Editorial note: This short post wraps up our Death Valley trip. It covers our drive home and our stop in the historic town of San Juan Bautista, so fair warning: the actual Death Valley and offroad coverage ended with the previous post.

There will be one more post after this one to conclude this series. That post will include a post-trip debrief, including notes, mileages and coordinates.

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We awoke early at the hotel in Ridgecrest. Not by choice, of course. We had a long drive ahead of us and had arranged to meet my sister’s family in San Juan Bautista early that afternoon. After a nice hot breakfast at the hotel – and checking my jury-rigged fix of the aux fuel pump leak yet again – we packed up and hit the road.

The drive north was (happily) uneventful. Now down to just one 24-gallon fuel tank instead of two, we made a single gas stop in Lost Hills again. We stretched our legs and made use of the restrooms at the uber-tourist trap of Casa de Fruta just north of Hollister before arriving at San Juan Bautista. We decided to grab a quick lunch before my sister’s family arrived to meet us.

No sooner had we parked and crossed the street when I heard a “Hey! What are you guys doing here?” It was my good friend Andy’s son, as well as his sister-in-law’s family. Small world again! There were big smiles all around and we laughed about the chance meeting in this small town.

We had a nice lunch at Jardines de San Juan. They were desperately understaffed so our order was taken and processed at glacial speeds, and my sister’s family arrived before we’d gotten our bill. They sat down with us and ordered some lunch for their kids while we all caught up on things in general. We wrapped up lunch and took a walking tour of the old mission and the small downtown area. Check the gallery for captioned photos of the scenic and historic old town.

It was a really nice visit. San Juan Bautista is a tiny town that has maintained a very genuine feel, and they haven’t (yet?) been overrun with the dreaded “upscale shopping opportunities” and chain stores. We don’t visit here very often but have always enjoyed it when we do. It was good to get the families together again too and watch the “cuz’s” just naturally fall into playing with each other again, despite not having seen each other for a few years. It was a great way to wrap up our long road trip.

After saying our goodbyes, we hit the road for the last time and within an hour were back home once more. We unloaded our luggage and such from the Land Cruiser and settled in at home, happy to be sleeping in our own beds again that night. It had been a great trip, and an adventure, and the buzz from the trip stayed with me for the next week. It wasn’t long before I had started planning the next quick getaway, taking an old dirt road route into Yosemite…

Death Valley Part Five Gallery

“It’s not an adventure until something goes wrong.” – Yvon Chouinard

We woke up at Wildrose campground and had coffee (hot chocolate for Allison) and our traditional family camping breakfast, warm Mountain House granola with blueberries and milk. It was our last day in Death Valley and it was nice to not have as many pans and dishes to clean up before we hit the road again. We packed up and got going.

We backtracked up Wildrose Road then were back on 190 heading east, passing Stovepipe Wells yet again, along with the nearby sand dunes and The Devil’s Cornfield. This time we stayed on 190 as it curved to the southeast, passing Furnace Creek for the first time. Eventually we stopped at Badwater, where the parking lot was full of other tourist cars.

We found a place to park on our second pass and walked out onto the salt flat. My GPS was reading about 270 feet below sea level here, at the lowest point in North America. We marveled at the vast salt flat and were glad to have moderate weather. I bet it’s a very different experience on the salt flat when it’s 125F in the summer…

We enjoyed casually walking around on the salt flats for a while before heading back to the parking area. It was then that I noticed a sign far up on the cliff there that read “SEA LEVEL”.

Back on the road we continued south, enjoying the terrain as usual, until we reached the intersection with the southern terminus of West Side Road. I was happy to have reached dirt again, although with a little trepidation as we quickly encountered our old friends The Washboards again. Happily, the washboard here was quite mild compared to Racetrack Road and before long it vanished entirely.

We sped along West Side Road, encountering a few other oncoming vehicles here and there. The road seemed to have been recently graded in places and it was a joy to drive. I had to pay attention, watch for potholes, stretches of soft sand, and corners, but overall this was a road where you can “stretch your legs” within reason. If the speed limit and conditions ( a closed course) permitted, this would be a fantastic rally race stage. This road was a ton of fun!

After several miles I was happy to see a few old Series Land Rovers parked on a wide spot in the road, apparently having a lunch break there. I slowed down so as not to blast them with our dust trail – which up until now had probably been visible from the International Space Station – and exchanged waves with them. We drove past beckoning side roads heading off into the mountains to the west, with enticing signs like “QUEEN OF SHEBA MINE”.

