Death Valley, CA

We live about two hours away from Death Valley National Park by car. It is a huge area filled with so much to see that it is not possible to take it all in during one trip. We’ve been camping, hiking, off-roading and exploring the area for years. The best time to go is in the Winter (November through February ) unless you like the heat.

We decided to stay at the Furnace Creek Inn (recently renamed The Inn at Death Valley) for our anniversary in January 2013. It is a very elegant hotel constructed in the 1930s and located inside the National Park.

Before entering the park, just outside Beatty, Nevada, we took a short detour to an old ghost town named Rhyolite. If you are in the area it is definitely worth a visit. It has become home to an odd artist installation and still has many buildings intact, including Tom Kelly’s Bottle House, which is made from (yup, you guessed it) bottles. Here are several pictures from the town.

After exploring Rhyolite we drove on into Death Valley. It is the hottest, driest, and lowest national park in the US. Despite that, many are drawn to this park that has so many places of interest. Here are some we saw:

Artist’s Drive and Palette. Our picture doesn’t do it justice. The colors – red, pink, yellow, green, and purple – are caused by the oxidation of different metals.

Badwater Basin is the lowest level in North America. It is a massive dry lake bed with a white layer on top made of almost pure table salt.

The Devil’s Corn Field is located right at Sea Level. It was named after a line in the 1934 National Park Service guide book to Death Valley National Monument, which stated that “Only the devil could play golf” on its surface.

Norm the Gnome at The Devil’s Corn Field

Borax was mined and refined for many years in the valley. There are still some buildings standing from those days. In the background is one of the wagon trains pulled by a 20-mule team. These wagon trains were huge. The wheels alone stood about 6 feet tall.

The visitor center, museum, and headquarters of the park are located at Furnace Creek. There are also a restaurant, cafe, store, and gas station in Furnace Creek village. Here are some more pictures from our tour around the museum.

Joel is about 6 feet tall. The equipment used in Death Valley was huge!

Once you park (if you don’t valet) then you find a small entrance to a tunnel which will lead you underground. After you enter you will go through a long tunnel to get to the elevator which takes you up to the front desk. It is much cooler in this underground tunnel during the summer.