Day 38 – February 17 – Winslow, AZ to Gallup, NM (Petrified Forest National Park)

If you look on the map, Petrified Forest is a small park with one road running through it.  Not too big; shouldn’t take too long.  Wrong again!

 A coal power plant at Joseph. Winslow is not too far away from the south entrance to Petrified Forest so we were at the Visitor’s Center about 10 am.  We looked around the exhibits and walked the Giant Logs Trail (less than half a mile) that starts at the back of the building.We left the Visitor’s Center an hour and a quarter later!  And this is how our day continued to go.  For a small park it is jammed full of nice trails, beautiful viewpoints, petrified logs here, there and everywhere, and a multitude of gorgeously coloured, striped Badlands.

There must be quite a bit of illegal petrifed wood picking because when we went through the park entrance along with our brochure there was a bright green piece of paper for you to use to write down information for the park rangers if you see someone picking anything up.  A very detailed report too: When did it happen?  What happened? Who did it (describe them and their vehicle)? Where did it happen?

I asked a ranger about it because we had seen a huge sales lot for petrified wood on our way to the park.  He said that 80% of all the petrified wood in the area is OUTSIDE the park boundaries.  Of course the stuff is so dense it is very heavy so you certainly couldn’t collect big pieces without equipment.  But I was surprised it is obviously enough of an issue they give everyone a ‘spy sheet.’  These panorama shots show the 360 degree view. Our next stop was a 3/4 mile loop trail through the Crystal Forest where many of the petrified logs glint with the quartz in them. This part of Arizona is obviously a major flight path.  There were upwards of 15 jetsteams in the sky on several occasions. Many years ago people would walk out and stand on Agate Bridge.  Even though the underside has been re-enforced with concrete you are not allowed to walk on it today.  I don’t think I would want to anyway.  It is a round log over quite a deep gulch full of bushes.  Not pleasant if you fall off. Even driving from one designated place to another requires numerous photo stops.You can see the trail as it winds along the bottom of the bluffs.Loved, loved, loved all the colourful stripes.These are called the Teepees.

The ancient Pueblo people lived in this area and a place they call Newspaper Rock has many, many petroglyphs.  Archaeologists do not know why they are so many in this one place, nor what meanings they may have.

 Can you see the petroglyphs on this rock? These coloured markings may be lichens, but the circles are very precise. The rock was too far away to see clearly.

The Solstice mark is the thin line on this rock.  It is on the inner side with other rocks in front of it.  The other side of the rock is the open- to-the-air side.  How on earth would they figure that out?

And it isn’t very big either.

The famous Route 66 – first national highway that was decommissioned when the freeways became faster and more direct – also used to pass through Petrified Forest.  There is a marker in the shape of a 1932 Studebaker sitting in front of a line of power poles where the road used to go.

  The park is situated on both sides of the major East-West Freeway, Highway 40 and the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway line.  We passed over the railway and the freeway on overpasses before we stopped at the Route 66 maker.

At this point we had driven about 24 -25 of the 28 mile route through the park and it was almost 4 pm.  All that was left to do were a series of viewpoints along a long sweeping curve up a hillside, followed by a corner that took you to the opposite side for some more viewpoints, the former Painted Desert Inn (and now a National Historic Landmark) that contains exhibits about the building’s history and the northern entrance to the park.  We stopped at all the viewpoints but skipped the Desert Inn exhibits and the Visitor’s Center at this end of the park.

It was after 4:30 when we drove out of the Petrified Forest National Park.  Note to self:  Never judge the points of interest in a park by the size of it on a map!  What fabulous scenery and interesting things!  I had a great day.  Sorry to flood the blog with so many photos but I took almost 600 pictures today so this is a small sample really.

We had about 70 miles to drive to get to Gallup, NM for the night.   We have now driven through Washington, Oregon, California, Arizona and into New Mexico.  More states to come.

We were zipping along the freeway between the park boundary and the New Mexico border and I noticed this sign.  “Holy cow,” I said to John.  “Is that the speed limit? 75 miles an hour?  That’s nuts.  You better not be doing that.”   Silence from the driver’s side of the car.

Cruise control set for 75mph!  I was glad to cross into New Mexico where the speed limit dropped to 65.You just cant get away from fabulous rock formations around here.

Day 37 – February 16 – Flagstaff to Winslow, AZ

We actually got a relatively early start this morning which was good as we had a number of places to visit before we could get to our next hotel in Winslow so as to have a short drive to Petrified Forest National Park tomorrow. Our first stop was Sunset Crater Volcano located about 25 miles north of Flagstaff.  A huge volcanic eruption took place here 50,000 years ago.  You can no longer walk up to the crater or around the rim but we enjoyed the drive and the photo ops.  (And John really likes his new camera.)

If you have ever been to the Big Island of Hawai’i you will recognize the A’a lava.

