Day 12 - Thursday, Oct 5 - Bishop, CA to Death Valley to Barstow, CA

October 06, 2017

Starting mileage: 4043 Starting time: 8:00 am
Ending mileage: 4420 Ending time: 6:00 pm
Travel mileage: 377 Travel time: 10:00 hours

Another AWSOME day. Photos just can not express the beautiful mountain views.

The Sierra Nevada mountains in this area consist of parallel mountain ranges with flat basins in between that are caused by the tectonic plate action deep in the earth which is continuing to raise the mountains and lower the basins. The basins vary from some with scrub brush and enough grasses for cattle to graze to completely desolate plains of rocks or salt flats.

Inyo county has the distinction of having the highest and lowest points in the continental US with Mt. Whitney at over 14,000' and Death Valley at -272'.

On the way in to Death Valley we saw a tarantula crossing the road and a coyote just standing along the side of the road. The coyote looked pretty much like a small German Shepherd - unfortuately, we weren't able to get a photo.

We visited the ruins of an old borax processing facility in the 1880s. Chinese workers gathered the borax from the flats which was then processed and concentrated for shipment via mule teams with up to 20 mules hauling 36 tons of borax as well as water for the mules. This facility only lasted 5 years until closer supplies of borax were located.

The colors of the rocks are just spectacular. One place we visited was the "Artist's Pallette" which had green, red, yellow and black rocks.

We made a stop at the visitor center which had very informative displays about the geology, history and culture of Death Valley. Native Americans had lived here for a long time although they lived up in the mountains during the summer and only came down in the cooler weather. It was 93 degrees when we visited. In the summer, the temperature is often above 120 degrees.

We also stopped at Bad Water which is the lowest point in North America. It was named by an early explorer because the water was so brackish that his mules wouldn't drink it. One can walk way out on the white salt flats which are constantly changing as the salt dissolves and recrystallizes. On the nearby mountain there is a sign indicating the sea level.

Traveling through Death Valley there are so many beautiful mountain views with rocks of many different colors and shapes. Most of the rocks in Death Valley are of volcanic origin.

After leaving Death Valley we were on the main road south and it felt like we were being pursued by 3 rogue tractor trailers. Although the speed limit for trucks is 55, we had a hard time staying ahead of them at 75 mph and we were surprised that they didn't slow down for curves any more than we did. We ended up behind a car only going about 65 and all 3 trucks passed us, mostly in no passing zones around corners. We were glad to have them ahead of us.

We had hoped to travel to the entrance of Joshua Tree NP but it would have gotten there later than we liked and there weren't many hotels in the area so we decided to stop in Barstow for the night. We will visit Joshua Tree first thing tomorrow morning.