The Road Goes Ever On

Monday, November 23, 2015

Death Valley Days, 4

Sunday was certainly our best day in Death Valley: we toured the Borax Museum in Furnace Creek. Under the roof it is small and compact, but the yard contains a great variety of implements related to mining, particularly borax mining in the Valley. The woman who staffs the museum was quite knowledgeable and could name nearly all hosts of the famed radio/TV show Death Valley Days. I was impressed.

Thus

You have to be of a certain age...

Actually, there were never more than 18 mules since the last pair, closest to the
wagon, had to be horses; see below

Thus

Wagon routes in the Valley

The last round-up

Many mineral displays

Death Valley Days ran on radio or TV pretty much
continuously from 1930 to the early1970s, certainly the
longest-running western of any sort; looking at the long
list of episodes and actors/actresses, one can see virtually
a who's who of people looking for work in Hollywood in
the 50s and 60s; Reagan both hosted and starred in many
episodes; his last acting gig, unless, of course, you count
his terms as California governor and US president...

Thus

Anyhow, out in the yard, some impressive stuff

Impressive to the impressionable, that is

20 mule team feed wagon

BIG wheels

"Dinah, won't you blow, Dinah, won't you blow..."

Death Valley Days, 3

Our second day in the Park was really big, taking in the Devil's Golf Course, Badwater Basin, and then, below, the Artist Drive and the Gold Canyon hike, below.

Note the many shades of brown

Thus; really burnt sienna

A few colors that are not brown

Ditto

Now on the Gold Canyon hike; it was once paved...probably
before the place became a National Monument/Park

Lots of erosion going on here

Thus

Side canyon

More shades of brown

Matterhornish peak near the end of our hike

On the whole, it was a very dull hike, although the rock
was more interesting than the crumbly conglomerate of the
previous day

Death Valley Days, 2

So another day we drove down to the Devil's Golf Course and then Badwater Basin, which is the lowest of the low.

Devil's Golf Course, 11th fairway; amazing how many things
here are named "Devil"

Closer up

Salts forming over baked and re-baked mud; in the basin there
is actually standing water here and there, and the re-baked mud
can be quite mushy

Thus, the Devil's Golf Course; we didn't play

Moving right along, we are now at the Badwater Basin site;
some bad rains recently closed a number of the roads in DVNP,
including this one, but only beyond the official deepest place

Thus

Standing water

You can walk as far as you like out into the Basin; the "road"
here is actually a pathway made by millions of boots and shoes
tramping over the salty mush

Great natural beauty (!)

Vicki, overcome by all the natural beauty

Salt formation: extreme close-up

Parthian shot

In the parking lot at Badwater Basin; look directly up from our
rig and you'll see...

The helpful sign, 270 feet above, showing where sea level
would be; there are many such helpful road signs throughout
the park

Death Valley Days, 1

In all our travels, we'd never been to Death Valley and Death Valley National Park. Just never quite on the way nor quite appealing enough to attract. But it's only a couple hours from Las Vegas, of which we had seen enough. And having been chased out of Utah by cold weather, we were ready for some 80 degree temperatures. We are into our 4th day here now. There is not a lot to do unless you're really into 19th century borax mining or some of the starkest landscape on the planet. It's the lowest elevation in the Americas and the hottest place on earth (and getting hotter). The palette of scenery runs through all 50 shades of brown and not much more. Bor- (as in Borax) is the root particle of such words as bore, boring, boredom, boringness, etc. But we're here, and we're doing it, and can now say, of La Vallee de la Mort, "J'y suis allé, je l'ai fait."