Fred’s?

Before I get too deep into our Saturday chores – laundry, vacuuming, dusting, toilets (blech), etc.- I wanted to share our “Saturday One”. After our two week “Rock Tour”, Gary has just about had it with the entire sightseeing venue. However, persuasive female that I am, I manage to convince him that we did need to get to Lake Tahoe. I mean, really, we might never come this way again.
So off to Tahoe we went!

And my goodness, what a beautiful lake/area that is!

We drove around the lake counter-clockwise, coming down on 89 and going back up 267 to I80. All along the map were those little green dots. You know, the “this is a scenic drive” green dots. We love them. Especially when we’re NOT driving the RV. (We like them in the RV too, but sometimes it’s a little more hair-raising in the house!). Poor Dear Gary stopped every time I asked him too – scenic overlooks, state parks, waterfalls, any little whim. Not only was the lake beautiful, but the crowds were nil. Ah, the blessing of being a tourist during the “shoulder season”!
Take, for example, Sugar Pines Point State Park. Look at this place -




Can you imagine how full of people this would be in the summer?
This park is also home to the Hellman-Ehrman Mansion- built in 1905, and restored to its 1920 splendor.

The tours weren’t running yet (remember, it’s the “shoulder season”), but we could peek in the windows-

I love old houses!

After our lovely walk through the park and around the grounds of the house, we continued on around the lake.
Next stop – Emerald Bay, with it’s beautiful Fannette Island!

They say this is one of the most photographed views in America. Believe me, I did my part!
There’s a walk down to the shoreline and another mansion, but we opted to stay top-side and just enjoy the view!
And while not all the shops were open yet, we managed to find a great lunch in South Tahoe before we started up the Nevada side of the lake.

Our final official stop was at Memorial Point in Lake Tahoe Nevada State Park -

And there a sweet couple offered to take our picture, eliminating the need to find a rock or stump to balance the camera on (or do the out-stretched arm shot – boy, are we bad with that!).

It was an all together lovely day. And unless you actually want to go IN the water, or perhaps enjoy some of the amazing snow sports that this area is famous for, I’d highly recommend the “Shoulder Season”.

I mean really, ONE boat?

One final shot from the day –
We often see dogs hanging out the windows (or standing in the back of the pick-up) enjoying the breeze in their faces. Especially on back roads. But I think this is the first time I’ve seen a horse catching the breeze while zipping down the INTERSTATE!

Have a great Saturday – it’s way past when I should be getting some chores done!

Well, I’ve finished my second cup of coffee this morning (or is it my third?) and the pipes are still frozen (delaying my long hot shower) so I thought I’d keep plowing through my Death Valley NP pictures and memories.
We were on day 3, and still our list of of “things to see” was pretty long! We’d moved to a different campground the night before so our focus was more on the southern end of the park.
We started at Zabriskie Point -

How beautiful! The colors of these mountains just continued to amaze me!



Our God is an AMAZING artist!

That’s Gary, waiting patiently for me to finish taking pictures. He’s learned a lot about patience this trip!
After a quick drive through the Twenty Mule Team Canyon

we drove to Dantes View, over 5000 thousand feet above the lowest spot in North America, the salt flats of Badwater Basin.

(the snow capped mountains? That’s Telescope Peak – 11,049 ft.!)

See that big stretch of white down there? That’s where we were headed next!
First, though, we stopped at “Devil’s Golf Course” – “an immense area of rock salt eroded by wind and rain into jagged spires. So incredibly serrated that “only the devil could play golf on such rough links.”


We walked out for a little bit, but not too far. Not with my sense of balance anyway!
But what was truly spectacluar was Badwater Basin- elevation of 282ft. below sea level.

We walked out past the crowd –

but since it was 5 miles to the other side, we didn’t make it all the way across!

That’s Gary again, way far ahead of me. I’m back trying to find the “perfect” shot. Again.
Our final stop that day was the Natural Bridge – a good dirt road,

and then a short hike to the bridge.

It was pretty impressive, but I confess that we found it almost ho-hum after the beauty of the Mosaic Canyon.
And that about wraps up the different places that we experienced while in Death Valley. But I don’t think it really describes the amazing colors and designs of the mountains-




or the wonderful vistas as we drove through the park.




Oh, and the wildflowers were just coming into full bloom!