Eventually we reached my lunch goal which was Shorty’s Grave. An interesting burial site with historic markers, it also marked the location of the lowest benchmark in the United States that is listed in the NGS database. I’d previously been to the southernmost benchmark (on the Big Island of Hawaii) so it was fun to be at another extreme location.

People had left coins at Shorty’s Grave – I’m not entirely sure why – and Carrie somehow conjured up a Mexican coin which we left as a token of respect for Shorty. As we ate lunch by the Land Cruiser, the Rovers passed us with more waves, and then Carrie and Allison were chased by a lone red ant. We figured it had a tough time as it was living in Death Valley so we didn’t have the heart to just squash the little guy. It was pretty funny how much of a sensation a single ant can cause with my family.

As we finished lunch, I was taking some photos when a white van approached from the north, driven by a German (I think) guy and his American girlfriend. They stopped and she rolled down her window and said – and I swear I am not making this up – “Excuse me, is there like a place where people go?”

I honestly wasn’t sure how to answer that, and I politely told her as much. I offered that there were many interesting places in Death Valley, and that the nearby Badwater Flats was a popular tourist spot. It didn’t seem that they had heard of it, or any other place in Death Valley, apparently. Astonished to encounter two utterly oblivious people far out on a dirt road in Death Valley, it suddenly became clear why the ranger had treated me like she had. There really were people out driving around in the middle of nowhere with not one clue as to where they were, or where they were going. Wow.

We drove the rest of the way north on West Side Road, and I still revelled in the drive. This was perhaps the most fun dirt road I’d ever driven. All good things must end though, and we eventually reached the pavement of 190 once more. We turned north again and drove to Furnace Creek, where we stopped for a rest break and checked out the enormous gift shop. I picked up a surprise gift (an anklet) for Carrie and some cold Gatorade. This was tourist central though and apparently there was cell reception here as well, and before long I couldn’t wait to get away from Civilization again!

We took the road up to another tourist-packed location, Zabriskie Point. The crowds got on my nerves and I wondered how some of them had survived to reach adulthood. 🙂 Despite that, the overlook was very impressive with the views of a lot of truly spectacular scenery. Mother Nature was certainly not subtle about showing off here!

Heading west, I pulled over at a dirt side road I’d spotted on the way to the point, marked with a small sign for Echo Canyon. Still having some time to explore, I turned off the highway and once more we were driving on dirt, weaving through the desert gravel road and enjoying ourselves. We passed some vehicles that were remote camping out there, before we reached the mouth of Echo Canyon and I stopped to take some photos.

As I finished up, I thought I smelled something like exhaust or gas, which isn’t something I liked to smell. I was about 40 yards from the Land Cruiser and wondered if maybe someone had a gas camp stove or something back among those campers. I checked the wind and it seemed to be coming from that direction, which was a relief. I strolled back to Toyotie and when I did I was immediately aware of another strong whiff of gasoline. Concerned, I bent over and peeked underneath, which was when I noticed what appeared to be a waterfall of gasoline gushing out from the back.

Sh*t.

………..

My mind kicked into that unique temporal distortion when things seem to spontaneously speed up and slow down at the same time. I opened the driver door, dropped my camera on the seat and while retrieving the keys announced “There’s a problem and you both need to get out of the vehicle right now.” Carrie understood the tone in my voice and immediately got going, helping Allison out and away from the Land Cruiser. I handed her the keys as they went and quickly told her  we had a gas leak and I was going to look at it.

I took another look and knew I was going to have to get underneath to deal with it in one way or another. Was I really going to slide on the gas-soaked gravel underneath a 4×4 at the mouth of a remote canyon in Death Valley, with more gasoline cascading down on me? Yeah, that pretty much summed it up. Underneath I went.

I determined that the gas was running out of a hose that was hanging down, with a grey cap on the end of it. It was located just in front of the auxiliary gas tank. Getting my hands on it, I quickly determined that it had come off of the side of what appeared to be the fuel pump. There were no screw threads or other obvious mechanism to quickly reattach it. Every moment, more gas poured relentlessly out of the hose. I took a quick breath, shoved my hand into the stream of fuel, and plugged the leak with a finger. Gas trickled down my arm as I tried to figure out what to do next.

