The knee-jerk reaction from nearly everybody when I told them we were going to Death Valley was, “why?” The “why” is easy to answer; it’s a gorgeous place that’s a very pleasant high 70’s temperature in November.
We stayed at the Furnace Creek Campground, shown below. This is a very nice, very clean campground. National Park Service, so $11 per night with senior pass. There’s a really great visitors’ center nearby, which I really enjoyed.
Exotic breakfast of coffee and instant oatmeal. It’s all high times and fast living with us. The culinary excitement of this trip was the new wok I bought to keep in the RV. It’s a small guy wok, perfect for the two of us, and it worked like a champ on the camp stove.
Bob and rush hour near our campsite.
Ubehebe Crater below. You don’t get much of a notion how big this thing is from the photo below. It’s a half mile across and 600 feet deep. It was caused by a maar volcano. Hot magma rises up below ground and hits ground water. This creates a high pressure steam that explodes up out of the ground.
Our visit to Artists’ Palette, shown below, came at the end of a long day, so we just stood in the parking lot and looked. Next time we go there, I’m going to want to get down into the canyons and get a better look.
Bob with one of the wagons that the 20 mule teams pulled borax from Death Valley to Mohave.
