Flight of the Snow Birds

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!