Death Valley

oday we went to Death Valley.  This is about a 2.5 hour drive from Las Vegas, but this is the only day that we knew we were not in a rush to get back to Vegas for any plans tonight.  The others are all doing a bus tour today to Hoover Dam.  We don’t have time for any long hikes, but hope to get out of the car a couple of times to at least stretch for some short walks.

Death Valley has lots of contrasting landscapes.  Death Valley is in California and is the lowest point in North America. 

Our first stop was at Dantes View, which is at 5475 ft.  We nearly froze up here.  Gorgeous views over to Badwater, which is the lowest point at 282 ft below sea level, and we will visit later.  

 

Hot Air balloons as we exited Las Vegas

The only man made attraction we saw but it was not open

No big hikes today, lots of stop and go and short walks

Driving up to Dante's View

Looking down from Dante,s View.  Little dot on the road is a car, white areas is salt.

 

View from 5,476 ft

Next stop was Twenty Mule Team Canyon.  This is a short one way drive that is not on paved road, very curvy and really nice views.  Still not sure if we should have had the rental car here.

One way loop of Twenty Mule Team Canyon

We were told that they use some of the background for some of the Star Wars movies

 

Next stop was at Zabriskie Point for another nice view.  Lots of tourists are starting to arrive now, and it is starting to warm up.

Amazing views at Zabriskie Point

Converted bug

 

Our next stop is at the tourist information centre in Furnace Creek.  Here we get a map and talk to a ranger who gives us more ideas for how to spend the day.  We can only cover a small portion of this National Park, and he warns us not to venture too far from the route he suggests. We stopped at a small canyon which had a 2 mile hike but we only did a small portion of it.

Strange feeling going below sea level.

This is as far as we got as it was getting hot

Only sign of life we saw today

Our next stop is called Devils Golf course.  This is a large salt pan that someone had a very good sense of humour to name Devils Golf Course. 

Not a golf course but if it was only the Devil would like me.  There are miles and miles of lumpy Salt & Mud clumps.

 

On we go to Badwater which is the lowest elevation in North America.  We took a short walk out on the salt but it is getting really hot now, I can’t even imagine how awful it would be in the summer months.

 

282 feet below sea level.  Lowest point in the Americas.

Very happy to be here in April and not July

The white path is all salt.

 

Next we go on to Artists Palette which is a beautiful one way road of the main road with many beautiful scenic pullouts.  What looks like a short drive takes us a while as there are so many photo ops.  

 

Many colours everywhere

Dry river bed

 

We had 4 more little stops to make to finish off our day.  First stop was at the Salt Creek Interpretive Trail, we thought we would see lots of fish as it is springtime, a bit of a bust, we saw fish but they were the size of a baby toe, and again very hot on the trails.  

Abandon house

20 mule wagons

Tiny little fishes.

 

Next we were on to Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes, this stop was not a bust.  Beautiful sand dunes here, reminded us of Morocco except no camels.

The Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes from a distance

Some of the dunes were over 100 feet high

 

Our next planned stop was Hells Gate, totally missed the turn off somewhere so that was a bust.  We had circled around this way through Death Valley especially to see Rhyolite, a ghost town.  Wow, what a disappointment, I think I was expecting some old town like you see in the movies, it was just a few buildings spread apart, some with a wall or 2 left, some just the foundations.  Maybe my expectations were a little high, but a big waste of time.

Not too exciting, good thing it was only a short detour.

 

We thought from here we were about 1.5 hours back to Las Vegas, I nearly cried when we turned on the GPS and it said 2 hours, I was nearly done with driving for the day and that extra .5 hour was a killer.  

 

Area 51

As we got closer to Vegas, we started seeing cactus.

Finally back in Las Vegas at about 5:30, time for quick showers and we meet up with Bernie and Lucille to walk around the strip.  The others have all gone to see Terry Fator tonight, but we weren’t sold on going to see him, and not wanting to rush back today so we passed.  We walked around for ages before deciding what to do for supper.  Good thing was we spent a lot of time walking in and out of casinos which lead to Lucille winning $18 for her and Andre towards supper on the slots.

 

We saw Elvis playing for tips.

Excalibur Hotel & Casino

Inside the Luxor, where the elevator goes up and down at an angle since the hotel is shaped as a pyramid.

 

After lots of debating finally decided in Chilis for supper.  It looked like it was right across the street from where we were, but turned out to be a long walk by the time you cross over the streets on the pedways.  This is one of the major changes since last time we were here, you used to be able to just cross the streets, not so much any more.  We were so long in finding where to eat for supper the others were finished their show and were able to join us as well.