Death Valley National Park

Two days after Thanksgiving 2011

First of all, it is SO GOOD to be on the road again!!!  We are going to visit Death Valley National Park on the way to Arizona.

Very high winds around Los Angeles and on the way up to Lone Pine, CA where we would park the Bighorn.

Nightingale and I disagree somewhat about our Park experience.  It does have the lowest elevation in the U.S., and the salt flats certainly make for interesting geography...but it is a very remote Park...and the salt flats lead to more salt flats...  We did do some really cool hiking in a few of the canyons.  Death Valley is not a place I would choose to revisit.  Summer temperatures would be intolerable and dangerous.

On the day we were to resume our journey, high wind warnings caused us to put off leaving for a day which was fine because we discovered The Alabama Hills behind the town of Lone Pine.  It is the area at the base of Mt. Whitney where all the old cowboy movies were made.  Now miscellaneous pickup truck ads are filmed there...one of which we saw on TV that very night.  Nightingale did go to a black and white John Wayne movie at the Cowboy Museum...and reported much enjoyment!

Touring over; sunshine here we come!!

Oops, I almost forgot about borax mining...