Such a wonderful mini-vacation in a truly specatularly beautiful place. If you can, GO THERE.
But let me say this – come in with a full tank of gas -

OUCH!

More pictures can be found HERE – if you have the time and the inclination!

Better get this day going – Gary is getting ready to be on the road. Next stop – Prescott, AZ and our April project at Prescott Pines Camp. It’s back to work for us!

But first, let’s see how that hot water situation is coming!

OK, dinner’s over – back to the memories.
I forgot to mention one other stop that we made on our first day –
The Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes

We didn’t actually get out and climb those big ol’ dunes, but there were others who did -



They were pretty amazing!
But, back to Day Two -
Remember how this is the largest park in the lower 48? Well, we were camped close to the middle of the park, and we still had a forty mile drive to our first stop -
Scotty’s Castle

We splurged and did a “combo tour”, so we got to enjoy both an Inside Tour (along with lots of stories about the castle and its builders), and the Underground Tour, which included details on the mechanics of the castle, which was quite an engineering feat.

As you can see, it is pretty remote and in the desert after all, but it did have access to an underground spring that produced 300 gallons of water per minute, so they had that going for them. Can you see the big hole in the ground in the front of castle?
Here are some close-ups -


That was going to be the swimming pool!!!! Check out the viewing windows in the deep end – how crazy was that?

I was standing on that center bridge when I took the pictures of the deep and shallow ends. I can’t imagine how over-the-top this pool would have been (not to mention how quickly the water would have been evaporating there in the desert) had not the owner run out of money. It was a facinating tour – and I took lots of pictures. Here are just a couple -



and plenty more HERE!
Next Stop -(down a 20 mile dirt road) – The Racetrack, home of the mysterious moving rocks.

The Racetrack is a large dry lake bed called a playa. It was pretty facinating just to look at-
from a distance

and close up -

and very close up -

But what really draws people to this remote spot are these rocks

that move across the lakebed

leaving trails behind them.

I haven’t a clue how this actually happens, but I’m glad we got to see them. Quite an interesting phenomenon, don’t you think?
After the Racetrack (and back that 20 miles of dirt road), we took a quick stop at the Ubehebe Crater -

and then we were on our way back to Lizzie,

and a beautiful sunset.

Another good day in the valley!

Death Valley National Park
It wasn’t even on my “bucket list” of things I needed to do while on the West Coast. So when Gary said we were going there before we headed to Arizona, I wondered what there was to do there. I mean, with a name like Death Valley – sure didn’t seem like a very interesting place to me. Well, four jam packed days (and 700+ pictures) later, let me tell you, there is LOTS to see and do in Death Valley.
Did you know

Enough of statistics! I was expecting to see desert and desert-y thing. What I wasn’t expecting were mountains of unbelieveable colors, volcanic craters, a castle, moving rocks, and lakes of salt. I’ve pared down my pictures, and tried to be at least a little organized, so here we go – the highlights of Death Valley National Park, Conrad-style!

Titus Canyon
Now there are two ways to see Titus Canyon. One is to drive to the canyon head (about 1/2 mile) and then hike up the extraordinary canyon. OR, you can drive all the way out of the park and approach it from the other side, driving along a “high clearance, 4×4 vehicle recommended” road for about 25 miles. Can you guess which one we chose?

The road was one way (which I LOVED) and never really got too “technical”, but we did encounter something that we had rarely come across before -

TRAFFIC!
And while we tried to stay back (mostly so we wouldn’t be choaking on their dust),

We did finally end up in a traffic JAM!

Looking back while we waited for folks to start moving again….

We eventually got around the crowd (they all stopped at various POI’s along the way), and made our way into the canyon -

and after an amazing drive through the canyon,

we made it out the other side! It was a great drive – and if you’d like to see a couple more pictures of the drive and canyon, Here you go! -
Since the drive took a little longer than we expected (you know, the traffic!), we decided to take in some of the areas that were close to our campsite.
Like the Harmony Borax Works -


And the Salt Creek Interpretive Trail -




The Salt Creek is home to the Devil’s Hole pupfish – an endangered species found only (so I’m told) here in the Death Valley region.

Our final stop for the day was Mosaic Canyon - Amazing!



A couple more Mosaic Canyon pictures are HERE

And that was Day One. I think I’ll split this up into a couple of posts, so you don’t get into picture overload (like that would ever happen on one of MY posts!)
Take a break – I’m going to make us some dinner!