Sunset Crater National Monument is connected on a 35 mile loop road with Wupatki National Monument so we just drove along, stopped at the Painted Desert Vista (which the morning sun faded out a lot), and went to tour the ancient pueblos of Wukoki and Wupatki.

Humphrey’s Peak, the highest point in Arizona. This is the back side of the rock that the complex is built on.

This complex was so skillfully built on and into the rock bluff it was really amazing.  Very clever and very hardworking people.There was quite a force of cool air blowing up.   Would be great on a hot desert day.

 Almost the entirety of three of the walls in this room were the rock.

Lunch time.

We didn’t stop at all the ancient pueblos at Wupatki National Monument. There were, I think, four more in various stages of ruin. None as nice as Wukoki and Wupatki so we checked them out via slow drives-by.  Then it was a return drive to Flagstaff and east on Highway 40.

Walnut Canyon was a surprise.  I haven’t done tons of internet, brochure, or tour guide searching about the things along the road; some, but not tons, so I don’t know exactly what everything may be. I knew nothing about Walnut Canyon.  We have driven through quite a few canyons; none of them National Monuments I admit, but a canyon is a canyon. Right?  Wrong.  Well, right and wrong.  Walnut Canyon is actually three canyons that converge around a central bluff forming a rock island.  None of the photos give a true idea of the depth of the canyon.  It is DEEP!  And people built houses in the cliff face hundreds of feet above the canyon floor. Amazing.

There are two main trails; The Island Trail and the Rim Trail.  

The Island Trail is a loop around the Island with many steps down the steep cliff sides.

 The Visitor’s Center is up on the hill.  That was where we started our hike.  The information in the brochure says the Island Trail is a loop – it should have rejoined the downward trail at the bottom of all the stairs from the Visitor’s Center.  However not far around this corner the trail was closed due to snow and ice which made too much risk for slipping.  Something you would not want to do.  It would be a long drop. So, we had to turn around and go back again.

Looking down at lower levels of the trail.

Hardy lichen The trail is visible through the trees along the cliff face.  It is a bit dark, but you may be able to make it out.The trail map at the Visitor’s Center says 240 steps, but since we had to return on almost 2/3 of the trail we did 381 stairs, plus the pathways.

We then walked out to the first lookout along the Rim Trail.

The Island

Our final stop of the day was another 22 miles down the road.Meteor Crater is privately owned by the fourth generation family members of the man who determined that this huge hole in the ground was caused by a meteor hitting earth.  He had many sceptics and fought a long time to get it recognized as true.  This discovery started a whole new branch of science – meteorology.

The crater was used by NASA for astronaut training for the moon landings.  NASA still does some tests here occasionally.

A fellow negotiated a 199 year least with the Barringer family and formed Meteor Crater Company which built the Visitor’s Center with a theater, inter-active displays, and information boards.  And all the lookout paths and stairs.  It is a really nice facility.

 John correctly figured this to be the crater as we were driving along the highway.  Look near the lower right in the photo above to see a cardboard cutout of a 6′ astronaut and a 3.5′ flag (the same size they placed on the moon.  Can you see where this is in the crater bottom? Jetstreams in the sunset at Winslow, AZ, our stop for the night.  It was a full day.

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Day 36 – February 15 – Sedona to Flagstaff, AZ

We stayed at the Best Western Inn at Sedona last night.  It is a pretty swish place with expensive rooms.  We are Diamond members of Best Western and had accumulated enough points that we could book a nice room there for free.  The view from the terrace connected to the rooms on the east side was pretty nice. Sedona’s streets were very busy when we drove in last night and we had also sort of forgotten it was Valentine’s Day.  We decided the chances of finding a restaurant with a free table where we could have dinner was quite slim so we walked down to a nearby Whole Foods and bought some dinner which we took back to our room and ate on our terrace.  (I had a big cream puff for desert and John had a 3″ square of German Chocolate Cake.  We saved the 3″ square of Chocolate Cheesecake for today’s lunch!)

We began our morning going to computer places to find a new power cord for my laptop.  After two failures we found a generic power cord with 6 interchangeable heads at Staples.  Cost US $85 = Cdn $120!  Ouch.  But I needed one so what can a person do?

As I mentioned at the end of my last blog John’s camera crashed the same day I lost my power cord.  Personally I think it was a little too convenient.  He had been pricing out the new Canon Rebel T6i before we left home and now his T3i dies???  But, to be fair, no matter what he tried it would not come on.  He still hasn’t been able to get the photos from the day before yesterday off his card and onto his computer.  The camera light would come on when you took the card OUT but no data would show and the camera wouldn’t work.  Put the card in and everything goes dark.  So….

We asked in the stores in Sedona where we may be able to find a new Canon DSLR camera.  No where in town that anyone knew. They suggested we go to Cottonwood 19 miles back down the road. We had driven through it yesterday.  We turned around and drove to Cottonwood.  No one sells DSLR cameras in Cottonwood.  I was stunned.  Both Sedona and Cottonwood are very popular tourist places with magnificent scenery.  Why wouldn’t someone stock good cameras?  The closest  possible place, we were told, may be Flagstaff.  Well, we were spending the night in Flagstaff so John resigned himself to using his phone camera for the day.

With our morning pretty much shot we set off for the day’s sights.  From Cottonwood we went south and joined Highway 17 North for a few miles before turning off at Montezuma’s Castle National Monument.  I have seen photos of this place in magazines over the years and wanted to visit.

Loved these big, stark white trees.

Cool camo trees                               Swallow nests on the rock overhang

This building would have been bigger than the ‘Castle’

 You can see the cliff dwelling on the right through the middle of the two trees in the left photo.

Our next stop was only four or five miles further along the road.  Montezuma’s Well.

Darn trees made shadows on the information board.  Nervy things. As we were driving into the Well I noticed a sign designating a   Pit house so on our way back to the highway we pulled in to see. We drove back up to Sedona on Highway 179, which is the Red Rock Scenic Byway, so we could drive through Oak Creek Canyon on our way to Flagstaff. 

Bell Rock

Court-house RockWe were chatting to some ladies at Montezuma’s Castle and they told us to go see the church built into the cliff in Sedona.  It wasn’t hard to find.  There were directional signs along the highway and they had parking attendants at two different levels of parking.  The Sedona Trolley makes a regular stop at the Church of the Holy Cross as well.  Considering the concrete pathways circling the cliff and the cost of constructing such an unusual building in such an out-of-the way location I was very surprised at how small it was inside.  The benches wouldn’t have held much more than 100 people.  Pretty impressive engineering and a nice view as well.

The big house belongs to a doctor from Scottsdale who lives in Mesa.  This is his get-away place.  He comes up to Sedona for a couple of days a month.  His wife comes a little more often.  There is a full-time gardener and a full-time housekeeper. We were told it cost $25 Million.  The doctor holds several patents for Lasik eye surgery so that is where he made all the money. We got through Sedona without encountering quite as much traffic as we did last night and headed north for Flagstaff through Oak Creek Canyon, another high mountain pass. With snow. Well, not much snow, but there was snow.

 Sedona and Cottonwood have large artist populations and gallerys. Sedona is less than 64 miles from Flagstaff and it took us all day to make our way there.  Of course the shopping and detours didn’t help. But it was a good day for those things to happen as we didn’t have a lot of things to see nor any long distances to travel.

We got into Flagstaff about 4:30 and we set Stella (our GPS) to find the Best Buy store where we had been told there was a good chance we could find a new camera for John.  Surprise, surprise.  They had a Revel T6i!  But I also got a new zoom lens as mine has not been focusing well – probably a result of the fall it took on a rocky path a year or so ago.  So, between my power cord and his camera  and my new zoom it was an expensive day even with last night’s free hotel room.

The manager in Best Buy told us that all of the fixtures holding the Canon and Nikon SLR cameras were new.  He had to fight his bosses to let him stock higher end cameras.  He, too, felt there would be a demand for them in such a scenic area.  He wanted to get rid of all the $80 point and shoot cameras (“They are phone cameras,” he said.) and have the better ones in his store.  We are certainly glad he had some in stock.  I think.

Day 35 – February 14 – Kingman to Sedona, AZ

When we left Kingman we decided to travel the section of the historic Route 66 that we had done when we visited Grand Canyon and all the Utah parks in 2012.  We had driven past the Grand Canyon Caverns on that journey because it looked like a real tacky-tourist joint.  We decided to pull in this visit and see what was there.We are very glad we did.  Grand Canyon Caverns are privately owned by a CA company that purchased the site from the original owner, Walter Peck, who discovered the natural entrance to the caverns while waiting for ride.  It was raining and the water was running into a nearby hole and disappearing.  He told his brother about it and they returned to the place whereupon Walter tied a rope around his younger brother’s waist and sent him down the hole with a kerosene lantern.

The light from the lantern showed sparkles in the rock – some gold, some silver and some clear – and they thought they had discovered gold, silver and diamonds (they didn’t know that those three elements are not found in the same place).  When the assayers were taking too long to send the report on the samples they had taken Mr. Peck bought 800 acres of the surface land, thus securing the rights to everything underneath.  Two days later the report arrived.  All of his samples were worthless quartz or crystal.

But the caverns were huge and interesting to walk in so he decided to salvage his loss by charging people 25 cents to be tied around the waist with a rope and lowered down with only a kerosene lantern. 

A few years later Mr. Peck built a ramp-ladder access to the caverns and upped his fee to 75 cents; and you had to bring your own lantern.  He made so much money he retired and sold the land to the company that owns it today and who built all the cement walkways and railings and lighting.

At one time they were trying to determine where the air flow came from so some people dropped red smoke bombs down the shaft and others were to watch where the smoke went.  After several days of this no smoke was ever appearing on the surface so they stopped.  Two weeks later they got a call from the rangers at the the Grand Canyon (78 miles away) asking what they were doing down there as there was red smoke coming out the walls of the Grand Canyon.

