T and D's Adventures

Welcome to our vacation blog. We hope you enjoy them as much as we did.
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Jan '09 Vegas & Death Valley
Sept '08 Banff, Waterton Lakes & Glacier
Apr '08 Boston, MA & Ogunquit, ME (Maine)
Mar-Apr '08 Japan & China
Sept '07 Parks of the West

Vegas & Death Valley, Jan '09

Jan 23-30, 2009
8 days
2 states
2 Cirque de sol
$0 lost in Vegas
Nissan Rogue rental car

Scroll down to start at the beginning.

Sat, Jan 31 Death Valley to Vegas

This is the start (really the end) of our trip to Vegas & Death Valley.

We stayed in Furnace Creek Ranch. Our flight home wasn't until 6:00 pm, so we had time to see some more stuff.

This is Badwater salt flats, the lowest point in N. America (282 ft below sea level). You can see it on yesterday (Friday's) entry from Aguereberry Pt. The Panamint Mts are behind me.

We walked out on the salt flats and we're looking back to where I was standing in the previous pic. You can (barely) see our Nissan Rogue in the parking lot and above on the rock is a white spot, that represents sea level, blub blub I'm drowning

This is called the Devil's Golf Course. To me it looks like a'a lava in Hawaii, but it is salt pinnacles carved by the wind.

Artist Palette

Fri, Jan 30 Death Valley, CA

Last night we stayed in Furnace Creek so we would be closer to the south side of the park. We started out going to an old mine, you could see some structure left but could not go in the mine.

Then we drove up to Aguereberry Point

Elevation 6,433, Peter Aguereberry's fav spot. Panamint Mt behind us and looking out over Badwater salt flats (ref to Saturday's blog)

This is Mosaic Canyon, the next 2 pic just don't do it justice.

On our hike we had to do some rock scrambling to get here, it was fun. This wall of rock looked like it was wet clay but it's rock.

This is Salt Creek, can you see the colors in this rock?

We drove Titus Canyon, 1.5 miles of bouncy bouncy. See how close the canyon walls are to us? You have to have a car with high clearance to do this drive. We finished just before the sun when down.

Thu, Jan 29 Death Valley & Lone Pine, CA

We stayed in Lone Pine because we wanted to visit the Manzanar War Relocation Center now known as Manzanar National Historic Site. It was where +10,000 Japanese Americans lived for 3 years during WWII.
But first we visited Alabama Hills, just outside Lone Pine.

Alabama Hills, you can see why they make cowboy and alien movies here

Manzanar Center; this is the cemetery, only 15 people (of 150 that died) were buried here - 6 graves remain. Today it's a Monument

Mt. Whitney from just out side Manzanar. It seems the wind blows constantly here

A waterfall in the desert? Yes, this is Darwin Falls and it's here year 'round

Giant beehives? No, charcoal kilns. Use for drying wood for charcoal used in smelting.

Wed, Jan 28 Death Valley, CA

We visited Scotty's Castle. What a crazy story that it!! It wasn't even Scotty's house, he was a con man that convinced some rich guy to build his house in the desert. Then Scotty just hung out with him. Of course this is my interpretation of the story.
It's a Moorish style home.

The main room. It's kind of kooky, those drapes are leather. Guess they serve their purpose in the desert...

This is the dining room. During the depression they took in boarder to be able to afford to keep the "castle"

Tunnels that go all around, under the house. Easy to get at the utilities.

Batteries used to power the house, no longer used.

We stayed the night in Lone Pine, just west of Death Valley. Lots of western movies have been made near Lone Pine in Alabama Hills.