Death Valley, Part Three
We woke up at Homestake Camp around 0700 and reluctantly dragged our sorry carcasses out of our warm sleeping bags. As usual, Allison had slept like a log all night long but Carrie and I each had to brave the freezing cold to go use the toxic outhouse in the middle of the night. Sliding back into the sleeping bag had created quite a show of static sparks in the bone-dry air.
When we got out of the tent in the morning my first task was to get water boiling for breakfast and coffee. Especially coffee. We used our new REI French Press/carafe combo, which worked out great. You dump in 40z of ground coffee, fill with hot water, wait four minutes then press the filter down and bingo, you’ve got a full insulated carafe of hot coffee ready to go. For car camping, this will replace the Starbucks Via packets, which in turn had replaced our old percolator.
Breakfast was scrambled eggs, with ham leftover from Christmas dinner, and good bacon. And coffee, of course. Never underestimate the value of a good warm breakfast on a chilly morning.
As we were breaking camp, I wound up chatting with the two guys in the camp next to us, one of whom was in a modded series 80 Land Cruiser like ours. We talked over some of our vehicle mods and our plans for the day, but it wasn’t until we’d both returned to civilization that I later realized that the 80 owner was “Mauka2Makai” from the ExPo forum. I’d been following his build thread there for the past few months since I had purchased Toyotie… But I had no idea who he was in person! Small world.
Once we were packed up, I planned to check out the Lippencott Mine just south of camp before backtracking to the north again. However, just south of Homestake the road got more technical and I switched into 4-Low for the first (and only) time on the trip. Within a minute Carrie was making concerned noises. I was keenly aware that she’d not been thrilled by the freezing night and nasty outhouse experiences… So I decided that discretion was in order, and we’d skip the 4WD goodness. Fortunately there was already talk of returning here with several friends in 4x4s in the Spring.
We cruised our way back up to The Racetrack, where we got out and spent some quality time exploring the playa and the famous moving rocks. It was also a good place for an eight-year old girl to burn off some energy, and she ran around at full speed.
Moving along the jarring washboard road again, we drove northeast and soon found ourselves back at Teakettle Junction. As we pulled up, a large SUV was just leaving and heading our direction. At the wheel was a guy who looked an awful lot like celebrity cook/traveler/writer Anthony Bourdain, which was more than a little surreal. I pointed at him and my befuddled brain managed to send the signal to say “Guuuwaah???” as Carrie blurted out “Anthony Bourdain, what?” We don’t think it really was him, but it was a very funny moment!
We stopped for a few more photos of the tea kettles, and surprisingly also send a tweet or two since this was one of the few places in DV where we had a 3G signal on our iStuff. I spent a few minutes pre-loading terrain maps into my MotionX GPS app on the Ipad while I could.
We finally finished up the 30-mile return shake-a-thon and reached Ubehebe Crater, which we’d passed up on the way to Homestake. We were able to stop for a look this time, but I was somewhat distracted by the fact that the Land Cruiser was dead.
…
Luckily, the problem turned out to be exactly what my panic-frenzied brain had first thought (and hoped) it might be: the relentless washboard road had shaken the positive battery terminal right off the post! I had obviously neglected to tighten the bolt enough after adding the cable to the new terminal block. I pushed it back into place and Toyotie was alive again… I breathed a sigh of relief, and my blood pressure plunged about 2,000 points back to normal.
Later I discovered that Mauka2Makai had suffered a similar fate in his Land Cruiser, making it Washboards: 2, Land Cruisers: 0. His case was a bit more serious as his cable terminal had sheared off from his battery cable, but fortunately it was still a quick diagnosis and a simple repair.
Now we were back on pavement – blessedly smooth, smooth pavement – heading back south towards 190, where we drove west to Stovepipe Wells again. To appease the family some more, I had decided that a sit-down lunch at the saloon was in order. And I wasn’t about to complain about a cold prickly pear cactus margarita!
While we were waiting to be seated, somehow my friend Phil from the Bay Area suddenly materialized next to me. I knew he was planning to be in Death Valley at some point, but this was totally unexpected. First the Anthony Bourdain clone, now Phil appears by magic? What was next, Hugh Hefner and Jar Jar Binks skipping hand-in-hand down the middle of the highway?
We had a nice quick chat while I tried to recall if I had accidentally ingested any expired medication recently… But I was not hallucinating after all. He and his wife Karen had been driving by when Phil had spotted Toyotie parked outside. We had a quick chat and a lot of smiles before he headed back out to continue on their own adventures.
The saloon was very busy. In fact our waiter said it had been the busiest day he’d seen since he started working there in 2003. Still, service was reasonable and it was nice to (figuratively) kick my feet up for a while. Prices were a bit high but I had no complaints.
After a slow and relaxing lunch I was dragged by my daughter into the hotel’s gift shop, which we eventually escaped some more dollars lighter. We hit the road again, this time cruising towards our destination campground at Wildrose. The interesting hills sprang up again soon after we left 190 heading south on Wildrose Road, and before long we spotted some interesting ruins we decided to check out.
Allison and I were halfway up the hill before I looked back and realized that Phil’s truck was parked a short distance from us. We were about to randomly run into him again for the second time, which was fun. Allison and I enjoyed checking out the old derelict cars, concrete foundations and other detritus of the past while Carrie got some rest back at the Land Cruiser.
We said goodbye to Phil and his wife – again – and continued south, stopping at an overlook I spotted just before sunset. We enjoyed the views and the way the light played across the desert terrain. Finally we completed the drive to our campground and picked our site, settling in under another colorful red and orange sunset.
Wildrose was much more occupied than Homestake, but did have the advantage of being more civilized, with a non-scary vault toilet, potable water on tap, iron fire pits, and picnic tables. To be honest I prefer more remote sites like Homestake myself, but this would do fine. It also helped that it was much warmer here, probably in the high-40s instead of the mid-30s.
We enjoyed another family campfire, dinner and dessert, before retiring early again. I wanted to be up and going earlier in the morning, on our last day in Death Valley.
