Death Valley

Tuesday, October 4

We woke up to 36-degree temperatures – it was cold! We heard on the radio that snow had, indeed, fallen in the higher mountains. I got breakfast made as quickly as possible and we got on the road.

Funny, though – we were headed to Death Valley. The range of temperatures we would experience that day was going to be dramatic.  In fact, over the course of our day, we would see temperatures span more than 55 degrees, from 36 degrees when we woke up to over 91 at the hottest point of the desert!

We also experienced dramatic elevation changes that day – from the more than 7,000 feet where we started at our campsite in Mammoth Lakes to lower than sea level in Death Valley.

But I’m getting ahead of myself … 

First we stopped to fill up the gas tank, and then we had about an hour’s drive south from Mammoth Lakes to the Visitor’s Center at Death Valley National Park. Boy, those mountains sure were pretty on the drive.

We stopped at the park’s Visitor’s Center quickly to use the facilities and to just make sure we were clear where we were headed. (I’m apparently paranoid about getting lost in the desert or running out of gas and getting stranded …) And then we were on our way.

Death Valley is so ugly it’s beautiful.

As we entered, the barren mountains looked like dry, crumbling mounds of old Nestle Quik chocolate powder. 

But then we got into some more interesting territory, which dropped us down into the valley, and we were able to see the vast expanse of land, as well as the layers of rock and color that bore the millions of years of evidence of Mother Nature at work.

There is minimal vegetation throughout Death Valley. And it all just looks so consistently dry, everywhere you look. At many points, I felt as if someone had dropped me onto the moon. Or into that scene in the very first “Star Wars” movie where those sand creatures come creeping out of the canyon cliffs and walls.

All of a sudden, I heard this massive loud boom that scared the bejeezus out of me. Quickly, I saw the fighter jet swoosh past above me in the sky on its practice run, turning at steep angles and upside down, eventually turning hard behind a mountain and descending out of sight.

We passed a multitude of interesting road signs, many of which I had never seen before and probably won’t ever again outside of this desert. For example, we saw the sign advising us to turn off our air conditioning for the next 10 miles to avoid overheating. [That was all well and good, except for when the temps reached 91 degrees!]

We saw the sign saying, “Caution: Extreme Heat Danger,” and we watched the temperatures bump steadily at the base of the valley up to 88 … 89 … 90 … and then 91 degrees. I was so glad I wasn’t doing this drive the height of the summer. (Any of my readers out there ever do that? I’d love to know what the temperatures reached in your car!)

Elevation signs are consistently posted along the road throughout Death Valley. Odd, however, was to see a sign for “Sea Level” when you are actually driving up a hill. The lowest point we saw recorded on a road sign was -190 feet at the Furnace Creek Campground on the east side of the park, although the Death Valley National Park pamphlet stated that the lowest point is actually -282 feet somewhere in the park.

And on the National Park Service map of Death Valley, there are also little signs indicating where water for your radiator can be found along the way. Yeah, I get it – overheating can be a problem. J

I was keeping a close watch on the thermometer as we drove across the more than 150 miles that was our drive from the west side of Death Valley to the east. The Champagne Chevy did well - no problems. 

The elevation and temperature roller coasted in inverse relationship with one another – as we drove down into the valley, the temperature started to rise. As we climbed back up to multiple thousands of feet of elevation, the temperature would sink again to something more conducive to ongoing human life.

I was also keeping a close watch on the gas gauge along our journey. We were fine and were never in danger of running out of gas in the desert. Which was a good thing, I tell you, because gas in the park was going for $5.39 for a single gallon of regular. Super was more than $5.79. That’s not a price at which you want to have to fill up a gas-guzzling RV monster!

It was such an interesting drive. Up a hill, down a hill, up another hill and then down a sharply turning steep grade. Colors changing, light changing, temperatures changing. Remnants of an old mining industry still lying decrepit and broken-down along the side of the road. We did not see any critters of any sort.

At one point, we saw a UPS guy coming at us from the other direction. Wow – they really do deliver anywhere!

And as we were approaching the end of our drive through Death Valley, we saw this older man on a bicycle on the other side of the road, wearing no helmet and no shirt, just peddling along his way. I wondered how far he was going to bike into the desert. I hoped he had enough water with him. I said him a silent prayer and thought to myself that he really might be a crazy man.

There’s really not much there once you exit on the eastern side of Death Valley. We weren’t heading much farther, only about 20 more miles to the thriving metropolis of Pahrump, Nevada. We were tired of driving and got to our campsite on the early side. It cost me only $15 for a campsite with both water and electric! (That’s the cheapest I’ve paid so far.) And they had great showers, laundry facilities and a good WiFi connection, so we did some laundry and made ourselves comfortable for our inexpensive night on this nice campground.

We had some forward trip planning to do, and so we settled in for what turned out to be a beautiful, clear but chilly night in the desert.