2-19-12
Furnace Creek Ranch has horse rides that take you back into the foothills. This group of riders are leaving as we were leaving the campgrounds heading to Scotty’s Castle.
This sign by our campground says 190 feet below sea level. The lowest spot in Death Valley and the USA is 282 below sea level which is at Badwater Basin. At the visitor center we saw a map that showed the low points in the world and we are not even close. The Dead Sea is 1,391 feet below sea level.
This shows the entrance to Furnace Creek Ranch that has cabins, campgrounds, restaurants, shopping and a free Borax museum that we will show later.
And Glen, they even have a golf course.
As we were driving to Scotty’s Castle there was a massive dust storm blowing through the sand dunes. Here you cannot even see the dunes. We had thought about camping at the Stovepipe Wells Campground next to the Mesquite Flats Dunes, but after seeing this we were glad we didn’t.
These are some of the various colored foothills and mountains in Death Valley.
This is Scotty’s Castle where the two main house buildings total about 16,000 square feet.
The following information from the park service’s website.
“Hidden in the green oasis of Grapevine Canyon in far northern Death Valley, the Death Valley Ranch, or Scotty's Castle as it is more commonly known, is a window into the life and times of the Roaring 20's and Depression 30's. It was and is an engineer's dream home, a wealthy matron's vacation home and a man-of-mystery’s hideout and getaway. Walter Scott, Death Valley Scotty, convinced everyone that he had built the castle with money from his rich secret mines in the area. Albert Mussey Johnson actually built the house as a vacation getaway for himself and his wife Bessie. Scotty was the mystery, the cowboy, and the entertainer, but he was also a friend. Albert was the brains and the money. They were two men as different as night and day, from different worlds and with different visions - who shared a dream.”
Scotty never did find any gold in Death Valley or anywhere else for that matter.
All of the tour guides dress as if it were 1939. Here is our tour guide from the house tour which included the main and upper levels.
A lot of the furnishings and dinnerware were custom made in Spain and Italy.
The kitchen sink is surrounded by the same beautiful tiles that are found throughout the castle.
The basement tour showed all of the innovative uses of what nature had available on his land. The first thing we saw was the solar panel hot water tank that heated the water to 120 degrees which is what most modern day heaters are set at. Remember that he built this house from 1922 to 1926, before “GREEN” was fashionable.
The black motor you see is actually a Pelton water motor. A spring in the hills above his house produced 300 gallons of water a minute. By building a water tank for storage and piping the water down in a 6 inch pipe he was able to get over 100 PSI. The water came down through a pipe, covered with white insulation, and turned a flat belt pulley on the other side that went to a jack shaft with more pulleys mounted on the ceiling. This particular motor ran a washing machine.
The electric power was provided by 2 banks of batteries of 100 each. One bank was in use while the other bank of batteries was being charged. The system was charged with another Pelton water motor attached to a generator.
The system was charged with another Pelton water motor attached to a generator. There was also a gas powered generator as a backup.
This is the Ubehebe Crater which is about 600 feet deep and about half a mile across. This crater and several others in the area were created by steam and gas explosions when the hot magma rising up from the depths reached ground water. The intense heat flashed the water into steam which expanded until the pressure was released as a tremendous explosion.
There are two trails into the crater and the one you see here is the steepest and the brochures say that while the trip down is easy the return trip is grueling.
Now on the easy trail this guy was trying to get his dog to follow down the trail, but all the dog wanted to do was lie down. The guy would get him up and the dog would follow a few steps then lie down again. It was fun to watch a smart dog at work.
On the way back to the campgrounds we passed the Mesquite Flats Dunes again and with the wind having died down we could actually enjoy looking at them.
Until next time.
Dave and Sandy
2-18-12
We drove scenic US Hwy 395 along the eastern side of the Sierra Nevadas. The peak on the right side of the picture is Mt. Whitney which is the highest peak in the lower 48 at 14,494 feet.
Again, a picture of Mt. Whitney, left side of flag pole, taken from the visitors center in Lone Pine, CA.
We drove out to Tuttle Creek Recreation Area to look it over for future use. This BLM area is between Lone Pine and the base of Mt. Whitney. The weather is still a bit cool to camp here.
And, of course, I followed the loop drive on the GPS, which turned into a one lane goat path. At least this road had a way out unlike the dead end the GPS took use on in Wisconsin.
This is our first visit to Death Valley National Park and we felt we might be a little disappointed because it could be like so much scenery we had already seen before. However, were we in for a surprise as it is fantastic.
Here we are looking at Hwy 136 east bound going to Panamint Springs located in the NP. Entrance into Death Valley from this route goes through the Argus and Panamint mountain ranges with steep up and down grades. We probably should have checked our Western Mountain Directory, but we made it through. (Sandy won’t know until she edits this Blog that I hid that book so we wouldn’t miss all these nice views.)
This is the Sunset Campgrounds in Furnace Creek. The main campground in Furnace Creek was closed for renovations. The Furnace Creek Ranch has much nicer sites, so next time we hope to check it out. Sunset was OK and it was $6 a night with our senior pass. At least Sunset had paved interior roads, unlike Stovepipe Wells campground, which means a lot less dust.
Until next time,
Dave and Sandy
2-13-12 to 2-15-12
After Leaving Joshua Tree NP we drove to Indio, CA which is near Palm Springs. The first day in Indio we just relaxed and did our laundry.
The next day we took a ride on the Palm Springs Aerial Tram. Sandy and I were in LA to visit the Lazy Daze factory in July of 2004 before we ordered our first 2005 Lazy Daze. We made a trip over here to ride the tram. But to our disappointment, it was closed for one of the three or four days a year for scheduled maintenance. It was one of those days when the temperature was over a hundred degrees, so we had to settle for a cold beer and headed back to LA. This time we were happy to see it was operating so we took a ride.
When riding the tram you go through 5 unique “life zones”. The first zone is the Sonoran that extends to 3,500 feet. From there you travel through the Upper Sonoran Zone (3,500 t0 4,500). The third level is the Lower Transition (4,500 to 5,500). Next is the Upper Transition (5,500 to 7,000). The final zone we traveled through is the Arctic/Alpine at the 7,000 to 10,834 level. Now with that said, because we were going up a rock canyon, the only thing we noticed until we got to the top was that it got colder; it was a cool 34 degrees.
Here we are driving up the canyon road to the tram.
This is one of the original tram cars from when it opened in September of 1963.
This view is looking back at the base station as we head up the mountain. The new cars rotate 360 degrees twice on the trip up the mountain.
There was a little snow on the way up as well as at the top.
The 10 minute ride begins at the elevation of 2,643 feet and reaches the top at an elevation of 8,516 feet.
The views overlooking the mountain and Palm Springs are spectacular.
Mount San Jacinto State Park is on top of the mountain with 54 miles of trails. Only tent camping sites are available.
This is looking at the tram car coming up to pick us up. The two cars are attached to the same cable so as one car is being pulled up, the other car is going down.
Here we are going down and meeting the car going up at the halfway point. The ride was very smooth except for the little “bumps” going through the support towers.
Sandy looking bright on the way down.
After I saw how these water bottles collapsed from our trip down, an idea came to my mind. As I get older and more wrinkled I am just going to keep moving to a higher elevation so my body expansion will keep me wrinkle free. Of course I could also stay where I am and just get fatter. Maybe I will just live with the wrinkles.
After we showed that well-done RV restoration in the last post we thought we should show what happens when you mate a Volkswagen minibus with a school bus. Kind of messy, huh? But what can we say, it gets them on the road.
The main reason we stopped in Indio was to visit our friends Bob and Dorothy whom we originally met in Cave Creek, AZ in 2009 and then by coincidence saw them again a couple weeks later at the Tiffin Factory in Red Bay, AL. They invited us over for dinner which was great. After dinner they showed us the best way to get up to Lone Pine and then over to Death Valley where we are going in a couple of days. Bob and Dorothy are pointing out the beautiful scenery along the Eastern Sierra Nevadas along Highway 395.
I think this an HO gauge train set that Bob had set up on the kitchen island. He is trying to figure out a way to carry it with them in the motorhome and as I am typing this up an idea came to me. Probably not a bright one--but an idea none the less. Bob, have you ever seen a Trek motorhome where the bed is suspended from the ceiling over the front captain chairs? Maybe something like that would work. Sorry about that Dorothy.
The following pictures are from the drive from Indio to Agunaga, CA along highways 74 and 371. There were lots of tight turns on a long steep upgrade across the mountain grade. We went to Agunaga to have a upgraded charge controller put in the motorhome.We stayed at the Jojoba Hills Escapees RV Park which was a very nice park.
On the 18th we are heading to Death Valley to spend a few days. This will be our first time there so we are looking forward to it.
Until next time,
Dave and Sandy
