert five-spot flower. I had to make a number of photos. It was my brother-in-law’s favorite desert flower. I do get teary-eyed, thinking of him, as well as my dear sister-in-law who has suffered such a deep loss.
We drove on, finding a lot more desert gold, sand verbena, phacelia, brown-eyed primrose, and evening primrose. Plus fields of flowers.
And a bit of fun.
Lunch was at a pull at some pass. Yes, I’ve forgotten the name. Dan said he’d have just one cookie. (Look closely!)
We headed back down and eventually parked so we could read and nap.
Eventually I got tired of sitting, so I went out to shoot somewhere more flowers right by the car. Dan soon joined in the fun. At one point, while Dan was a distance away, I managed to lose my balance fall over, roll around a bit, and actually have absolutely no injuries. My watch however did ask if I had taken a fall and if it should send out an SOS. No thanks! I must have looked hysterically funny. And yes, my camera was fine!
Then back to field of flowers.
The sun was rapidly setting, so we packed up and headed to dinner.
But wait! As we drove Dan spotted friend and wonderful photographer Franka Gabler. We stopped, chatted, and decided to have dinner together.
It was a great way to end our day … although we then had a long drive to our fancy Motel 6.
I didn’t write yesterday … there was really no time (as you’ll read later). But we made it home safely.
We rose at 5:30, hoping to get out of the area in time to avoid flooding. Packed and in the car and checking out at 6:20, we were then on the road. It was just barely sprinkling when we began. We were grateful.
But then rain did get heavier. Not killer “we can’t drive in this” heavy, but still, we knew it meant watching out for flooding on the road. Getting to the top of the spot between Death Valley and Panamint Valley there were rock slides. No boulders to speak of, but very large rocks that Dan had to avoid, driving in whichever lane was clearest.
As we headed down to Panimint Valley we could see water at the edges of the road that were headed down. Near the bottom, we saw the start of that flow and it was clear that it would land at the bottom and pool. I hadn’t really understood just how roads got so quickly flooded. Now I do.
Videos don’t really do it justice, but I’ll still post a few …
Dan then had to be careful for the drive for quite some time. Reaching parts of the road that were flooded (shallow, mind you … not something he couldn’t get through), Dan would slow and carefully drive through. As he mentioned later, you don’t know what’s under the water as you can’t see that.
Driving through Trona a whole lot of the road was flooded. That was a bit of a surprise … they must just accept the flooding and not work on guiding water elsewhere.
For this trip we went through Ridgecrest so we could get breakfast. That city, too, was quite flooded already. But we made our way to Starbucks (have I mentioned that these kinds of trips are the only time we enter Starbucks? And never in Europe. Nope. Isn’t gonna happen!)
Next up was getting to Tehachapi, where we’d fill the tank.
Except.
The freeway — if it’s called a freeway up there? — we were to take to there was closed! In our day of phones with maps and guidance systems we could fortunately find another route somewhat easily. Waze and Google maps gave the same directions while Apple maps gave different ones. It was two to one — Waze and Google won. It wasn’t a direct route … we had to go a distance and eventually ended up on the Grapevine. But we made it.
The Grapevine was slow moving, but at least it was moving. (I later read that the day before it was a total mess due to accidents.)
From there it was “easy” (as in Dan knows what to do) and eventually rain diminished. We did take a Buttonwillow bathroom break. And there we saw something … um … words can’t desscribe, really. (Excuse the blur.)
Finally, we even saw blue sky and the green was lovely to see … what I think of as “Spring green” was right there in December!
And we saw a rainbow.
So the rest of the drive was pretty uneventful, but what a LONG day. We arrived home at 4:00, and had a Christmas Eve dinner reservation at 5:00, so we had just enough time to unpack the car and get changed.
It was an early morning day: our alarms (yes, both mine and Dan’s) went off at 4:15 AM. At that point I wasn’t sound asleep in any case so it wasn’t a miserable awakening.
While loading the car a runner went past. That’s one early run! She wisely had lights on both front and back as I learned when we later passed her on the main road.
I sort of dozed on and off as Dan did the long drive in the dark. I do have a tendency to fall asleep in moving vehicles … not only in cars, but in trains and planes as well. It’s a gift. 😉
The final road to our destination was not “sleepable”. It was washboard for a while, and at one point quite narrow. Again, I’m grateful for the driver. I think the drive itself was a bit more than an hour.
We arrived at Aguereberry Point at a very good time. Sunrise was still a bit away, but the colors … well … they were amazing. I didn’t use my good cameras, but the iPhone was just fine.
I’ve been to Aguereberry a few times now, and today’s visit was really rather pleasant. It was chilly, yes, but not like one time when the wind really made it ridiculous and another when it was pretty darn freezing.
Dan continued to photograph. Me, not in the mood, sat in the car part of the time since even with the nicer weather it does get cold, what with the wind and the clouds that were blocking the warmth of the now rising sun. And mostly I was really enjoying the peace and quiet one experiences in this area.
From Aguereberry Dan drove a short bit to a different view, hoping to get some light on the water down below. It’s possible a bit of dozing took place as well.
It appears that the light today might not be a photographer’s dream, and tomorrow Dan has read that it will be rather gray. We’ll see how it goes. I enjoy the area no matter what. (I’m not sure I’d want to be here in a huge storm, though, and while I’m glad to have experienced a dust storm once in my life I could do without that as well.)
More driving and a brief stop at a small cave Dan investigated … it really didn’t go anywhere.
At one curve I noticed a lot of trees below and figured there must be a water source. Going around further we saw a very bright cottonwood which was catching the sun so of course we had to stop. But gee, what are these pink things on the ground? Flowers. In December!
Crossing the street I then saw a spot of orange. Mallow. Another surprise.
Since Dan was continuing with his photography I walked up the street a bit, seeing tons of evidence of the wild burros but no burros in sight. And then more mallow. Plus this marker. Who knows if it’s for real or not? Guess I should look up the name.
More of the trees …
Finally we wound up at Wild Rose Campground. Breakfast time!
After eating we drove up the road a bit, seeing a few building that may or may not still be in use, and then headed over to Skidoo. The drive was long and bumpy and, for yours truly, sometimes scary. I’d done the trip before, but I’d forgotten at the drop offs in some areas. Thankfully Dan knows my fear and is very careful. He also suggests I grab my emergency passenger brake. It works so very well. How do I know? Well … we’ve not gone over a cliff. Yet.
Here is the photo of my emergency passenger brake being put to use:
We didn’t go all the way to the mine, but stopped at what used to be Skidoo, which was a convenient spot for one of us to get a bit of a rest while the other worked on this blog entry. (Waking up at 4:15 and doing ALL the driving while yours truly nods off does mean a nap or two is in order.)
Then back where we came from. This time, though, Dan mentioned that he thought we could probably find Furnace Creek from where we were. Sure enough, I found it, could spot where our lodging was, and where the fancier place up above and to the right was. Can you see them? (The Ranch is a darker rectangle, if that helps.)
More driving in a very windy area as we looked for a lunch spot. We ended up near a nearly wiped out abode (A cabin? An actual house? Dunno!) and driving past that we wound up near a mine that was a bit more sheltered. We first took a quick look into the mine … but no, we don’t go into these things.
Then we set up our chairs and table and worked very hard and diligently on eating. So far I think we should get an A+ (and everyone who knows me knows I don’t even believe in pluses!) when it comes to eating. Hah!
We saw some interesting clouds as well. Dan mentioned that seeing Mare’s Tail ones was often interpreted as “rain in 24 hours”, and we did see those, along with other strange clouds.
We walked back to the ramshackle place and took a few photos. Dan has probably taken photos nearly every time he’s been here, so he wanted to grab more, knowing the place isn’t long for the world.
From there we drove to another building. If the dates are right it was built in in 1951, but who knows if that’s really true. It was in better condition than the first, but of course there’s no way in the world I’d ever want to stay there. Dan got the door opened, so I could shoot a few photos of the inside, but I wasn’t even about to walk into it.
Our drive then took us to another “Oh, I might as well take a photo!” spot for Dan, as the light was good. I worked more on this blog then. When I looked back up that light seemed to be going. One has to work very quickly with photography!
Side note: we often think, “Oh, it’s 1 hour to our next destination,” but get distracted by photo ops. Go figure. (Good thing there aren’t many flowers … we’d get distracted even more then!)
It was decided that we’d head back down to Stovepipe Wells and see what the light was doing when we got there.
Turned out it was doing nothing but fading to gray.
We filled the tank (it’s unbelievable how many miles we drive to get from place to place!), and then sat in the car below the power pole location to see if the sun decided to poke through the clouds.
Eventually we drove up to the end of the gravel road. We saw a strange plant someone had placed on a rock. And then … gee, some flowers on the desert holly! I’d never seen that before. Obviously I had to pull out my macro lens and shoot that, along with another plant with incredibly tiny leaves. I hope something turns out — I’ll only know when I get things into Lightroom.
Then it was halfway down the road to wait to see if that boring light turned into something magical.
The answer was no. Ah well … can’t have great light every single day.
We went back to our room, unloaded all the gear, and headed to the tavern here. We enjoyed some pizza and salad and I neglected to take a photo until it was too late so you’ll have to use your imagination. But yes, it was yummy and yes, I ate too much.
We don’t know what tomorrow will bring: the weather forecast isn’t promising. But only time will tell …
A while back I mentioned that we had three upcoming trips. Since that post we did one of those trips, but just to keep my planning obsession going we have one more trip to add, albeit a short one.
In January Dan and I celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary. Yep. FIFTY! For a number of years we’ve talked about doing something with our three adult children and their spouses. We had gone back and forth on what to do — a trip to Venice perhaps? That was the dream. Somewhere else in Europe? Japan? We just weren’t sure.
Instead, for a variety of reasons, we opted for something closer by and my travel research began. No matter what I always find the research phase such fun! So far we have the dates, the location, the lodging, as well as our celebratory dinner restaurant. I do believe we are in for a lovely time!
In other news, concerning more distant travels, there are new things to think about.
We now have to allow extra time when we visit a spot in the 29 country Schengen area for the first time, since they started the photo and fingerprinting stuff (see EES). That will be done upon landing, somewhere in the airport — I’m assuming in passport control. In addition, when we go to the UK for the first time since it was instigated, we will have to be sure we’ve already got our ETA stuff set up and ready to go as well. It’s not a big deal, but one does have to remember to do that UK bit since it gets done in advance and we’d not even be allowed on a plane if we haven’t done it from what I read. The EES is done when one arrives for the first time so that’s not a big deal aside from the time issue. Eventually the Schengen countries will also have the ETIAS set in place, and we will get to that when we know it’s up and running.
I have no complaints about all those tasks — no matter what it’s less frustrating than what I’ve been told people have to do to enter the United States these days. But one certainly does have to remember these things need doing!
Unrelated to all of this, I was viewing some desert photos since I posted desert gold at my photography site. As I wrote on my substack post, I yearn to get back to the desert. I certainly wouldn’t mind seeing this view again:
We are so blessed. We can travel to far away places, but we also have so many places right here in our amazing state to visit. It’s good to remember that!
Our first full day in Death Valley included an early wake up call to hit the dunes. After that we head back to our motel for an in-room breakfast (we brought a lot of food from home), and for the remainder of the day Dan suggested we head to the high country. We saw the charcoal kilns, visited the mill at Skidoo, and eventually ended up at a location with fabulous views for the evening. Some of the images below are merely iPhone shots, others are from the “big girl camera”.