Our tour took 45 minutes and we walked through caverns larger than a football field and very, very high.  Unfortunately I can’t remember all the information Nico, our guide, told us.  But the most interesting thing was that Grand Canyon Caverns are dry caverns.  Only 3% of all caverns on earth are dry and only 10 of them are accessible.  The temperature stays a constant 51 degrees F and there are no stalactites or stalagmites as those formations are created by dripping water.

There is a stage area with theater seating.  The cavern has great acoustics.  Beside the entertainment area is a bedroom you can rent to sleep in.  The Grand Canyon Caverns are number 9 on the world’s 10 most unusual places to sleep list.  There is a queen-size bed, flat screen TV, DVD, VCR, shower and a toilet that is good for about 6 or 7 flushes before it needs to be emptied by a staff person.  A total of 9 weddings have been performed in the Cavern and there is to be a 10th later this year.

My photos, obviously do not do it justice as it is quite dark and hard to get images with any distance.  The nice thing about a dry cavern is that you can use flash on your camera because there are no delicate formations that are damaged by light.

Another interesting thing is the dryness of the air.  It actually dehydrates your body as you spend time in it.  If you have no water with you to restore your body’s moisture you will be dead in three days and mummified not long afterward.

In the cavern were two examples of this phenomena.  The first we saw was a bobcat that had fallen in the entrance hole and broken it’s hip.  Even without the injury preventing it’s movement it could not have gotten out of the deep cavern.  His mummified remains are still there along with a taxidermy example of what the cat would have been like. There is still hair and skin on the mummy, all it’s teeth are intact, and the pads are on his paws.  Pretty weird. (They sent one of his legs away for analysis; that’s how they know the approximate time of his demise.) The second creature in the cavern was a 15′ pre-historic relative to the Great Sloth and Armadillo.  Her name is Gertrude and she too fell in the hole of the natural entrance to the caverns; breaking her back.  She tried to climb out again and there are scratch marks from her claws high up on the rock wall.   A tip of one of the toenails was found imbeded in the rock.  95% of the remains were located.  They were sent to the University of Arizona and the university sent back a life-size replica of the creature.

Final interesting point: During the cold war the American government actively searched for places that could be shelters for communities in the event of a nuclear attack. The caverns were perfect, deep undergroud, constant temperature, large size and constant flow of air.  The government sent boxes of kits that contained calcium tablets and candies for sugar – which are still edible but don’t taste very good.  They also sent barrels of water, portable toilets and six rolls of toilet paper.  There were enough supplies to care for 2000 people for two week.  Over the years the water in the barrels became undrinkable and the Cold War ended and it was assumed the bomb shelter was forgotten.  Not so.  About a year and a half ago the government sent iodine tablets to re-purify the water and boxes of dried foods.  Since then the staff have also been bringing down cases of water and storing them in the cavern. Along Route 66, back in the 60s the Bruma Shave company posted these fun advertising signs.  The five signs comprising each rhyme and the Bruma Shave name were spaced about a quarter mile apart and each group was 5 or more miles further down the road.  I have put them in this blog for the chuckle. They were very popular and iconic to the Route 66 Highway.

I missed the first sign in this series, but it said: 30 DAYS

And the last of the series:

At the end of the Route 66 section we rejoined Highway 40 east for a few miles before turning south on Highway 89 and east again on 89A so we could go to the Tuzigoot National Monument near Cottonwood.  The section between the turn-off from 89 to 89A and Cottonwood was a high winding Mingus Mountain pass.  Who knew?  Another great road though.  Good motorcycle road too. 

The down-side of the mountain pass took us through the little town of Jerome, perched on the sheer cliff-side.  You wind down narrow hairpin bends through all the streets.  It is the most vertical city in the US and the country’s largest ghost town.  It was a copper boom town producing 3 million pounds of copper per month; the largest copper mine in AZ at the time.  After WWII the demand for copper slowed and they closed the mine in 1953. The few remaining residents (50-100 people) promoted the town as a ghost town. In 1967 the town was designated a National Historic District.

The place was PACKED!  Both sides of every street were solid with parked cars, there were people  walking all over the place. Businesses had names like The Haunted Hamburger.  Obviously a very popular spot to visit.

A few miles further down the road we turned off the highway to drive a couple of miles up to Tuzigoot National Monument, the site of an ancient 110-room pueblo.  The oldest rooms were built over 900 years ago and were added onto over several centuries. (The National Park Service makes such nice signs I am not going to write out all the info.)

The Visitor’s Center

We left the Visitor’s Center as it was closing and drove the few miles through Cotton Wood to the red rock city of Sedona for the night; where I discovered I had left my computer’s power cord in the hotel in Kingman.  And….John’s camera crashed.

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.

Day 32 – February 11 – Stovepipe Wells to Furnace Creek (Death Valley)

We began our last full day in Death Valley marking off the things we want to see that are located south of Furnace Creek.

