My first stop on this spring trip was Death Valley National Park. It was not what I pictured (a deep bowl surrounded by high peaks, not a wide open vast desert), but it was adventuresome as I thought it would be.

I met my cousin Ellen in Las Vegas, which was my first time there. After walking the strip for about half an hour and popping into the Bellagio, I quickly concluded that I had seen enough. It is a bizarre place.

The next morning we took a taxi to Escape Campervans to pick up our adventure mobile. She was named Niagara Falls (which she wore painted on all sides), had a king sized bed and a full kitchen. Camping gear and rental car all in one!

And away we went. Just outside of the city we spotted a sign for Kyle Canyon, looked at each other and turned off the highway. Our namesake Canyon! (Ellen’s last name and my middle name are Kyle.) We drove up into the Red Rock Canyon area and had a lunch on the side of the road. It was a great first stop.

Then it was on into the National Park. After the paperwork and grocery shopping we hadn’t gotten on the road until after noon so after our detour we got into the valley barely ahead of sunset at 4:30 pm. It was as close to a “golden hour” as we would get the whole trip and just as we got down to the salt creek area called “Devil’s Cornfield” the salt crust lit up like candy floss on the ground.

Then we headed to the free campground, which turned out to be closed because of plumbing problems, then headed even further afield to the other free campground at Wildrose. By the time we got there we had driven way back up into the mountains on the other side of the valley and were ready to park it. What we saw of the campground was empty but for 2 other cars. We went to bed early and headed back out the way we had come at first light the next morning, making it to an awesome viewpoint just over the valley to have our coffee and cereal watching tendrils of sunlight creep down the mountainsides.

This day we proceeded to visit most of the famous sites in the park including the Mesquite Dunes, Badwater Basin, and Artist’s Palette.

It was an unseasonably hot day (88 degrees when the January average is around 72), so we had a relaxing afternoon reading our books under Palm trees in the Furnace Creek oasis area after taking showers at the pool. We ventured out again to some of our favorite spots for an afternoon photography session, but the high mountains cheat the valley from true evening sunlight.

I did however find a wand.

We camped that night in a wide open gravely area surrounded by RVs running their generators past quiet hours so we could get up early the next morning and rent a jeep for off-roading! Our mission was to see the Racetrack and the famous Sailing Stones, and traverse 26 miles of rough washboard road to get there. Ellen passed me the wheel after I kept egging her to go faster and I think I had a smile on my face the whole time. We were told it takes 1.5-2 hours and I may have gotten us there in 1 hour flat.

It worked out well because I wanted to stop where the other jeep was stopped but Ellen prodded me along to the southern edge of the Playa where it turned out all of the rocks were. I thought they would be bigger, but this phenomenon was spectacular to see regardless.

For many years no one knew what caused these stones to move, and how they left the rock hard trails behind then. Some even change direction or cross over another stone’s tracks. It was only in the last year that some lucky tourists were there when it happened: in the winter a light layer of water and ice can build up on the playa, and when the sun breaks up the ice and the wind is blowing just right the ice sheets shove the rocks along the slick ground. They only move millimeters at a time so these tracks have been created over centuries.

The area around the playa was also spectacular. We climbed up on a strange dark outcropping in the middle of the dried up lake called the Grandstand for a better view.

On our way back we took a side trip out to Lost Burro Mine. The story of its discovery is classic: a man picked up a rock to throw at one of his donkeys that was wandering off, and just before throwing it realized it was unusually heavy and took a closer look. It was laced with gold.

The mine operated off and on from 1907 to 1970. You can see where a lot more buildings once stood and hundreds of discarded tin cans and barrels, and the remaining cabin and outbuildings are very well preserved. It was an interesting and super creepy place.

After the long bumpy road back we were happy to be on pavement again and made one last stop at Ubehebe Crater. We watched some fighter jets fly by as we hiked up-the park is surrounded by military training stations.

And did a little more wandering on our way back.

Returning to the main part of the park at dusk we wondered what the weird haze was in the valley. At first we thought it was fog but then realized we were seeing a sandstorm blowing across the hills.

The high winds were followed by rain, leaving everything damp and cold in the morning. We had to wait a long time at Dante’s View for the clouds to blow off and give us a parting view of Death Valley.