the refrigerator going, and all the other preps needed even for a short trip. We took off around 10:30 am, and had a lovely drive up PCH to Oxnard, where we turned inland and picked up the 101 for the rest of the trip. Excellent weather, and the Channel Islands were easily visible. Everything was nice and green after the rains recently. So nice to be gaining on the drought, even if we’re a long way from ending it. We stopped in Buellton, looking for a Mexican restaurant that had been highly recommended by local friends, but we couldn’t spot it. We parked on a side street and had PBJ’s and fruit instead. Later, we found we were only a block away from the place, but it really was obscure. Next time. We got to Morro about mid-afternoon, and pulled into our primo spot (in the sense that it gets good sunlight for our solar, and sits in the middle of all the activity). We had taken the scoot along for the first time in years. I was a little anxious about loading it, but it went smoothly.
The next day we decided to take the scoot down to Montano De Oro, another park just south of Morro, which has some nice coves and shoreline. Sporting our yellow safety jackets, we started exploring. Morro Rock is at the extreme left, and the abandoned power plant smokestacks are in the center.
The waves were breaking nicely at the main cove, looking north. Note the people on the sand for perspective.
Much of these gatherings revolves around eating, whether at the excellent Bayside Cafe just across the street (dessert warning!), or in pot lucks. We were supposed to have two, but the Friday one was canceled because of the rains that day. We spent most of the day in the rig, reading (me) or knitting afghans (Loni) and listening to Celtic music on the stereo. Very pleasant to be cocooned like that. On Saturday we did have an all-group potluck, which turned out to be huge. We had a total of 61 rigs in the group, so somewhat over 100 people in attendance. I’m always amazed that, without any assignments or coordination, the dishes people bring are varied and delicious. I stuffed myself. The food is on tables behind where I’m standing to take this picture, as are other people.
We had an excellent time. I scored four desserts at the cafe (along with delicious clam chowder and fish dishes), and we made it as well to Taco Temple for a gigantic, dual-sauce carnitas bomb. It was as big as a football! Oye. I made it through half, the rest we had for dinner.
It was fun meeting up with folks we only see once a year or so, as well as many of our closer friends. Many of them departed on Sunday, but we stayed over to Monday so I could get a final lunchtime chowder-and-dessert fix. It was worth hanging around for. We took off (we had loaded the scoot and made preparations the night before) after dumping tanks, and
headed south to pick up highway 166 to cross the Coastal Range into the Central Valley. We had several choices of routes, but we hadn’t been on this road before, so selected it. Turned out to be a good decision. The first third was very green and mountainous, one of those “I never knew this was here” type of places. The middle third was just hilly-to-plains-y, and less green, and the last third was straight Central Valley farm and ranchland. Good road all the way, and no problem at all for the rig (or the driver). We knew we didn’t want to try to push it all the way to Death Valley, and planned on an overnight in the Bakersfield area. I’d done a little research before setting out, and decided to try the Orange Grove RV Park just to the east of Bakersfield on highway 58, our route to DV. It was $30 a night for water and electric, cable, and dynamite wifi, and you were invited to pick oranges off the trees that surrounded and separated the sites! They even provided bags and pole-claws to get the high fruit, the lower-hanging stuff having long-since been plucked. The oranges turned out to be terrific, very juicy and sweet. I have to rate this place right up with the best we’ve stayed at across the country. It is immaculately maintained, including spotless, modern bathrooms/showers, and has amenities like a laundry, gym, pool, billiards room, rv wash area, etc. The ONLY downside is that there is a train line that is all-too audible because of some crossing nearby where every engineer leans on the air horn. We were towards the edge of the facility that is closest to the tracks, so maybe it’s a little quieter if you’re farther away. Anyway, kudos to OGRVP, they run a first class operation at a reasonable price.
We got on the road bright and early the next day, and headed east on 58 through the Tehachapi mountains. Again, another surprisingly beautiful drive, until you drop down into the Mohave Desert, where things get a little grim, even if you like deserts, as we do. It just ain’t that pretty. We turned north on Hwy 14, through the nifty geology of Red Rock Canyon, and turned east again on Hwy 178 to go to Ridgecrest. Two of our Lazy Daze friends (Robin & Lydia) live there, and we had to check out the results of the big remodeling job they’d been doing on their new house over the last half year. We had a nice visit and wow, we were very impressed with how things turned out and even more so by the fact that they had done most all of the work themselves. I certainly wouldn’t have tackled it. We could only stay an hour, then continued east and north on 178 through the Panamint Valley, bordered on the east by the Panamint Range which forms the western boundary of DV.
