December 25-26, 2018 Death Valley, California

John looking in Santa's covered wagon for gifts.  Santa hadn't loaded up yet. The xmas elf at the gift shop giving John a candy cane since he was such a good boy this year. 

Christmas gift from the government. All visitors centers, campground and sites are closed due to the shutdown. John spent the day smoking pork for dinner. It came out yummy. It started out 70, sunny and a bit  breezy. 

I spent the day making bread for dinner and then in my lawn chair working on the masterpiece. On the side will be this hairy cowhide tacked in with copper tacks. Above it will be a line of turquoise and what ever else gem chips I think will look cool. The cowhide is because there is a cow skull in the center and horse head beads around the top. It became very windy and clouded up. The sand dunes were blowing in the wind.

Blowing sand to the east , sand to the west and sand here in the middle with us. Sunset had to find it’s way through the cool looking wind clouds.  

We drove the scenic road to Grotto Canyon this afternoon. It is this great slot canyon.

The sand dunes are still blowing through the air.  They will be pristine in the morning. 

Me in the mouth of Grotto canyon. Grotto canyon is very deceptive. It lures you in with this almost climbable dry fall. The next one is much higher, an overhang and harder. But people usually pile up rocks and logs and you can get up. You walk always, then come to an unclimbable fall. I have been up at least 4 times thinking this time I will make and never do. Today we didn’t even go up the first fall. 

The view of the Mesquite Sand dunes from the Grotto Canyon road is wonderful. We drove down at last light and stopped to watch. The road through to park to Beatty looks out of place here. The light was just right so we could even see all the caution signs. 

Nice light on the phone poles. Sunset on Mesquite Dunes. 

Sunset on the smaller of Mesquite dunes.  Down at the dunes the parking lot was full and there were hundreds of people walking on them.  During government shutdown the bathrooms are closed. Of course people have dumped trash outside of them. Not too bad, I suspect someone is coming by daily and cleaning up.

Stovepipe Wells is at sea level. Someone made this nice rock sculpture of SPW in the campground.  What they have to say about the shutdown- basically enter at your own risk, there is now one to clean up after you or rescue you.

Stovepipe campground is open, the privately concessioner resort  across the street is taking care of the restrooms. All the rest of the campgrounds in the park are closed. The campgrounds and entry to the park is free since there is no one to collect the fees.  Coyote dreams of food before and after people feed them. Keep them wild. Today I had some more lawn chair time working on the basket. The cowhide is now all around it and I put gem chips around the top of that. I will had hanging turquoise below each copper tack. Then it will be done. John thinks there is too much bling, but I like it because there is so much bling.