Death Valley

Left Mammoth Lakes on Friday morning (still no bears) and headed South (our intentions are to go North) we stopped at Bishop for some running repairs, we needed a new mirror glass cut to the right hand wing mirror (they smash when you hit marker posts on narrow roads), the glass got cut and fitted while we waited only $40.
We headed towards Independence a little town that had a museum (Manzanar National Historic Site) on the site of where the Americans detained the Japanese citizens during WW2 (even those Japanese born in the USA) like a prisoner war camp, but supposedly not, a baron desert area, very hot and windy and cold in the winter due to being under a mountain range, a very eerie place. The US has since offered an apology and compensation to the Japanese who were detained, Manzanar is something the Americans aren't proud about, well worth the visit. (No photos as we didn't feel we could do justice, we came out of the place with a funny feeling, like how could they).

We headed to Lone Pine another place (the turn off to Death Valley) and stayed at Boulder Creek RV park.

On Saturday we left bright and early (9.30am) that's early for us, and headed for Death Valley, with intentions to stay at either Stovepipe Wells or Furnace Creek, depending on how the time and travel went, we have heard and read so much about Death Valley.  Well we were not disappointed, besides being bloody hot, over 110f and very desolate, it was very scenic, we stopped and took heaps of photos (in the heat) and in the desert which is in the middle.

 

We arrived at Stovepipe Wells just after lunch, bloody hot, stopped brought a fridge magnet (collecting them every where we go) and a ice-cream, sat outside before the heat got to us,

Stovepipe Wells

Zabriskie Point

Rocks at BadWaters

 

 decided we wouldn't stay here and carried onto Furnace Creek, that place was even hotter, carried on stopping at places of interests as we went, a decision was made to head for Las Vegas which was going to be another 2-3 hours drive away. The first town we came to out of Death Valley was called Pahrump, (never head of it either) as it was around 3pm, Brenda looked up the campground guide and found a listing for Lakeside Casino RV Park  (Remembering this is now Nevada and still in the desert), in the middle of nowhere we found this Lakeside RV park, all grassed lake in the middle,palm trees the works, so we're staying here for a couple of days, very relaxing,even had a paddle on the lake and a flutter at the casino.

Having a paddle

Our beach