Beam us up Scotty...a two day tour of Death Valley!!!

Devils Hole

HE SAID: Note to self: Don't brush your teeth with Cortisone creme...Without my glasses I thought it said Colgate...Needless to say my teeth won't be inflamed.

We decided this week to visit several of the sites around Las vegas and Pahrump that we have always wanted to do. After dealing with our "pension" and benefits issue, we left for what we thought was Death Valley. At least I told the GPS to take us Devils Hole, which we thought was in Death Valley. After touring Ash Meadows National Park where Devils Hole is we found out that we where in the wrong park. Whoops. Devils Hole is managed by Death Valley which is a really a huge National park next door.  We were told we would have to come back the next day to take it all in, which is what we did today. BTW Devils Hole is cool. It is really  bottomless pool, that divers have never have found the bottom. In fact divers disappeared back in the sixties and were never found. There is a fish called the pupfish that is almost extinct and only exists in Devils hole.  Couldn't see the fish though as we were up way too high!.

Scotty's Castle

Today we went back to tour Death Valley, above all to see Scotty's Castle that was totally on the other side of the park. A long drive but very much worth it.  We took the tour and found out that this resort was built long ago by gold mine con artist and a millionaire from Chicago that friended him. Very much worth the trip.

Badwater

Beside the fantastic scenery, my favourite spot was Badwater, which is the lowest land level in the Western Hemisphere.  (282 feet...BELOW sea Level).  It is hard to see in the picture above, but there is a sign on the mountain behind me, saying sea level.    I am standing on the salt of the lake that was once here.  I think the Scotties thought it was snow!!!. Anyway.... I had no idea that this existed here and was very giddy about it.  I'm sure I told Pat look at the Sea Level sign about ten times. Small things amuse this retired mind.   (more pics to follow on FB).

SHE SAID:

It has been a fun few days.  As John said, day one venture to the Badlands, turned into a visit to a Nature Preserve that is run by the National Park - we were having Badland fun, until we were corrected at the Visitors Centre, which was our last stop.  Guess we were having Nature Preserve fun.  One more thing about Devils Hole...it is filled with water, with nearly extinct fish yes, it also moves in a mini tsunami whenever there is an earthquake anywhere in the world.  They had video of it swishing around like a bathtub gone crazy at the Visitor Centre.  There was no movement during our visit, so we can safely say there was no earthquake, anywhere on Monday!  Getting our calls/lookups/things we've been avoiding done made me feel somewhat productive that day as well.

Tuesday, we got up and finished up our 'work' in contacting places to put the RV while at the Resort in Vegas.  Turns out the very cheapest, easiest option will be to leave it here at Pahrump.  It is MUCH cheaper than any Vegas option!  We also had a travelling motorhome detailing crew come to clean up Willie.  It was getting pretty dingy, and had collected a lot of 'gunk' since we got it.  WOW - it may have been the best money we've spent so far...very shiny, and clean - looks great on the outside!  We then made the trip to the 'real' Badlands park.  On the trip to the castle, we stopped at a place called Zabriski's Point.  It was a short walk up, to look at hills that are multi coloured - very beautiful - as was the entire scenery in the Park.  We took the obvious, photos and on the way back to the car ran into a tour bus of Japanese tourists.  They saw the Scotties and fell in love! We paused for about 5 minutes for a photo shoot.  I think one was even filming them for their posterity.  The entire time there was a chorus of "cute, cute", which I took to mean they really loved our dogs.  They may even have their own Japanese fan site by now!

We continued to Scotties Castle, which really was quite a sight, so far from everything - kept in the time of it's heyday in the 1930's - tour was run by a Park Ranger in 1930 costume.  Lots of fun.  On the way out we had to wait for a pilot car, due to road work.  John took to opportunity to take the dogs out of the car for a bit - a coyote showed up and started circling from afar, getting closer - a fellow in the car in front of us commented that the coyote must have wanted haggis for supper.  We made a clean break, thanks to the arrival of the Pilot car, then back to Pahrump.