The western border of Death Valley National Park is not, it turns out, even in Death Valley. It’s in Panamint Valley, which is basically the next valley to the west of Death Valley. It was there that we reached the large Welcome to Death Valley monument/sign and stopped for a touristy photo op. From there […]

My plan for Death Valley, after doing my trip planning (which will be detailed later), was pretty simple. On Tuesday we’d leave home at a very reasonable hour of about 9am and make the 290-mile drive to Ridgecrest, where we’d stay in a hotel for the night. The next day we’d get up earlier and […]

I write this a few days after returning from a 5-day road trip to Death Valley. I’ve wanted to go there for several years now and started planning our trip when we purchased the Land Cruiser back in late August. Now I’ve got a bajillion photos to sort through, select, and edit before creating the […]

Wrenching and upgrades are all well and good. But there’s more to getting to grips with a new vehicle. You have to actually drive the thing too. With Toyotie, things went about as you would expect. It started off as a daily driver as I figured out what exactly all those buttons did, how it […]