Days 33 & 34 – February 12 & 13 – Furnace Creek (Death Valley), CA to Kingman, AZ

We had spent the previous week traveling and touring so we decided to have a down day in Kingman.   This gave me an opportunity to catch up on some of my blogs and John a chance to sit by the pool and read his book.  But before he did that he took the truck to a Quiklube and had the oil changed.  I was very surprised when he returned and had not also taken it to a car wash for a bath.  But he surmised, correctly I am sure, that we will be driving some dusty roads again so he may as well leave it.  He also, while I was slaving away at my computer, used the hotel laundry and washed some clothes.

It was only a 3 1/2 hour drive from Furnace Creek to Kingman and there were no sites along the way we wanted to stop and see so – before we left Death Valley – we toured the Borax Museum and did a 1.5 mile hike along the Golden Canyon Trail.  Why not take some more photos of rocks?

The museum was small but interesting.  There were samples of minerals and rocks from Death Valley, a lot of old mining tools, articles about treks through and explorations of the Valley and books you could purchase about the area, flowers, animals, geology, miners, tragedies, etc.  The lady inside was very nice and happy to tell people about anything they were interested in.

Outside was a large rail-fenced area with old mining and traveling wagons and apparatus.  We had a great walk around.  The lady in the museum gave us a handout that told us about all the items so we could check the numbers and see what was what.  But they also had descriptions on some things; quite faded by the sun though.  There was even a set of wheels and axles for one of the Twenty-mule team carts and water wagon.

 

The wheels of this cart wagon were made from slices of a very large tree. Very ingenious. The rear wheels on the 2 carts to haul the borax with the 20-mule team were six feet high.

The Golden Canyon trailhead is only three minutes south of the road we need to take to exit the park so it was a short trip.  The parking lot was jam-packed full of cars.  This is one of the most popular hikes in the Valley and it is best in morning light.  You can do a 4 mile loop but we only walked the 1.5 miles to the Red Cathedral and back. (The loop is on the list for our next visit.)

And so ends our first trip to Death Valley National Park.  I loved it all.

We had thought about driving south again and go through Mojave National Park before heading west but the day would have been really long (over 8 hours of driving with no stops) to get to Kingman and John had already made our hotel reservations there for the next two nights.  Instead we took the short and direct route on Highways 160 and 93, although we did bypass to the very south of Las Vegas to avoid as much of the traffic as we could.

 

Entering Pahrump, Nevada.

 

 

 

We pulled to the side of the road at the bottom of this hill and made a PB & J lunch.

Welcome to Las Vegas

 

 

 

 

Lake Mead at Hoover DamWe entered Arizona, our third State of the day.

 I did not take a single photo on Saturday.  Other than walking to a nearby restaurant for lunch and dinner (breakfast was provided in the hotel) I also did not leave our room all day.  I diligently worked at catching up on my blogs.  Are you proud of me?  I almost got them all done; only this, our last day, needed to be completed.  And now it is.

Tonight we are in Sedona, AZ.  After we had dinner I pulled out my laptop to complete this blog and begin working on today’s entry; only to discover I had left my power cord in the hotel room in Kingman.  It must have slipped to the floor off the desk because neither John nor I saw it on our ‘last check’ of the room before we left.  John has very kindly loaned me his computer to finish this.

Our first task tomorrow we will be to find a computer store that, hopefully, will have a new cord I can buy.  The battery does need to be re-charged.  I am ticked.  I can’t believe I forgot it.  Sure hope I can find a new cord tomorrow.  And I was so hoping to finish this blog and complete today’s as well.  Not happening tonight though.  Sorry. It’s my bed time.