9-29-17 - (Day 60 - Death Valley)

We left camp this morning with a light, long sleeve on.  It was a nice, cool, morning. It was a gorgeous drive to Death Valley.  Lauren had to remind me to slow down on the picture taking to conserve camera battery life.

When we arrived at Death Valley National Park about an hour later, the long sleeve came off.  Our first stop was Dante's Point, it was as pretty as it was in 2012.  Only today it was better, we were riding on Amber.

                                                                 Pano from Dante's View

We stopped at Furnace Creek Visitor Center, then went across the road to eat our lunch under the date trees.  Even though the flood waters had washed away some of the trees since our last visit,  it was still a nice place.  We had a Road Runner watching our every move while we ate.  I guess he thought we might drop something. 

After lunch, we stopped and checked out the Furnace Creek Golf Course, then headed to Badwater Basin.

Badwater Basin is 282 feet below sea level, something we are accustomed to living near New Orleans.  We ran into a couple from Nashville, Tennessee.  We were so happy to hear that Southern Drawl.

On the way back, we took the 9 mile loop of Artist's Drive.  It was beautiful.  Nothing like riding on a switch back masterpiece of art.  I just couldn't hold back on the picture taking.

The temperature rose to 100 degrees.  It was hot.  The little bit of perspiration we had evaporated before it could cool us.  As they say, it's a dry heat.

We made a stop at the Harmony Borax Works refinery and saw the 20 Mile Mule Team wagon.  I can't imagine how hot it was to work in the refinery in this desert heat.

We took a ride to Stovepipe Wells.  There were too many tourist here.  We headed toward Beatty to make our loop back home.

We crossed Daylight Pass.  Talk about the difference in Daylight and Dark.  We went from 282 feet below see level to 4,317 feet above sea level.  The temperature went from 100 degrees to 82 degrees.  A difference of 4,599 feet elevation change and 18 degrees in temperature change. It was NICE!

We stopped at Rhyolite to visit the ghost town.  It was real ghost town with crumbling buildings.  The bottle house was very pretty.   The air museum was very unique.

We made it back to camp about 8 hours later.  It was a beautiful day to tour Death Valley.  There is no way we would have rode on Amber in 100 degrees down South, but we ain't in the South.

Many more pictures, click here: