February 21, 2026, Death Valley National Park, California

 67 and sunny.

Desert Gold in front of the Panamint mountains new snow from the last storm. We were going to hike Room Canyon. There is no trail and the directions were a bit vague. We went up the wrong canyon, but it was lovely. A hoo doo at the mouth of the canyon.

John in front of a cool cliff with an arch in it.  I am not used to  Death Valley being so green. John heading up canyon. 

Cool looking hoo doo.

An arch and a U hole with desert gold. John on the way back.

Heading out the canyon. Desert stars, gravel ghost, five spot, mix of flowers, phacelia, tequilla. 

Desert gold. There is a super bloom going on now.

Fields of flowers along the road. Beautiful field of desert gold. 

Lake Manly still has plenty of water in it. Phacelia blooming along the water course. 

Phacelia.

February 19 - 20,2026 Death Valley, California

 High of 61, mostly cloudy and rain all around us, but  not on us. 

Rain in the Funeral mountains to the east. Sun coming through some rain to the west. 

We walked over to Furnace Creek Ranch. Note the elevation sign to the right of the fountain, 190 feet below sea level. The thermometer at the visitors center.

Sunset tonight. 

We went to a  so so ranger talk on wildflowers this evening. 

Wildflowers at the visitors center. I finished another masterpiece. This is made from dyed pine needles, polyester and hemp cord, gemstone and glass beads, blue magnetite beads. The center is a slate sandblasted and pained with a raven.  It got away from me and got huge. 12 x 12 x  3 inches. 

The masterpiece is embellished with a silver thunderbird and a blue bear. Wildflowers by the bus. 

Sunset. Roelle was singing on the Borax  deck outside the Last Kind Word Saloon at Furnace Creek Ranch. She was so loud you could hear her all the way into the campground. Fortunatly she had a lovely voice. 

February 14 - 18, 2026 Shoshone, California

 70 and sunny.

John is starting on a patio made from broken cement. He says it  is like doing a jigsaw puzzle, the kind that is all one color. The Judy's just made it back from their first leg of there hike. They will be here a couple days and then take off again.

John's patio so far. The idea is to have to extend into where we were sitting. The Palmer Palms Party Patio! Sunset tonight. 

John has made amazing progress on the new patio. Sunset. 

Went for a walk around the White Trail today, before the rain. Lots of the same flowers, but they have gotten bigger. Brittle bush alley.

More bigger flowers.  We went to Pahrump, it was pouring rain this is coming back into Shoshone. 

Got a surprise at sunset, the sun peaked out and we got a rainbow and a beautiful sunset. The new weather station says we got 0.14 inches of rain. That is a lot for the desert and more is coming. The flowers will love it. 

John's patio almost done. He wants to put edging around it and some sand. Looks fabulous. Our room at Tecopa Hot springs resort. There are hot spring tubs right across the hall. Us ally when the Judy's do the B2B hike we hike from Shoshone to here in Tecopa. But it was muddy with a strong headwind, so we drove over. 

Sunset from Tecopa Hot Spring resort. We had a delicious steak dinner at Steak and Beer. The best steak house around. It is about a 3 minute walk from our rooms. 

It rained  0.17 inches of rain during the night. Just above us the mountains got snow. The Funeral mountains on the way into Death Valley. You can see the bat on Bat mountain on the left. 

The bus parked at Sunset Campground in Death Valley. We will be here a week, the B2B ends at the fancy Inn here, but we will stay in the bus.  Sunset over Furnace Creek Ranch.