Poor Little CLT

Tecopa, CA.

48 deg. clear, no wind.

Forecast = Partly cloudy. High of 79F. Winds less than 5 mph.


Poor little CLT!  He really had a busy day yesterday and by the time he returned here to the RV Park in Tecopa, his little tail gate was almost dragging the ground!!!! ; )

"Why was that?" you ask.

Well, Jim and Linda decided to head back to Death Valley and this time, go to the bottom of the valley to see it, instead of looking at it from above, and CLT had to get them there. So,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  about 9:45 they hopped into CLT and took off.

Now to get to the bottom of Death Valley, you first have to go up and over some mountains to get down into the valley, and that's what almost did poor CLT in. We're at about 1300' here at the RV Park and the mountains that you have to cross are over 3000'. And, as most of you know, Death Valley is quite a ways below sea level. : (

So, off they went.

Just past Shoshone, they turned off of Route 127 onto Rt 178 and followed it West.

A ways down the road, 178 ended and it became Badwater Road as they entered Death Valley N.P.

CLT said that it was very scenic, but the road just kept going up and down and it took all he could do to get over some of the higher mountains.

Some distance into the Park, they came to the Ashford Mill Ruins. If you click on the photo below, it will enlarge, and you'll be able to read all about it.

This is all that's left of the Mill.

After they got over the mountains and down into the Valley, this is one of the views they saw. These are the salt flats that were left behind when a huge lake dried up many, many years ago.

After driving for many miles, they came to Badwater Basin, the lowest point in elevation in North America, and 282' below sea level.

This next photo is looking out over Badwater Basin

If you click on this next photo, you'll see a sign way up there on the side of the mountain. The sign says "Sea Level"..

From Badwater, they continued on towards the Furnace Creek and saw some more interesting sights along the way. One road they went on was called  "Artist Drive".




This is a 1 lane one-way road leading back into the mountains and it is restricted to vehicles of less than 25'  CLT says that there was a small Motor Home on the road and he was having difficulties maneuvering through the narrow passages between the rocks.

About half way through the nine mile drive, there's an area called "Artist Palette", which CLT says is really neat. You can't see it too well in the photos below, but the different sections of the rock are different colors. Some red, blue, green, and of course many shades of brown.

I think if the sun would have been shinning when Jim took these pictures, the colors would have stood out more.

A little after Artist Drive, they came to Furnace Creek where they turned right and headed back here to the Park. It was about about 2:00 by the time they got back and poor little CLT had traveled about 150 miles, much of it up and down mountains!!!

No wonder CLT was dragging his tail gate by the time he returned!!!! ; O

All in all, both Jim and Linda said it was a great day. They really enjoyed the scenery and are glad they went back to see the valley from the bottom. Death Valley is a great place to visit and you can probably spend many days seeing everything there is to see in the park. Be advised though, during the summer months, it's not uncommon for the temperatures to get well over 100 degrees.

Most seem to agree, that the spring or fall are the ideal times to visit. Today for instance, the temperature down in the valley was about 75 to 80 degrees.

Just right for a nice drive through the park.  : )

Did you know that the record high temperature in Death Valley is 134 degrees, set in July of 1913?