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“In the Mood,” on the Bellagio fountains!

So Death Valley’s _morning_ sun melted my homemade 3D printed double phone mount.

This is even worse than San Francisco, why are we driving in this city?

We got up today and had breakfast at the Furnace Creek buffet before packing out and getting on the road. We wanted to drive to the Hole in the Wall rock formation and then take Dead Man’s Pass out of the park headed to Vegas.

We followed the dirt road out toward Hole in the Wall not really knowing what we were looking for, just that the road ends when you’re there. So we drove out until we found a clearing and then followed the road off to the left. That immediately turned into a rather intimidatingly sideways uphill path that was clearly going the wrong way, and upon which we then had to make a three point turn that involved negotiating a way for Evan not to roll down a cliff and then for me not to roll down and crash on the Rover. But it worked!

This doesn’t exactly show what we were trying to do, but I’m sure Evan got some video that my mother won’t want to see.

So, a little confused, we headed back to that clearing and, on finding nothing else, we turned around and headed back down. As we passed by a giant cliff, I noticed that my GPS atlas app marked the passage as “The Hole In The Wall.” Guess we found what we were looking for; it was more impressive from the far side, so I can understand how we missed it at first.

After we took a few family portraits, we set up a little lunch spread in the shade of the Jeep’s lift gate.

From there, we headed out of Death Valley, but we used a dirt path called “Dead Man’s Pass” to give us one last explore into the vast emptiness of this park. As we climed up and out, the rocky ground gave way to increasingly more plants which became increasingly green and the dirt road shifted from rocks and dust to sand.

At the top of Dead Man’s Pass, the Jeep broke down. I found amusing irony in that and demanded a picture before George could resume his repairs. Thankfully it was minor: the negative battery terminal had jostled its way free, which explains some of the electrical weirdness he’d experienced on the way up. He also discovered that the positive terminal was in poor shape also, but not in a show-stopping way.

We worked our way back down and took Stateline Road from Death Valley Junction, California into Pahrump, Nevada. Naturally, our first stop back in civilization was the O’Reilly for new battery terminals and connectors for George.

From there, it was a short drive over another pass into Vegas. Evan split off to go pick up a surprise guest at the airport and the three of us headed over to the Plaza Hotel in Downtown.

Dirtiest cars in the garage, but proud. And now here we are. Six hours ago we were the only people around for miles. Now we’re in the circus that is Las Vegas. How did we get here? How long until we can go back?

P.S. I went back and added a couple dashcam videos from the Titus Canyon drive on Wednesday: the entrance and the canyon finish.

Leaving Death Valley on Friday by way of “The Hole in the Wall” and Dead Man’s Pass.

This morning in Beatty, we looked for places to eat breakfast that didn’t list every dish as a “Slam.” It didn’t go well. There are several places which list breakfast hours on Google and Yelp, and yet none of them are open. So we set off on a great adventure across the casino floor from our hotel room to the Denny’s from last night. We’ve become regulars.

We went back into Death Valley today via Titus Canyon, a dirt road that climbs over the range on high rocky cliffs, passes by a small ghost town, and the dives deep into a canyon that’s barely wider than our cars. It’s a one-way back into the park and it took us a couple hours to do it, but it was the most astounding drive. Also surprisingly challenging, it gave us each a chance to put our cars through some paces. Evan experimented with the Rover’s “Hill Descent Mode,” which turns out to be a way to just be scary in low-range.

Back in Death Valley, we drove to the Furnace Creek resort town that we’re staying in to check-in, then drove further south. First, we did Artists’ Drive, a small paved loop that goes past a lot of multicolored rocks and hillsides that was incredibly pretty. Next we drove out to the expansive salt flats called “the Badwater.” With a sign that said “Sea Level” about a hundred feet up the cliff on the opposite side of the road, we walked out onto an evaporated sea that all of Death Valley drains into. The ground texture wasn’t like anything we were expecting. It’s just salt. The walking area is packed down hard and white, but extending for miles in each direction are little mounds of dirty salt crystal. It made a bizarre up-light in the harsh sun, and the wind was so extreme that it almost knocked us over. (And may also explain how we got so far out into the flats so quickly, because it took forever to walk back.)

It was getting late by this point, so we drove a little further down the park road but then headed back up to Furnace Creek for dinner and sleep. Red did develop a problem; the wheel-well liner worked its way loose in the crazy winds, which made some crazy scary sounds in the cabin. The whole thing is one big piece, so I couldn’t just pull the loose part. George had a couple machine screws I could fix it with. Also the rear bar of my roof rack wiggled its way free and now decorates the floor.

Photos from Thursday: Titus Canyon, the ghost town, Artists’ Drive, and the Badwater of Death Valley

Admitting to no weakness on my part, Furnace Creek internet access is pretty terrible and there is no cell service. Also I’m tired. Today was an incredible trip from Beatty back into Death Valley via Titus Canyon, then exploring Artists’ Drive and the Badwater in Death Valley before heading back to Furnace Creek for dinner, drinks, light repairs, and sleeping. So in lieu of edited photos, long-form post, and dashcam video tonight, allow me to offer: We didn’t die! The cars didn’t explode. Tomorrow will be more excitement, and I’ll update this post when I have better internets.

One of the things I love about this trip is the smug sense of superiority I feel whenever I see people in rental cars.

I love that our chief qualification for whether something is touristy is if the road is paved.