Our first attempt at being “snow birds” was made somewhat
more difficult by the falling of 12” of SNOW on the driveway on the day before
we were planning to flee the cold north country for southern sunshine. Dad worked really hard with the snow blower
and shovel to get the driveway clear enough to pull the RV up to make our get
away.
We spent a great Christmas afternoon with Jeff’s family and
then stayed in our trailer at a KOA park on South Temple and 1300 West in
SLC. The next morning we woke up to 6”
more snow and still snowing! We visited
Grandpa and Kym and picked up my traveling sewing machine from the shop Dad had
ordered it from for my Christmas present and a nice new warm coat from
Burlington Coat Factory (the junkiest store I have ever shopped in BTW –
nothing like the nice commercials on TV!)
Then we had to decide to travel in the snow or not?? We
finally decided to head out and see how bad it was - - We wanted to get to the
SUNSHINE!! We made it to Nephi and
decided to try another hour to Fillmore.
The freeway was just wet even though it was still blustery weather so we
ventured on another hour at a time until we made it to Cedar City by dusk. We stayed in a motel that night because it
was still cold and we had no water in the trailer yet because we had winterized
it in Cache Valley.
The next morning the weather had improved so we headed out
toward Beatty, Nevada where we were going to stay for our exploration of Death
Valley. Luckily while we were getting
diesel in Las Vegas Dad pulled into a dirt field to turn around and saw the
track of one of the trailer tires was totally worn out on one side. We were fortunate to be only about a mile
from a Discount Tire – just like the one we do all our business with at home in
Providence. Our new BFF “Tom-Tom”
directed us right to it. A very nice
young man put the new tire on and we were on our way in no time. We feel very blessed with Heavenly protection
when things like this happen! - - a few miles down the road a blow-out would
have been a disaster. It also helps that
Dad is so observant and takes such good care of everything!
We arrived in Beatty and pulled into a very nice new RV park
with lots of empty spaces in good time and even went out a few miles into the
desert to explore a ghost town Rhylite that in its day (1907) had about 20,000
people. We saw a wild burro along the
side of the road coming back to town but it was too dark to take a photo. Dad did get this very cool picture of the moon just coming up!
My grandparents traveled from their home in
Oregon and spent winters in Death Valley at Furnace Creek Ranch in their
trailer and later in Beatty in a double wide mobile home for about 25 years in
the 1960’s thru the early 1980’s. I was
quite interested in seeing this area to see what fascinated them so. I must say after a couple of days there I am
still wondering. At first I said I was
not interested in ever returning it was so barren but I may give it one more
chance some time a little more into spring (FEB-APR) when the wild flowers and
the cactus are in bloom. We could
probably see the same beauty in a desert closer to home near St George and watch some softball games at the same time!
The first morning Dad wanted to drive into Death Valley on
an off-road 4 wheel drive route through Titus Canyon. It is one way coming from a few miles west of
Beatty. The condition of the road can be
understood by the information it took over 3 hours to travel about 21 miles!!
And only a half of an hour or so could be counted for stopping and taking pictures. I do have to admit there were lots of interesting things to see in the variety of geology and plants in the different elevations as we climbed up over the tops of the mountains to get down into Death Valley.
The most interesting part of all was at the very end – the
route narrowed until we were basically in a slot canyon just wide enough to fit
the truck through with walls straight up for hundreds of feet.
Lots of people were hiking into the canyon
from the Valley side. You could drive up
to a trailhead where the one way road came out into the opening in Death
Valley. There was one part where some
geological process created black and white layers and almost a checkerboard
look in the rocks. I usually slept
through my 8 am geology class back in the day at BYU – maybe I should have
tried harder to stay awake when the professor turned off the lights and started
the slide show. Death Valley was
definitely full of amazing and interesting geological formations.
We drove to the north end of the Valley and saw Scotty’s
Castle which is a classic story of a rich guy with more money than he knows
what to do with building a VERY FANCY house in a very remote location. Some rich back-east banker was tricked into
investing in mining for gold in Death Valley by some old prospector but ended
up falling in love with the landscape even though there was no gold found and
spending about a million and a half dollars in the early 1900’s to build a
mansion and little private outpost in the desert. Craftsmen and workers from Los Angeles were
brought out to create the masterpiece.
The
old miner stayed and gave tours into the 1940’s to keep it going even after
both the rich banker and his wife passed away and left it to some religious
group. It is now operated by the
California Parks.
At the lowest point it is called “bad water” because it is
so salty. It is 232 ft. below sea
level. I of course had to lick my finger
and touch the ground where it was white and salty looking and it was VERY salty.
The next day we stopped at the sand dunes and hiked out on
them.
That was fun and we saw some little tiny flowers working very hard to be
pretty in this barren land with hardly any water. I liked the little white cottony puffs on there too.
Lots of little kids had brought snow saucers
and were sledding on them on the sand.
We checked out a few other points of local interest and then headed on
toward the civilization of Southern California.
Check out this very LONG stretch of straight road.
A little further down the road out in the middle of the desert just out on the sand in a
couple of places we saw about a thousand trailers and toy haulers just camped
in random groups and people riding motorcycles, 4 wheelers and those razors
EVERYWHERE. You could see those high flags
they fly on the back of their machines and dust trails in every direction as
far as you could see. We didn't take any pictures of all that action because it might just make some of you want to get out there and join them!
