Day 15 Death Valley

Time to leave Las Vegas and time to pack the cases again!  We wheeled our cases along the complex route of down, along, round and ups to the car park and set of east out of Vegas.

 

 

We had decided to stop for breakfast somewhere before leaving the outskirts of the city.  We pulled into one if the shopping areas in the Blue Diamond part of town.  We weren't even sure if Babystacks was open but on opening the door we discovered a small cafe type place that was obviously very popular with locals! We were quickly seated and handed a very large menu of breakfasts to choose from.  I ordered a short stack (3 large!) of cinnamon and pecan pancakes and Keith had cowboy omelette, ham, peppers, mushroom and onion, with hash brown and pancakes.  The servers seemed very confused that I didn't want any other breakfast with my pancakes and kept saying it was only a dollar or so more.  No way could I have eaten more!!   It was all excellent and the servers were lovely, even offered free coffee to go!

 

 

Feeling very full we set off again and soon left civilisation, and greenery, behind.  The scenery soon became very arid with very little vegetation, and the road took us once again over mountains and across plains.

There is a fee to pay to enter Death Valley altho there is no gate or manned entrance.  We pulled into the ticket area just to check our annual pass covered us.  Our next stop was at the visitor centre where there was a lot of information about the area, how it was formed and also facts about wildlife and extremes of heat. We spent a good half hour or so here but could have spent more reading all the exhibits, a bit of a shame not to take it all in but we knew we had a lot of miles to cover today.

From here we drove down into the valley.  Such fascinating scenery.  It is the lowest place in North America and our sat nav registered about 61m below sea level.  We also saw temperatures of 104°.

We stopped at a place called Zabriske Point which had a short uphill walk to a lookout point. It was very windy but it was a very warm wind.

There were long stretches of very straight road across the valley. It was very desolate but also beautiful.

As we left the valley there was a long winding road up the mountain, I was a bit unnerved as there were some steep drops very close to the edge of the road.  At the top we pulled in to another lookout point where we found some staggering views that altho very different were just as stunning as the Grand Canyon.  Death Valley was much more interesting than either of us were expecting.

It had taken us quite a while to get this far with stops and we needed to press on to our hotel. The sun was hidden behind the nearby mountains by the time we got to Bishop.

Really pleased with our hotel choice here.  The Creekside Inn is lovely and has a lovely area alongside the creek with comfy chairs and firepits.  After putting our cases in the room, we grabbed a coffee from reception and wandered outside.  I put on the fire pit and it wasn't long before we were joined by a couple from Glasgow, then another couple from L.A..

We stayed for an hour or so chatting about Vegas and our respective trips.  We had asked at reception about places to eat and they had recommended the bowling lane near door for excellent steak and fish.  They were right, it was superb.    

Returning to the hotel we decided to go back to the fire pit and the couple from Glasgow were still there (she could talk for Scotland!) chatting to another couple from California who were on their mini moon having got married on Saturday.  We enjoyed a lovely hour or two, chatting and laughing, before we decided it was bed time.

Another glorious day.  Tomorrow we head for Yosemite, fingers crossed the weather isn't too bad, currently expecting rain! 😞