Furnace Creek Ranch is a large enterprise. They have many hotel rooms, individual cabins, RV spots and a campground.  There is a general store, a saloon, a restaurant, a steakhouse, a museum about the Borax mining that took place in Death Valley, horseback riding, bike rentals, jeep rentals, a pool, spa, tennis courts, swimming pool, 18 hole golf course with a 19th hole club house, and an off-lease dog park.  About a mile down the road is the fancier Furnace Creek Inn. It was highly recommended that we go to Zabriskie Point and Dantes View; both viewpoints – so after breakfast that is where we headed so we would have the morning sun behind us as we looked down the valley.

 Look at all the pathways people have created on the crests. There is a sign at the bottom of the hill on the way up to Dantes View (elevation 5475′) that says no vehicles longer than 25′ may travel to the top and the last 1/4 mile is a 15% grade.  There is a parking lot a mile or so from the top where you can unhitch and leave your trailer.

There is a group of women cyclists on tour in the valley.  We saw them riding back from the end of the pavement when we were on our way out to the Racetrack. We saw them again today riding up this steep winding road.  Brave people! You have to keep in mind that the bottom of the road is about 100 feet above sea level.  That is a long, hard ride.  And very steep coming down.

 The view is pretty amazing.  You can see the length of Death Valley in both directions.

Though you can’t see them this long sign has the names of all the mountain peaks on the Panamint Range across the valley. The salt flat is called Badwater and there is a brown smudge where the white meets the mountain brown. This is dirty salt from people walking on it.  If you could zoom it in very close you would be able to see people down there.  Also, you can see the end of an alluvial fan at the lower left.  The road that we will drive on later skirts the outer edge of it.

                       The wind swept salt flat looks like ocean waves on a beach. Once we returned from Dantes View we drove 45 miles down a valley road to Ashford Mill. This, we were told, was the best place to see the wild flowers.  The predominant bloom is the yellow daisy-like Desert Gold, but if you look you can see other flowers as well.

The flowers follow the moisture in the soil from the October rains runoff.  The further south we drove the more flowers there were.  Desert Gold

                                             Brown-eyed Evening Primrose

A small lake/pool This coyote sauntered across the road in front of our truck and stopped.  He never moved while I took about 7 photos of him with my camera, then got John’s camera and took some with that.  He was still standing there when we drove away.Ashford Mill is at the end of the pavement on this road.  In the spring through fall months you can drive a gravel road out of the park into Arizona.  The road is closed in the winter.  After we had taken many, many photos of the flowers we turned around to go see all the things we had driven past on our way out.  We wanted to be sure to see the flowers in nice light so we ignored everything else until the return.

 Look very closely at this photo and find the sign that marks sea level on the cliff.

 It’s a long walk on the salt flat. Just a bit further down the road is the turn-off to Devil’s Golf Course.  It was only about a 1/2 mile of gravel road away.We backtracked a bit after talking to some ladies at Devil’s Golf Course and returned to the parking lot at the trailhead to the Natural Bridge.  We had pulled into it on the way by but the trail was a 2 mile one-way hike.  We, unfortunately did not have the time because it was getting late and we wanted to be on Artist’s Drive when the sun was beginning to go down.  But the ladies told us that just off the parking lot at the beginning of the trail there were more wildflowers, specifically one I had wanted to see but had, as yet, not found.

 This is a Desert Five-spot.  Isn’t that the cutest little flower?                                        This flower is called Gravel Ghost. 

And this is Lesser MojaveaWe arrived at the beginning of the one-way Artist’s Drive a smidge later than we had hoped but the colours were still wonderful. John instantly saw the head of a bear in this rock.  Do you see it?

And, now I am all done for the day.  It was a good one. I have concluded that I could take a photograph in Death Valley every day for about 400 years and never repeat a shot.  We met a fellow who has been spending a month here every year for 16 years.  I totally understand.  We will be back.

Day 31 – February 12 – Stovepipe Wells (Death Valley National Park)

We had a lot to see today so we rose early and we on the road by 9 am.

The first item was Mosaic Canyon which was accessed via a 2 mile gravel road and a one mile hike.  You can walk 4 miles if you want to go to the far end of the Canyon but we didn’t do that.  (There are so many things we would like to see and do on all of our road trips, but we are pretty good at picking the must-see items and adding others if time permits.  We always say, “It gives us a reason to come back.” I have already begun compiling my list of things we will do the next time we come to Death Valley.)

You can just make out the settlement of Stovepipe Wells on the Valley floor.

Once again, some rock climbing was required. After we left the Mosaic Canyon we headed east and discovered the Mesquite Flat Dunes right beside the road!  We wandered around on the fine sand long enough to fill our shoes and got back in the truck for our trip to The Racetrack.

Another roadside stop was Devil’s Cornfield where sand blown around the base of Arrowweed shrubs has caused them to grown higher on the hillocks and look like corn sheaves from back in the day when corn and other grains were harvested by hand.