Yeah, that’s a whole lotta nothing. We took this route because it was 20 miles shorter than continuing up 395 to 190, but wish we hadn’t. The road is just fine for 55 of its 58 miles, but those other 3 were a nightmare. This section (for which there was no warning at any point) is unpaved, washboard dirt/sand. Emphasis on the washboard. We had to reduce speed to 2-3 mph, as the coach was just shaking itself to death. I have to think it must be similar to the dreaded Chaco Canyon road (which is much longer) over in New Mexico, although we haven’t been on that one. Anyway, we were not happy campers for the long, slow slog through this stretch, which I figure came in about 2/3 of the way from Ridgecrest. Once through this, we continued on up to Hwy 190, which runs east to DV by climbing 5,000 feet up through the Panamints. We contemplated the climb (yes, you have to go OVER that range):
It was a long, slow haul up and over the Panamints, but we made it without drama, dropping down into DV at Stovepipe Wells where we presented our “Golden Oldies” pass and got free entry, along with a plastic placard to fit our pass into and to hang from the rear view mirror. From SW it was only 24 miles to Furnace Creek, and our Sunset campground. Although it looks crowded, there actually were plenty of open spots. This is a no-reservation, no-utilities boondocking parking lot, but had decent bathrooms and level sites. For $6 a night (seniors), it was just fine. We were concerned there would be a lot of generator noise, but that turned out not to be the case. It was dead quiet at night. Almost.
The next day we decided to check out Dante’s View; at 5,475 feet, it was 25 miles south of the campground, so was a nice scoot ride. The first thing we saw was the snow on Telescope Peak across the valley; at 11,049 feet it’s the highest in the Panamints. We were surprised to see the snow hanging on, but it did rain here (!) just last week. Loni should have faced the other way to get her face out of the shadow.
From the parking area you have to walk out a ways on a path in order to get to the overlook.
Once there, you’re looking down almost exactly a mile at Badwater Basin, the lowest elevation (-282 ft) in North America. It’s a giant salt flat.
We would be down there, hiking out a ways, in a couple of days. For now, we just enjoyed the tremendous views from the overlook. On super-clear days (this was not one), you can see both the highest (Mt. Whitney) and lowest spots in the contiguous U.S. We settled for pretty good views. The little white dot on the roadway is a vehicle.
Master of all he surveys?
Salt ponds with seasonal “creeks” wiggling away. They look like giant sperm.
While we were hiking around, an unusual RV pulled into the parking lot with an authentic bonebreaker big wheel on the back. Out of this thing popped a man and a woman dressed in 1800’s period costumes, and proceeded to take in the sights. Meanwhile, their rig and they ended up being sights for lots of photographers. I didn’t get a shot of them, but I recalled they were in line in front of us at Stagecoach Wells, dressed in the same outfits, so it must be a regular thing for them. I didn’t get a shot, unfortunately, of their duds. We were a little more mundane with our clothes and 2-wheeler.
We had hoped to catch the “super bloom” that had been announced for the valley, a wildflower explosion that happens only in the wettest years, about every 10 or so. Unfortunately, we were about a week late. The blooms themselves were abnormally small, about 10-25% of normal size, due to the erratic rains that did fall, and by the time we got there they were largely dried up as well. This is pretty much what we saw.
I guess, given that DV is the driest place in North America (less than 2” per year), seeing ANY flowers is pretty much a miracle. We made our way back to camp and pretty much vegged out the afternoon in and around the rig as the heat built up (90’s). Towards sundown, I thought I’d run up to Zabriskie Point to try to catch some shots of the tortured landscape in good shadows. Turned out to be a good call, but sunrise would be better.
Looking east towards the parking area, with the Funeral Mountains catching the last rays.
The next morning, the alarm didn’t go off, and it was just minutes to sunrise when I woke up. I threw my clothes on, grabbed the camera, and took off on the scoot on a mad dash to Zabriskie. Turns out I made it in plenty of time, as the “official” sunrise is calculated earlier than when the sun actually peeps over the mountain top; I had a little time to spare as it climbed its way over. I wasn’t alone in the pre-dawn vigil. Some ambitious souls (or better photographers than I) had done some extra hiking for their vantage point.
And others were spread out all along the rocks watching the sun climb.
When it did get up there, it was pretty spectacular.
On my way back down to (hopefully) a waiting breakfast, I got this shot of Sunset campground. This looks north up Death Valley.
