Back in Civilization

Hey there! We're back! I missed you guys! And there's so much to tell you. I'm just full of words, so get yourself a cuppa, cuppa and read on if you like.

We spent the last four nights in Death Valley, and we've moved on to Pahrump, Nevada, now. Pahrump is just about an hour east of Death Valley. We're at an RV park where we've stayed before. There's a nice restaurant here, and so we're planning dinner out one night while we're here, and before heading for home on Friday.

Backing way up to Borrego Springs, I had the entire barn quilt block stitched when we left for Death Valley on Friday morning.

We also had a Blue Cherry pie for Two while there. I'm still experimenting with the oven in the new RV. I wasn't happy with how the crust browned for this, and kept giving it more and more time. The edges of the crust looked good, but I couldn't get the center to brown nicely. Worried about burning the edges, I called it quits when it looked like this.

With a scoop of vanilla ice cream, it tasted just fine, and we ate it with no problems whatsoever.

When we took off for Death Valley on Friday morning, I noted that Miss Sadie had taken up her spot in the cubby on my side of the bed. They're still looking for the cubbies above the living room, but they're making do with what they find.

It was a long day of driving getting to Death Valley. We ran into stop and go traffic getting through San Bernardino County, and we were pretty happy when we began to see the characteristic colors and formations near Death Valley.

We found the campground at Death Valley as busy as we've ever seen it, but with plenty of spaces remaining. To reward ourselves for the day's drive, we had caramel bread puddings for two that night.

The next day, we took a drive over to the Artist's Drive in Death Valley. Our shadow selves whined so much about the long walk that we decided to drive them over in the truck.

Along the way, we saw this poor coyote who was quite unhappy. This picture was taken as we passed by the road leading to the Golden Canyon trailhead. We had an idea that he'd become separated from his den, and there were too many people for him to pass by comfortably.

On down the road at the Artist's Drive, the puffy white clouds in the sky were casting a shadow on the colors. We took a look but decided to try again the next day.

Back at the campground, we took our shadow selves for a walk around the campground and watched the colors change on the landscape as the sun set.

Death Valley is grand in scale, but the colors of the landscape are the thing here. It looks different depending on the time of day.

Backing up, this is the hillside east of the campground.

By Sunday morning, I'd stitched the whole hoop on the barn.

We decided to walk over to Furnace Creek Ranch. There we saw a few blooming things, but not as much as we'd seen in Borrego Springs. I believe these are Desert Sunflowers.

No idea what these little pink things are, but they were really the only other blooming wildflowers we saw during our stay.

Oh yes, and there were these bougainvillea, but these are not wildflowers.

Oh yes, but the creosote bushes were beginning to bloom.

Along the way, I noticed this juxtaposition of the palm trees in Furnace Creek with the snow-covered mountains near Telescope Peak.

Also, we heard this bird singing the most beautiful song. For all the world, this looks like a myna bird, but I didn't think Death Valley had myna birds. Just now, I looked up myna birds, and this looks nothing like one. I'll have to ask of my birding friends to give me some idea what bird this is.

Also, we saw lots more of the Painted Lady butterflies. They were especially attracted to this tree that was just beginning to bloom. It was very fragrant here.

We were on the hunt for some limes and some sandwich bread...found it. And as we paid, I snapped this picture of some "worm suckers" available for the picking next to the cash register. I passed, but help yourself if you're game.

Later that afternoon, we headed up to Zabriskie Point, which is one of the more expansive and beautiful sites in Death Valley. Looking southeast, we saw this.

Looking northwest, we could see Zabriskie Point.

It's impossible to capture the grandeur of the park in photographs, but here's a panorama of the area that might give you some idea. Remember that you can click on the image to make it larger if you like.

We decided to take a selfie here.

From there, we headed back to Artist's Drive to see if the colors were better. They were. The green is from copper. The red is from iron. The purple is from manganese.

The drive is really so much fun heading over hill and dale with twists and turns. A little farther down the road, we saw this.

By Monday morning, I'd stitched the next portion of the barn.

Monday, we finally got off our rear-ends and decided to take a hike. Checking out our hiking book, we decided to take the Monarch Valley/Mine hike. It was a remote hike. We headed along the road that leads out of the park and toward Beatty, Nevada. The only sign marking the road to the canyon was this one.

The road began simply enough but it became much more rugged as we drove along. Our truck handled it fine.

When we reached the canyon, our shadow selves hopped out of the truck, raring to go. (My shadow self wisely donned a hat for this hike.)

Just over the ridge where we parked, we could look down the canyon. We saw a number of those little cactus you can see in the foreground of the image below.

We headed down a steep "ramp" to where the opening to the canyon was. Behind where we were standing was a dryfall.

We headed up the wash a short distance to where the dryfall was located. The colors and striations in the rocks were incredible. What you can't see in this image are the sparkles from the mica found in abundance here.

The dryfall was dry, as expected, but there was some water seeping from the rock face.

You can read more about the mine at this link, but in a nutshell, I've copied the pasted a section of the article here:

This small gold mine, known as Indian Mine, was worked off and on for about five years between 1905 and 1910 though only one shipment of ore ever left the canyon. The mine shafts are high on the left wall of the canyon and the ore was dumped down a wooden chute taking it to a two-stamp mill on the canyon floor. 

We walked approximately 3/4 of a mile to get to the ruins of the mill and what remains of the ore chute. I love this stuff about Death Valley. There is so much to be seen from a geological standpoint, but the historical stuff makes it all the more interesting.

The stamp mill is pretty much destroyed by the ravages of time.

We sat down here under a ledge in the shade and ate our Clif bars and drank some water before heading back up the canyon. Being a wash, it was downhill all the way. When we turned around to head back to the truck, we walked uphill all the way.

We saw this scat all along the way. I would think it was left by deer, but all the deer scat I've ever seen is perfectly round. This looked more like coffee beans. Possibly it was left by big horn sheep? I really don't know, but I have some friends who might.

We saw hundreds of these lizards. This one was the only one polite enough to stand still for its picture.

After walking quite a distance up hill, don't you think our truck was a sight for sore eyes and thighs.

Okay, so that was the last thing we did in Death Valley. Tuesday morning, Smitty decided that the shelf on Mike's side of the closet would have to do for his cubby.

By then, I had just this much left to do on the barn. It's a pretty grainy image. I've had trouble getting my laptop to load pictures, and so I had to use a screen shot for this one.

Now we're in Pahrump, and we just finished dinner. I'm on my third and last load of laundry, and we'll spend the next two days just hanging out and relaxing. We have dinner reservations at the restaurant located here at the RV park. We've stayed here before and we know the restaurant to be top-notch. When in Rome...right? We have no real plans beyond relaxation for now, and so breathe deep and soak up the sun. We'll be heading for home soon enough.