Monday, we broke camp and headed to Beatty, NV for fuel and a few odds and ends. Then Rhyolite. The kids enjoyed looking at the old buildings and seemed to like the Bottle House the best. Especially, the little model of the town.
Shot from inside the vault at the jewelry store:
As Katherine was taking pictures, I read aloud the description of the town from the flyer posted at the Bottle House. When I got to the part about the red light district, Delia excitely pointed to the house with the big red dome and said, "There's the red light district." Thankfully, I was spared having to explain that little phrase.
The colorful couch at the museum was neat:
Then we headed into Titus canyon. Taken at Red Pass:
Not that we'd have gone into any mines anyway, but this sign added some reinforcement:
Truman thought the shacks at Leadfield were cool:
Katherine was impressed that the town lasted for just 7 months.
Monday night we camped at Mesquite Spring. We were out of firewood, so I broke out the Campfire in a Can. It worked fine, but seemed to lack the same ambiance as a real wood fire.
Tuesday we headed for The Racetrack. We camped at Homestake Dry Camp. This was our coldest camp. It got just below freezing.
Here's either a headless camper or Truman huddling in my coat in front of the fire:
Delia was happy to be at the world famous moving rocks:
Wednesday was slow getting going. Nobody wanted to get out of their sleeping bags. Katherine slept in the smaller blue tent with the kids. I didn't take a picture, but it looked like nothing but a tent of blankets, pillows, and sleeping bags. Both kids had a sleeping bag, a twin sized "mink" blanket, and a large body pillow. Katherine was using two nested Coleman bags and a pillow (one pillow is a severe deprivation for her, she usually has 4 or 5).
We broke camp late and headed to Warm Springs after a pancake breakfast. Traveling alone with the trailer meant I decided to take the long way around to Warm Springs.
We stopped at Teakettle Junction:
And I aired the tires up at Ubehebe Crater. Then Truman decided he wanted to run to the bottom. So we did. Katherine and Delia decided to stay at the top; they wanted no part of the climb out.
Truman wanted no part of the climb out either, he wanted to ride my shoulders. He got a lesson in consequences instead and climbed the whole way by himself.
We stopped for fuel and food in Stovepipe Wells and then headed to Warm springs. It was dark by the time that we turned off Hwy 190 and began the 53 mile or so trip to the springs. We rolled into camp around 8:30 PM with two passed out kids. I quickly set up camp and we tossed the kids into the tents and went to sleep.
We woke to a beautiful sunrise:
Happy kids:
We enjoyed the springs. Delia had to be pried out and looked very waterlogged after spending over an hour in the children's play tub. We opted not to be nude and I felt very overdressed. Next time, no clothes for me. Everyone at the spring was very nice and eager to help the newbies.
Unfortunately we had to head home Thanksgiving Day. I think I will be cleaning Death Valley dust off and out of my Jeep and trailer for a while.
Organization needs to improve:
Overall mileage: 1277
Off Pavement mileage: about 190
Gallons of gas used: 78.85
Gas mileage: 16.19
Nearly all of that mileage was with the trailer attached.
The trailer did pretty good. I have some tweaks to make to it and I will most likely build another version when I have the time. There were two equipment issues, both caused by my operator error. First, I didn't make sure the pin you pull to rotate the jack was fully seated when I began to crank it up. The trailer jack failed back towards the rack and got stuck. The damage was limited to a dent in the rack rail and a broken dust cap on the jack. Secondly, I didn't have a good way to secure the trailer spare tire to the rack. As we excited Titus Canyon, it fell off. I had attached my new Trasharoo to the trailer spare as I didn't like it dragging against the trailer tongue. It took the Trasharoo with it when it fell and managed to activate the breakaway system as well. I had a steel cable locking the propane tank, 5 gals of gas, and the spare. So I dragged the tire and Trasharoo for a few miles with activated trailer brakes.
Overall, we had fun and the kids want to go back out again. Next trip, the Toys for Tots event at Camp Pendleton.
