Spring Break Road Trip {Death Valley}

Wrapping things up on our spring break road trip coverage with this 4th and final post. If you missed the others, check out part 1, part 2, and part 3 to get the whole story.

Day 6 (Monday, 21 Mar): We were a couple hours outside of Death Valley, so as soon as we were up and ready, we started driving again. We entered the park around 9:00 am, and it was already getting quite warm. Our first stop was at the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes, where we attempted to sled down the dunes on the snow saucers we had brought along (but hadn't used yet). They were not great sliders, but we still had fun climbing, sliding, and jumping in the sand without them.

Our next stop was at the Harmony Borax Works. This was really interesting! We learned about how they harvested, processed and shipped borax in the 1880s. We felt especially interested in it, after having used borax to make candy cane crystal ornaments back at Christmastime. (I think all homeschoolers should make a pilgrimage to the home of the 20 Mule Team. ;)

Remember how I said those <$5 gas prices
weren't the highest we saw on the trip? Well, behold 
the highest gas prices I have ever seen. 
(I am so curious at how they are now, three months later,
when the average gas prices in the country are over $5 now!)

We made a quick stop at the visitor's center to eat lunch (in our car, since we happened to have a shaded parking spot and all the picnic tables were in full sun), check in with our national parks card and snag a map. After that pit stop we continued on into the park, heading toward Badwater Basin, aka the lowest spot in North America! We wandered out on the salt flats a little ways, but it was quite warm by this time and we didn't spend much time there. The highlight for me was seeing the sign (way, way) up on the side of the mountain indicating sea level. We were 282 feet below! It was also impressive to see the ~11,500 foot mountains in the distance and realize just how much of an elevation change that is.

The green season in Death Valley.

Oh Sam. He has a thing about looking at the camera
if a stranger is taking our picture . . . he hates it and refuses
to look normal. So we get photos like this. (Cal and I were
in the bathroom when this happened.)

Even in the middle of a desert, the colors can be quite beautiful.

Way up there somewhere is the sea level sign.

This is a selfie, so Sam will look.

This is when someone saw us trying to take a selfie
and offered to take it for us.

He's a stubborn one. Ha.

Salt flat pathway into nowhere.

The salt even worked its way up the steps
to the parking lot.

On the way back to the Visitor's Center, we took a side route through Rainbow Canyon. Lots of colorful rocks and dirt to be seen on that windy one-way drive!

Definitely the warmest temp we've seen in a long while!
(But no the warmest that Death Valley will see, that's
for sure.)

Cal getting her Jr. Ranger badge with another little girl
inside the visitor's center.

One more stop as we headed out of the park was at Zabriskie Point with views of the badlands in every direction.

Started and finished this one on our journey.
Good ol' Homer Price.

This rest stop in the middle of nowhere Nevada
was an answer to prayers - it appeared just in
the nick of time! We had fun wandering around
while Gregg bought us ice cream treats to tide us
over till dinner in Mesquite.

We stopped for dinner at a Wendy's in a gas station in Mesquite and played at one of the parks that we know so well from our trips down there in past winters. But instead of staying the night there, we opted to push on a couple more hours to Beaver so we could have some swim time at the hotel in the morning before getting back into town for track practice the next afternoon.

Day 7 (Tuesday, 22 Mar): We had complementary breakfast vouchers for the cute little Crazy Cow Cafe that shared a parking lot with our hotel in Beaver, so that was a fun treat . . . eating INSIDE a restaurant. (It's been a while!) After we ate, we snuck into the pool (technically before it was open, but we needed to hit the road) for a little splashing. Then home again, home again, jiggety jog!

Milestone somewhere on I-15.

Oh, what a fun trip! We certainly covered a lot of ground, but it is always marvelous to explore new places with my fam. (And I am grateful every time we get in the car with happy children, since that seemed like such a distant possibility back when Cal was a wee tot. Sure glad she grew out of her hatred of the car seat!)