Not far past the Corn Field we turned north and drove almost 40 miles to the end of the pavement then began our 27 mile one-way trip to the Racetrack.  We had been told this would take 2 1/2 hours.  We engaged the 4-wheel drive and managed to do 30-35 kph (about 20+mph) so we made it in just over an hour and a half.

A jeep came up behind us so John pulled over onto a wide spot.  As he drove past us the fellow asked John what pressue he was running in his tires.  John told him it was high as we didn’t have a compressor with us to refill them if we let air out.  The fellow said he had his tires at 16 PSI and was driving 50 mph (80 kph) and the ride was smooth as could be.  Well, lucky him.  We were being bounced around on rough washboard and big rocks and dips and washes.  Not to mention the dust.  Our poor truck is coated in dust.  Even under the tunnel cover everything is covered in fine-grain grey sand.

We had a 56-pack of bottled water that we had removed a couple of bottles from.  During this journey the bottles broke out of their plastic wrap, bounced all over the back of the truck and sandblasted each other so the bottles are all rough and gravelly feeling.  One of the bottles even broke the seal on the lid and leaked under John’s box of beer.  He was worried one of the beer bottles had exploded.

Along the way we saw a few different flowers, a red-tailed hawk scouting for dinner, and drove up high enough to go through a Joshua Tree ‘forest.’  Not to mention the amazing scenery.

And this is a good part. We arrived at the Racetrack to see a sign that said the Migrating Rocks (which we had come to see) are best seen at the south end of the dry lake – another 20 or so minutes of bouncing!

We dutifully drove to the south end of the lake and wandered out onto the playa to see the tracks made by the rocks as they move. Really, really cool!

Standing water here as well.  Very strange that it survives more than a couple of hours. The temperature was in the low 80’s (25or so Celsius).An intersection. The rocks will move in one direction, stop, sit and move again later in another direction.John made good time on some of the smoother (and I use the word loosely) sections and we made it back to pavement in less than an hour and a half from the south end of the lakebed.

 Inspired by the name of the junction people have adorned the sign with tea kettles.  Many of them had sealed plastic baggies with the donors name and address in them.We left the Playa at 3:09 and arrived at the pavement at 4:30. Not far along after we re-joined the pavement we turned off the road to the Ubehebe Crater which we had been able to see as we drove the last few miles of gravel road.

 What we thought was the crater was not in fact Ubehebe.  The black crater we could see was one of the smaller craters created by the explosion.  You can walk the rim of Ubehebe and hike to the smaller craters as well.  (This isalready on the next-time list). The late afternoon sun brought the orange out in the rocks.  It was truly beautiful. We arrived in Furnace Creek after the sun had set.  We are staying two nights here.  Tomorrow the adventure continues…..

Day 30 – February 9 – Panamint Springs (Death Valley National Park)

We woke up at 7:30 and had a good breakfast in the little restaurant at Panamint Springs.  Walking across the parking lot I saw these two birds.  The first one, we learned later, is a Greater Roadrunner, a year-round resident of Death Valley, and the other is a Mountain Chickadee.

After breakfast we began our three-day odessy in Death Valley. There are only three places to stay in Death Valley – Panamint Springs, Stovepipe Wells and Furnace Creek.  Furnace Creek is the largest by far.  There are no towns in the Park but each accomodation area also has a campground, RV parking, a general store, a restaurant and a gas station.  Accomodation is expensive but the meals were only a ‘little’ pricier than normal; unless you go to the Steak House at Furnace Creek Ranch or the Furnace Creek Inn Restaurant; where you will pay BIG BUCKS for your dinner.

We split our explorations geographically and stayed at each of the places.  This gave us the opportunity to see many of the Valley’s recommended sites without a lot of back and forth driving.  Many people come into Death Valley from the Arizona side and only see the things south and north of Furnace Creek.

Panamint Springs is 30 miles from the western boundry of Death Valley National Park (coming in from Lone Pine, CA), sitting on the western slope of the very long, very flat Panamint Valley.   The Panamint Range separates this section of the park from the Stovepipe Wells and Furnace Creek areas which are in Death Valley itself.

We drove about 20 miles west, up through Rainbow Canyon to the Father Crowley Vista Point where you can enjoy a panoramic view of the Panamint Valley and Panamint Range.

 If you look closely at this photo you can see the old car wreck rusted on the bank.  That would not have been a good ride.                                 This plane is about to refuel in mid-air.

After we had enjoyed the view from Father Crowley’s Point we backtracked down the road to find the turn-off to Darwin Falls which provides the water for Panamint Springs.

Panamint Springs was originally built in the 30’s to provide accomodation and a way-station to serve the miners up in the mountains at Darwin.  Without the Darwin Falls there would be no ‘settlement’ here.  It is a year-round waterfall found after a 1 mile hike into the canyon at the end of a 7 mile dirt road.

