Sunset

One nice thing about clouds, at least if you don't have too many, as they make for amazing sunsets. The moon rise was also pretty cool.

Saturday

Our last full day here.

Today is the first day in more than a week we've had some clouds. So instead of the high eighties to 90 we're in the low 80s today. Still not bad of course!

Today we drove to the south end of the valley and hiked Willow Canyon which is the canyon with the spring that we found a few years ago. But I guess in the fall the spring is dried up so there was no water at all. About a five mile round trip and we had the entire area to ourselves so it was a good day. Made even better by two cold beers waiting for us in the car and then a stop at the Furnace Creek Inn for gin and tonics again.

Tomorrow we leave for A 3 day drive home probably spending the night somewhere south of Reno or maybe all the way to Reno. There is a weather alert for a storm system coming in Tuesday night that will drop snow in the Sierra Nevada mountains but we will be home by then.

Friday

nice day today out on my bike towards badwater Basin for an hour and then rode  back. Got a flat tire just within cell range and couldn't fix it so Ramona came to pick me up.

Later we both grown up to the Furnace Creek Inn and had really nice gin and tonics. We're getting to know the bartender and stuff up there fairly well.

As part of the 49er days event they had a Veterans Day parade that was pretty short but interesting. Lots of wagons and horses.

Thursday Damnit!

so today we found ourselves discussing how we wanted to drive home which is why the title says damn it. We will leave Sunday and take 3 days to get home Tuesday.

One of the photos is of the stage last night in the music festival. Very good music but we didn't bring chairs so we didn't stay for very long. It's in the Fiddler's Campground.

Today we tried to again hike to little Bridge Canyon and again failed to find it. Basically retraced the route the year we hiked it with Caitlin. I think studying the topographic maps I finally figured out where the area is and it's a long ways away from where we were. One of these days we will find a little Bridge Canyon.

After we got back to the car mom insisted that we go into stovepipe Wells for a beer. Instead of buying a beer at the store and sitting at a picnic table we went to the bar and had excellent margaritas and stuffed dates. They were stuffed with cream cheese and wrapped in bacon. And we really realized this bar has an amazing view which is not true of the bar at Furnace Creek.

Wednesday

Tuesday late afternoon we hiked up to the Furnace Creek Inn / The Ridges and then had drinks on the deck watching the sunset. Pretty nice!

Today we drove to a date farm south of Death Valley, about an hour and a half away. Pretty interesting place.

One of the pictures is at night time with a lit up RV. That is a couple of rows over from us where some musicians have set up a stage under their awning and play bluegrass. We went over last night to listen but honestly they seemed a little past their Prime in terms of age and skill and so after a couple of songs we left.

Furnace Creek

I reported these gas prices on Gasbuddy cuz nobody reported the prices for this gas station. The Gasbuddy app asked me, are you sure, these prices seem really high. Beautiful day riding around the camp. We did laundry this morning so our camp kind of looked a little trailer trashy until we put our clothes away. A lot of the palm trees have been cut down across the road from us.

Furnace Creek

We arrived this afternoon. Spent time setting up so few pictures so far. The RV camping area is Fuller than it usually is in springtime. although the picture  really doesn't reflect that . There are RVs in the two adjacent parking areas that are normally closed in Spring. The music festival doesn't start until Wednesday but we're already seeing some tents and vendors set up. The weather is perfect now, 80's with no wind and it looks to stay that way. I think we really lucked out on the weather on this trip.

Last Night out