January 4,5, 2014 Death Valley, California

We headed to below sea level in Death Valley. Only about an hour away.

Welcome to Death Valley. The Sunset campground is not very crowded, we got a spot with a view. Sunset campground  is a big parking lot with no trees or picnic tables. It is cool enough now we want to be in full sun and it is much less crowded. We have a generator and are fully self contained.  Only costs$6 a night with the senior pass.  It is 196 feet below sea level. The air is thick here with lots of oxygen here.  We are so worn out with all the activities from the last couple weeks we relaxed.  Read in the 78  degree sun in our lawn chairs and slept in the next day. In the evening it got very windy and dusty.  But calmed down and was beautiful in the morning.

We checked out the Furnace Creek Ranch this afternoon. The pool at the Ranch. We could purchase a pass to the pool and showers.  The palm forests are left over date orchards. There were dates all over the ground.

The Furnace Creek million watt solar farm is next to the  Furnace Creek golf course. It is 214 feet below sea level.

At the 19th hole of the golf course it had a drive in for golf carts. It  has burgers, drinks and  a big TV. We saw this coyote on the golf course. The coyotes down here are used to people and beg for food. John played golf here on a previous trip and saw a coyote snag a duck right out of the air like a dog on a frisbee from one of the ponds.

This cute scorpion was on the poster for the junior rangers at the visitors center. It had been 80 when we were first at the thermometer, but by the time I got the photo it dropped a degree. We are finally where it is warm.

My sweet husband decided to go swimming in the fountain. In the old days before they were water conscious there was water  in this fountain, but now it is a glass mosaic. We were waiting for a ranger program to start on the patio, it was about reptiles. Very interesting. The ranger Jay Snow is retiring in 5 days, he was a good speaker. He also gave a talk in the evening about caves in the park, so we went to it too. He gave a slide show, then he had set up a crawl through ‘cave’ in the front with chairs and boxes. We crawled through it, well wiggled, it was very tight. Really hilarious. The park service remodeled their Furnace Creek campground, with 136 sites. It used to be pretty primitive with just dirt and trees. Now there are 18 electric and water hookup sites. Half pull through and half back in. A lot of the other  no hook up sites were paved and big enough for big rigs. All have picnic tables. Zanterra also has a large RV campground with hook ups.

At the reptile lecture we met some of our neighbors. They are from Oregon and living in their RV while they are between houses. They travel with their cats Loki and Hunter and walk them a couple times a day.