There were some tricky places to navigate along the trail. The pipeline for the water is above the ground 99% of the way to Panamint Springs.  Most of it is iron but there were sections that had been replaced with plastic.  Several joints had leaks and there would be nice green grass and bushes on the ground underneath the area.

When we had spoken to the Park Ranger at Lone Pine he suggested we drive in to the Panamint Dunes which we could see in the distance from Father Crowley’s Vista.

We initially drove past the turn-off because there was no directional marker and the road was barely visible amidst all the rocky gravel.  It took us 1 1/2 hours to drive the 20 miles to the end of the road only to discover the dunes were probably a 2+ mile hike away.  We took a few photos and drove 1 1/2 hours of rocky, bumpy ‘road’ back again.  It was disappointing to not get close to the dunes but we have seen sand dunes before so we were okay; and it was VERY cool to be out in the middle of such a large desert expanse and experience the absolute quiet.  I loved the absence of sound.

These two cars were alongside the road about halfway down and they were absolutely riddled with bullet holes, some of which were a large enough caliber to put a fist-sized whole right through the vehicle.

This sand is so dry and hard and windblown you leave no footprints on it.

In order to go from Panamint Springs to Stovepipe Wells you need to cross the Panamint Range through Towne Pass (Elevation 4956′ at the summit).  This route was a originally a private toll road built by the owner of a ‘hotel’ camping ground at Stovepipe Wells.  He wanted to encourage tourists to come to Death Valley but road access was non-exsistent.  The National Park had not yet been created and he got permission from the State to built a 30.35 mile toll road which the Park Service eventually purchased from him when they made Death Valley a National Monument.

A sign at the bottom of the pass says to turn off your air conditioner for the next 10 miles due to the risk of overheating the engine on the rapid climb in the hot temperatures.

Due to the heavy rains in October the wild flowers are blooming in Death Valley. This only happens every 10-15 years.  We spoke to people that have worked in the park for years and have never seen the flowers bloom.  We saw many of them along the roadside once we started through Towne Pass.

A few miles down the road on the other side we turned off onto the Emigrant Canyon Road to drive up to the Charcoal Kilns – and we got high enough for there to be snow on the ground. Because of their remote location these are some of the best examples of charcoal kilns in North America. On the way back down from the kilns we branched off the Emigrant Canyon Road and took a six mile gravel road to Aguereberry Point.  We came to a fork in the road and took the right one which led us to the site of the Eureka Mine.   The left for took us up to Aguereberry Point we were treated to a fabulous view through Death Valley Canyon to Death Valley in the distance.

There was a nice turn-around parking area near the top but the road continued (very, very narrow) and wound (very, very tightly) around the highest point so we drove up to the top and then navigated the trail through the rocky cliff-face to check out the view, which was well worth all the dust and clambering!  John looks like one of the rock out-croppings at the top of that rock. There is no guardrail on the cliff side and very few spots wide enough to pull over if you meet a vehicle coming up.  You would need to do some tricky backing up. Thankfully that was not required.

And once again, the sun is setting as we head to our hotel for the night.

Day 29 – February 8 – 29 Palms to Panamint Springs (Death Valley)

I woke up early – as in 5:30 – and couldn’t get back to sleep.  I gave up and got up at 7:30 so we were on the road by 9:30 this morning; which wasn’t a bad thing as we had almost 400 kilometers – about 250 miles – to cover.

Driving west as we left 29 Palms we could see snow on the mountains.  A bit of an incongruous sight amidst all this desert.  We traveled through the Mojave Desert almost all the way to Kramer’s Corner where we pulled into the back of a gas station lot and made a PB & J sandwich which we ate with carrot sticks and Girl Scout cookies for dessert.  Again today, as we noticed yesterday when we had the same lunch in Joshua Tree NP, the desert wind dried out the sandwich bread before you could finish the sandwich.  

At Kramer’s Corner we turned north along the same section of highway we traveled when we came down.  We passed the Red Mountain from the back side and branched off the highway just after the town of the same name.  This road took us straight up to Panamint Springs.  And I do mean straight.  There are not very many corners through this landscape.

As we turned one of the few corners and came down a hill we could see a white lake bottom.  We knew there are quite a few dry lakes around here so we assumed that is what we were seeing.  As we came down the hill and got closer to the white-ness we could see that it was an actual substance on the ground. When we had stopped at the Death Valley Visitor’s Center in Lone Pine on our way south the park ranger, when he learned we had a 4 X 4 truck, suggested we drive in to see the Trona Pinnacles.

At the turn-off to the Trona Pinnacles there were two historical marker cairns.  The first spoke of the Searles brothers who ran two wagon train routes from this area to remove the borax.  The second marker was commemorating the venture of an Los Angeles florist who spent $200,000 to build a one track railway to haul Epsom from the lake bed back to the city.  The railcars had only two wheels and the Epsom was loaded onto the narrow car like packs on a mule.  The system never did work well and was eventually abandoned.  Now we knew what the white stuff was all about.The road into the Trona Pinnacles is seven miles of unpaved, semi-rugged dirt.  You can make out the pinnacles from the highway and they don’t look that far away but it took a little while to get there. Fascinating creations.  For obvious reasons the area has been used in many films – Planet of the Apes and Star Trek V among them. We walked the walking path loop and drove the driving track loop and headed back to the highway.

