#101. enjoy 4 all girls days (2 of 4)

All girl day #2

Who: J1 and H

What: another girls getaway camping weekend

Why: Because getting out the city seems to heal my soul and Death Valley is too damn hot to go to in the summer

When: 01/14/10 - 01/17/10

Where:

I suspect these photos are too big and may be a pain in the ass, but I'm giving it a go because I'm new at this stuff. For the few of you who read this, could you please let me know how horrible this is to view?

And on with the show. So off we went for another girl's adventure. We had some things planned such as who was bringing what for food as well as toilet paper and we knew we were headed to Death Valley, but where we were staying and what we were planning to do was done on the fly in a "Oh cool, I want to stop here!" kind of way.

The Badwater area is the lowest point in the western hemisphere @ -282ft. We didn't make it there this go around, but the visitor center alone is pretty low itself.



We left work early on a Thursday and made it to the semi-infamous haunted Amargosa Hotel.


It is listed in the national registry for haunted places which I didn't even know existed until now. An excerpt from the article in the link above:

The atmosphere in Room 32 easily gives visitors the creeps, but there is no known story that relates to the room.

Unlike Room 24 of this section, which has been nicknamed "the baby crying room."

Many guests at the Hotel report a baby that wails all night. Some even complain to the management in the morning, when in fact there were no children present in the Hotel all night.

Everyone who visits the hotel reports that certain rooms have very characteristic scents.

One room smells like perfume while another room smells like lilac. The smells are pleasant, but Regnell said, "We don't do anything to make the rooms smell like that. They just do."

Staff can't do anything to make the rooms smell differently either. No amount of air freshener or clean air can clear away the scent.

This mirror separates the restored half of the hotel from an area in disrepair known as Spooky Hollow. I thought it gave the hallway a good "The Shining" kind of feel.


The halls were just plain creepy and the rooms have not been updated or maintained very well in the last few decades to the point of no television or alarm clocks. There were several unoccupied rooms that had open doors which didn't help matters at all, but I still haven't gotten over watching "The Exorcist" at the age of 9. Okay, so it wasn't so much just the movie, but the fact that when I asked my mom if "that" (a person possessed) could actually happen she told me "Maybe...I don't really know". True Story. So after walking past the old opera house at night and peering in the sheer curtains to see ghost like manikins peering back, we opened a nice bottle of wine and called it a night.

The next morning we had breakfast at the local cafe attached to the hotel. There was one woman who was cook, waitress, and cashier. Sweetest lady who asked us all to sign her guestbook. Upon not being able to finish the pancakes that were bigger than my head, she told me that her pot-bellied pig would be happy to help me out. My friend J wanted to know what the woman was going to do with her leftover bacon...Fortunately she had a dog to feed that to. LOL.

And then we were off to set up camp. We decided on Texas Springs Campground as we were thrilled to get an end spot. They also had fire pits and flush toilets which won us over.


And how about the view...


After setting up camp we headed over to the visitor center to get maps and pointers on what we would have enough time to do and/or see in our couple day stay. We were intrigued by the number of ghost towns and settled on hitting Rhyolite, NV for a quick stop. The woman at the visitor center told us that on the road to Rhyolite we would see some "art" off the side of the road and that no matter how much we weren't interested in seeing it now, she bet money that we would stop when we came upon it.

She was right.

Now I'm no artist and have zero eye for art so please excuse my ignorance, but really did they need the blond bush on this one?

It's made out of cinder blocks to give you a scale for size. It is massive. I have a shot of the reverse side too and all I can say is baby got back.

This piece of art we all really liked. An over sized mosaic tile couch in the middle of the desert. It reminds me a bit of the Saturday Night Live skit with Lily Tomlin in the over sized rocking chair.


There were a few other massive structures like a rusted metal penguin standing next to a miner as well as some random items like tools, pots, shoes, pretty much whatever all nailed to a giant telephone sized pole. What really made us pull off to check out this art though was this:


This is a rendition of The Last Supper. I would like to tell you that we did not play the part of the disciples (or Jesus) because I suspect it might be offensive to religious people, artists, spirits, and likely grandparents everywhere...so I won't tell you. I will say that people were not made to fit in every one of these "ghosts"...allegedly.

