Trip Report, Part 7 (last one from me)
After I left the park I continued on to the small town of Shonsone where the gas prices were at near Death Valley levels! I'll keep this one on my desktop as a reminder of how bad it can get:
I just got the bare minimum to get me to Baker, 2 gallons. Along the way I passed these very cool sand dunes, Dumont Dunes, which were the highest I'd seen on my whole trip:
This is on BLM land and is apparently an ORV (Off Road Vehicle) playground!
I pulled into Baker right around Noon, for some more overpriced gas. While there, I saw this sad relic of what may once have been a pretty nice resort: The Royal Hawaiian Motel:
From the looks of it, this place hit its peak in the late 60's - early 70's (probably when the original "Hawaii 5-0" was on the air) and it's been downhill ever since.
Among the relics is this old jeep. At first glance it appears to be a CJ5 but a closer inspection reveals that it is the CJ5's military predecessor, the M38A1. No "for sale" sign or anything, it's just abandoned, along with the rest of the hotel. Very bizarre.
I jumped off of busy I-15 to head straight East across a dry lake along Nipton Road, to Searchlight, NV. Lonely desert highways are great for "one point perspective" photos.
I finally found decent priced gas (under $4) in Bullhead City, AZ, and continued on to Kingman, where I hit I-40 and continued my Eastward journey.
Around sunset, the sound of my own wheels was driving me crazy, so I decided to stop here:
I actually got a very Peaceful, Easy Feeling at this little park, until I saw this:
My Lord!
I'm no Desperado, I'm just the New Kid In Town, and I preferred Life In the Fast Lane, so I hopped onto the highway to Take It To The Limit One More Time, and before long, I was Already Gone.
I spent the night in Gallup, sleeping in the parking lot of a very noisy Wal-Mart, and next morning headed north on US491 (the highway formerly designated "Route 666", sometimes called the "
Devil's Highway") which runs up towards the four corners, right past one of the most spectacular natural monuments in the Southwest, Shiprock:
Shiprock is an extinct volcanic core that soars almost 1600' above the New Mexico desert, making it nearly twice as high as the much more well known Devil's Tower in Wyoming.
I was originally planning on going through Durango and over Wolf Creek Pass, but since I had just done that back in September, I decided to take US64 on the very scenic route to Chama, and then up over Cumbres Pass, following the route of the Cumbres and Toltec narrow gauge railway (still closed by snow.)
All in all, a great trip. We got to see a lot of Death Valley, but there is so much more I would still love to see.
We did learn a few lessons about DVNP. Probably one of the biggest was that DVNP encompasses so many different microclimates that you can never be sure of what it's going to be like there. For example, the weather near Furnace Creek and Stovepipe Wells, in the sub-sea-level area, was quite warm during the day and very pleasant at night. But just a few miles away, across the mountains in the Racetrack Valley, it was sub-freezing!
Another tip for travelers: Gas is about $1 cheaper a gallon at Stovepipe Wells than it is at the resort-like Furace Creek.
In summary, I would definitely recommend DVNP to anyone who likes deserts, solitude, or extreme climates. Death Valley is really a remarkable park, and a destination that should be on any traveler's "bucket list."