 There were puddles beside the road on the way into the Pinnacles.  I would have thought it would evaporate in minutes.As we approached the town of Searles we could see a gigantic white mound and a processing plant.  A little further down the road at the town of Trona there was a huge plant belonging to the same company.  The process of removing borax, potash and Epsom continues.

Not far past Trona as John drove around a corner these black columns rose up on the hillside.  We had never seen the like before and there were no more anywhere around.We climbed a few deceptively-steep hills and had just crested one and rounded a sharp corner at the top with a warning about a 7% grade on the downhill and immediately in front of the vehicle appeared this massive flat valley bottom.  There was a handy pull-out right there so naturally we stopped to take photos.  This is the Panamint Valley.  When we got to the bottom we drove through the middle for 13 km without a single bend, then turned two small corners and drove another 10 or so km straight as an arrow. The valley is over 50 miles long and extends into Death Valley National Park.

And running down the right side of the valley was this incredible range of mountains (the Panamint Range).  The mountains were all shaded in a variety of tones and had different shapes side by side.  I was a happy shutterbug.

We entered Death Valley National Park part way through the valley and took a left at the intersection to arrive at our hotel for the night in Panamint Springs.  Panamint Springs was created in the 30’s as housing and supply depot for miners from Darwin.  There is a large campground on one side of the road, a gas station and general store, and a restaurant with 16 cabins.  We spent the night in number 5.  Nothing fancy, but clean and quiet with an incredible night sky filled with glittering stars.  No light pollution out here to get in the way of God’s creation. Another good day.

Day 28 – February 7 – Indio, CA to 29 Palms, CA

We were up, breakfasted, and on the road by 10 am.  From Indio to the south entrance of Joshua Tree National Park is about 30 miles so it didn’t take us long to begin our explorations.

I have discovered that the third thing I like to take photos of, after animals and flowers, are textures and shapes, and Joshua tree abounded with them.  So; a warning is in order.  This blog will be short on text and long on photographs.

Before we got to the Park Entrance office we walked a little loop trail that had examples of many of the different plants found in the Colorado Desert.

Beavertail cactus                           We even saw a couple of little critters.

Mesquite Mistletoe, a parasite.                                                       Birds eat the berries.

I was quite excited to see flowers on several of the plants.  I guess when the big rainstorm hit the coast they got some rain up here.  It never takes long for desert plants to sprout leaves or flowers after some rain.

Joshua Tree National Park covers a section of the Colorado Desert and a section of the Mojave Desert.  The Colorado Desert is a high plains desert and has quite different vegetation to the lower Mojave Desert.  When we got into the Mojave Desert part of the Park there were placards in front of different plants and cactus than we saw here.

Joshua tree is also home to rocks and huge boulders that come in all sorts of shapes.  The wind and rain have eroded them over the centuries.  They are a form of granite, not sandstone as many people think.  I took LOTS of photos of big boulders.

We only have one day in Joshua Tree so I didn’t even look at any of the longer trail routes and explanations in case I was tempted.  We did manage to hike all the short trails we wanted as well as drive up to the high point at Keys View.

The Desert Fan Palm grows predominantly in the Colorado Desert and the Joshua Tree grows in the Mojave Desert.  Pinto Mountain.  You can hike to the top.  It takes about 6 hours and you must have orienteering skills.

 A heap of fallen off Cholla Cactus tops surround this bush. 

We drove up to Keys View where, on a clear day you can see Palm Springs, Mt. San Jacinto, Mt. San Gorgonio, and the Salton Sea.  You can also very plainly see the San Andreas Fault running down the center.  It was very windy at the view point.  Reminded me of the day we were at Cape Spear in Newfoundland a couple of years ago.  You had to plant your feet to avoid being blown over.Joshua Tree National Park is considered one of the world’s best rock climbing sites.  If you look closely at the photo above you can see the girl scaling the rock face.

 The descent is quicker than the climb.There were climbers all over the place in this area of the park.The entrance to a 55 acre hidden valley  rumored to have been used by cattle rustlers to hide and re-brand the livestock before selling in out-of-state markets.  The loop trail took us all around the inside.Pinyon Pine – They don’t normally grown at this elevation but because of the extra moisture in the sheltered, shady valley there were several of them here. More rock climbers.  One is scaling the left-side face of the rock and another is sitting on the top.  The cattle trough they used to water the cattle.There are petroglyphs in the hollow of this huge rock.  Years ago some idiotic people painted them for better visibility. The sun was setting as we made our way back to the parking lot, concluding a great day. We drove the 13 miles out of the park, turned right and went another 20 miles or so to 29 Palms where we are spending the night.