Next up was Rhyolite, NV. It was a cute little ghost town that had been full of hustle and bustle from 1905 until about 1920 during the gold rush era. Some of the highlights:

An overview of what is left of the main "downtown":


What is left of the bank:


One of the old mines:


An old Union Pacific wooden railroad car...Please disregard the fat roll. I obviously have not started on goal #030. (Do 300 sit-ups a week for 8 weeks).


The grave site of the town's favorite prostitute. Classy...


Last but not least was the bottle house which is made out of glass bottles (duh). This was pretty cool, but I am a bit of an engineering nerd so the art part of it was lost on me.


Seriously, how cool is this thing!


Next up was a little off roading on Titus Canyon. This stop took us to another little ghost town called Leadfield which established a post office in August 1926 that closed down in February 1927. The rush to this place was built all on rumors. There wasn't much to see, but the drive to get there was full of views like this:


This is ironically the only place any of us got cell phone reception during our entire time in Death Valley. I happened to look at my phone to see what time it was (because I was hungry!) and upon learning I had bars, the vehicle was stopped and we all texted our "people" to let them know we were alive, where our campsite was at, and that we would likely be out of contact for the rest of the trip...

So my hunger was soon met with what I consider to be the best sandwich ever. EVER. The 3 of us discovered this concoction on our Black Canyon kayaking trip and they are now our lunch of choice while camping...every single day. The spread: bagel, salami, provolone, lettuce, avocado, chipotle mustard. Heaven in my mouth which makes me sad because we agreed that these sandwiches are for camping/hiking only and not an everyday at work kind of thing.


And because we like to have a theme, we picked up this little diddy too. I think going to Death Valley without these might be some kind of crime.


At the end of our off road adventure we entered Fall Canyon. It was starting to get dark (and cold), but we ventured off on a short hike to watch the sunset and check out the rocks and view.


Hiking back...


The evening was spent cooking and drinking wine by our fire. We had a couple of late night "hikes" around the campsite to just get out of the camping area slightly. The stars here were nothing like I have ever seen with the Milky Way clear as day. We spent probably a good hour each night just lying on the cold ground away from it all staring at the stars and chatting away. Peace beyond words.

On Saturday we did some more off roading in Cottonwood Canyon. J's 4WD golden nugget was a real trooper through this one. We finally decided to park it and go on foot. Another great hike with views like this:


And adventures like this:


And fun like this:


Night 2 was a pretty good repeat of night 1. It wasn't until our last oatmeal camping breakfast the next morning that we discovered butterscotch schnapps makes a pretty damn good "syrup". Breakfast of champions!

On our way out of Death Valley, we made a few pit stops. By far my favorite was our hike through Mosaic Canyon. It is made up of giant slots to hike through and is where I want my ashes scattered when I die as it is probably the most peaceful and beautiful place I have ever been. (Please someone remind my hubby of this if something ever happens to me...). (-;

Beauty beyond words. The pictures just can't do this place justice...


More of my little slice of heaven:


Our next stop was probably a close second for trip highlights for me. We hit Aguereberry Point which is at an elevation of 6433 ft. The road crawling up the last section to the top is not wide enough for 2 cars. I am not sure who has the right of way for 1 going up while another is going down, but the dropoffs on this bad boy were enough to make me glad we didn't have to find out.

This is what we saw when heading to one of the great photo viewpoints:


These guys meant business with computers on site for panoramics, black capes to block light, and cameras that made my D90 look pretty inadequate. I did see one D90 there, but it was lying on the ground and not in use. LOL.

I captured this with mine, but would love to see what those guys were getting...


One last shot (of the 224 I took over the weekend) before my camera battery died...


We did briefly hit the sand dunes at the beginning of the day and the charcoal kilns toward the end. The kilns were so cold there was still snow on the ground. Laugh all you want at my weenieness my cold weather friends. I've served my cold weather time. I think the kilns went something like, "Did you get the picture? (with H's iphone) Great, let's get out of here."

And that we did.

I will be back to visit again because the pictures I took just can't do this place justice. It is somewhere that has to be lived and felt and explored to fully grasp it all. If I were rating these adventures, this one would get 5 stars. My new happy place.