After breakfast, we decided to motor down to Badwater, the spot we saw below Dante’s View. As I said, this is the lowest spot in North America.
You can see behind us the raw, rough, salt flat floor of the area. It’s a jumble you wouldn’t want to walk far on. Fortunately, there’s a path of sorts that has been trodden down over the years to a flat, easy surface, for walking way out on the flats.
Once out there, it’s a lot of, well, nothing. “Don’t leave me!”
I don’t, and won't.
Looking back from out in the middle towards the parking lot and the mountain upon which sits Dante’s View. Somewhere up there.
Once back there, we spied the sign way above us on the rocks that marks sea level. Kinda weird. After taking a water break, we geared back up and returned north towards the Artists Drive loop, a one-way road through some colorful rock formations. This is the beginning:
We hadn’t gone far before we came to a posted viewpoint which required a bit of a hike; the view turned out to be just so-so. The scoot’s down there somewhere.
As we went further in, the road became scooter heaven. Yeah, twisties!
Finally, we hit the real color, the “Artists Palette.” This is in the mid-day sun; I suspect it would be a lot better at sundown.
Once back, Loni whipped up some tuna salad and we had a nice lunch. Love those Clementines!
We had spent the first two nights buried in the center of the campground. Our neighbors were nice enough, but the guy on one side had a tall flagpole with two flags flying. When the wind came up at night, they whipped and snapped back and forth and I had trouble sleeping. We decided to move on the third day to take advantage of an end site with some view.
We really enjoyed those mountains from our picture windows out the back of the rig.
On our last full day we were up for some hiking, and after a liesurely breakfast we again went south to the Golden Canyon Trail. This is an easy hike through some nice canyon. Ready to start out.
Looking back at the entrance from inside.
It wasn’t always flat, but the climbing was fairly easy, even for we old farts.
The one-way hike in covers a mile. I think Loni’s Fitbit showed more, but we did a lot of hopping around.
After a while, things began to narrow down. Loni didn’t go much farther than this.
The end point of this exercise is a dead-end canyon wall called Red Cathedral. Loni didn’t make it there, but with this lighting it wasn’t all that spectacular.
Coming back out, though, provided some nice views of the Panamints across the valley.
Back at the rig, we decided to fire up the generator for the first time since being here, as the inside temps were significantly higher than previous days. It was nice to loll about in air-conditioned comfort until dinner time. We decided to give the cook a break, and walked across the road to the Furnace Creek Ranch, a privately-owned resort that had a saloon with draft beers and Jalapeno pizza. Well, all right! We each had a Badwater Ale and split a generous pizza. After my first bite, I had to pick the Jalapenos off each piece. Too much for me. Loni is made of stouter stuff.
This was a nice end to our stay. We walked back to the rig and sat outside for a while. Too bad the moon was 2/3 full as it pretty much wiped out the stars. I was really hoping to get a cosmos experience, but it wasn’t meant to be. We packed up pretty much everything in order to get an early start in the morning. We actually got up at 6:00 and finished storing things for travel, then pulled out and headed over to the dump for the necessities. Glad we got moving early, as no one was using it and no one came up to wait behind us. Once done, we got on the road, retracing our steps to go out through Stovepipe Wells. Only 289 miles to go (I added 22 as we were NOT going to follow the Garmin back through the washboards, but would take the slightly longer route of 190 back to 395. It was nice to pretty much have the road to ourselves.
We passed by the sand dunes just before the turn to Stovepipe. They look nice in the morning sun.
Once again we hauled our weight 5,000 feet up the Panamints, through Towne Pass, and descended down to Panamint Springs at the westernmost edge of the park. Here we stopped for breakfast, a $10 buffet of rubber scrambled eggs, pretty good bacon, and not bad sourdough flapjacks. We filled up at our table on the porch.
And contemplated the view back to where we had just come down the Panamints. That snaky line coming up out of the cactus was our road.
Of course, we still aren’t done climbing, as we have to go over the Nelson Range to get to the lower Owens Valley. Here’s a shot looking back; our breakfast stop was down on the flats at the 90 degree bend; the road over the Panamints runs back and up. The net result of all of this is that our gas mileage was in the low 8’s. Augh!
There was plenty of snow on the Sierra range, and it was a pretty sight.
It’s essentially all downhill from here, and hopefully with a tail wind.
It’s been far too long since we’ve been on the road in the rig, and even a short trip like this one reminds us that it’s time to get out there for a much longer journey. Where to? It’s a big country.
