Geology Tour and Valley Lore

September 30^th, Death Valley, CA

This was the 3^rd Monday of our trip and in the morning our first priorities were coffee, breakfast and laundry.  Joyce had hit the jackpot in her quest for interesting geological formations and photo opportunities so exploring would definitely be on the agenda.  With an exploration of the general store, we learned about a canyon nearby called Artist’s Palette and it looked to be right up our alley.

 
Joyce reads all she can find and I learn as she tells me all about it…..she’s my Clift notes!

From the formation of the incredible geology to the history of the people who crossed this desert in 20 mule trains, Joyce gave me quite the education about this area.  I was rather stuck on the immensity of the task of crossing an area like Death Valley under mule power and not Mini power. 

It took a lot of mules in order to pull the amount of gear and supplies to get through this inhospitable country but just having a good mule team couldn’t have been enough.  I can’t imagine the kind of courage (or crazy) that prompted men and women to even try this.  There had to be desperation (or hope of riches) involved…no doubt about it. 

After our kaleidoscopic driving tour my main priority could be realized….poolside lounging, reading and staying cool!  It got up to 99 that day.  We both were bound for the shade with our lounge chairs but even with those high temps we felt the chill from a nice cool breeze.  Just perfect…we spent 4 hours up there and relished every minute of it.  

Another thing we were beginning to contemplate was the rest of our trip with the government shutdown looking likely.  Walt had mentioned this would impact us and my mom had sent an email on the same subject.  Neither one of us wanted to think about it before now but we knew we were on the cusp of a total itinerary change.  Still…that evening we let it go for another day and just enjoyed being in this paradise that sits on one of the most desolate places I’ve ever seen.  Another nice evening – delicious dinner at the same saloon where the bartenders had a bit more time for humorous banter and some discussion about our next move on this trip. 

Joyce and I finally settled on something of a plan, more of a delay though.  We chose to drive the next morning the relatively short distance to Vegas and reassess over the next 24 hours.  I guess we were hoping that some kind of break in the government negotiations would occur.  I jumped online while we still had wifi and found an inexpensive airbnb in Vegas. (Can’t say enough good things about this mode of lodging).  The host was very nice about the last minute request and with such a short drive ahead of us we knew we wouldn’t have to rush out Tuesday morning.   

Since it looked like we would be shut out of most of the Southwest in Utah and Colorado, I was trying to come up with an alternative place for photography of red rock country.  In the back of my mind I was giving serious thought to Sedona.  Joyce was somewhat on a mission to get some good photos of such colorful terrain to eventually blow up for a picture on her living room wall at home.  I had been up late checking online for any shutdowns in Sedona and it seemed most of the area was either open or part of state park land.  If there was ever a good alternative to the Grand Canyon, Sedona would more than fit the bill.