I called Carrie over to assist me. I walked her through the process of opening the rear carrier and liftgate, something she’d not yet done on our “new” vehicle. Creating a plan of action, while trying to describe to her what to do, and while plugging the proverbial gasoline dike was not a simple mental task. But she got the back open and retrieved the Pelican case with my tools as I asked, and opened it up on the ground near me. I couldn’t use my left arm with my right arm plugging the gas at an awkward angle, so I had to shift position. I knew a little gas would escape again, but grimaced as a spray of gasoline hit me in the face. Luckily, I shut my eyes in time. I assume that I cursed.

Carrie fished out the vice grips that I  requested (“They look like this one but with a longer front, like an alligator.”), and setting the adjustment with my free hand, I carefully-but-awkwardly clamped it onto the fuel hose on the other side of the fuel pump. Temporarily blocked in this manner, the waterfall ceased and I was able to free my other hand and take a deep breath.

My mind was now racing for a fix to this situation. The grey piece wouldn’t easily go back onto the pump, nor was I sure that it ever would at this point. I could potentially travel with the vice grip in place like that, but it could come off at any point and that would be a Very Bad Thing. Using my Leatherman tool, I loosened the hose clamp and took the grey plastic bit off, and tossed it into my tool box so it wouldn’t get lost. I didn’t think that just tightening the hose clamp down on the hose would result in a gas-tight seal, so I had to come up with another solution..

As I lay on the large gravel rocks underneath the Land Cruiser, I was grateful that I’d been in situations before that demanded an improvised solution, and fast. Mentally speeding through options and available resources, brain set to Maximum Efficiency (for what that was worth!), a simple but strong plan soon presented itself. I retrieved my screwdriver bit set. Selecting a bit I was unlikely to need, I verified that it was the right diameter to fit inside the end of the fuel line. It was solid, wouldn’t be crushed by pressure, nor melted by the gas. It should work. I inserted it into the open end of the line and tightened the hose clamp down around it. Tentatively releasing the vice grips, the improvised plug held. The emergency had passed.

I crawled out and again took another deep breath, but not too deep as my clothes, arms, face, and hair reeked of gasoline. At this point a couple was hiking out of the canyon and asked if we were OK, and I was relieved to be able to honestly say that were were good now. I used a couple of zip ties to secure the hanging fuel line, and I was done.

I reassured the family and explained that the crisis had passed, and that I had managed to fix the problem for now. I’d want to stop a few times to verify that the improvised repair remained viable, but otherwise we seemed to be out of the woods.

I started up the Land Cruiser and verified that there was no more leak. With the fuel pump kaput, the formerly-full auxiliary tank was now useless unless I made a manual transfer via my siphon hose. We now had no reserve except in an emergency, but we had plenty of gas in the main tank to get by on.

It was now about 4pm, a half hour or so before sunset. Besides smelling like a walking Shell station (“No smoking, please.”), my arms were smeared with black grease in a dozen places, and I was struck by that twitchy weariness that comes after a right proper adrenaline dump. I drove carefully, with one eye often in the rear mirrors, and we stopped a couple of times to make sure that the leak hadn’t returned to haunt us. It was still OK.

We turned onto paved 190 heading east for the last time. When we reached Stovepipe Wells I topped off the main tank (after checking for leaks yet again) before finally being able to give my hands and arms a bit of a scrubbing in a restroom, which helped a little. There was another wonderful Death Valley sunset in progress, a fitting end to our adventures in the park. We climbed aboard Toyotie and topped the eastern rim of the valley as the last red rays of sunlight gave way to darkness, and our two hour drive to the hotel in Ridgecrest.

….

Safely at the hotel (and another check for leaks), I wondered what the nice young lady behind the counter thought of this disheveled desert freakazoid who reeked of gasoline. And did he really have a suite reserved?

No matter, because I did. I’d paid in advance and had gotten a great rate, and we gratefully dropped our bags in the large, comfortable room. Due to my inhuman state, I was granted first use of the shower so that we could go out to eat after. It was one of those most-welcome showers, with very hot water, when you really really need one. On the downside, washing my forehead and hair drained the leftover gasoline into my now painfully-burning eyes, and I could do nothing but keep flushing them with shower water until the pain became bearable.

After I cleaned up (Allison pointing out “Daddy, your eyes are really red!”), we went out for dinner and were grateful to be able to eat and relax. Only my hands still vaguely smelled of gas now, so I felt a lot more human. I mentioned how if things had been different, and Carrie had been lying under a 4×4 at the mouth of a desert canyon, with gasoline spraying in her face, I would have had the good decency to at least take some pictures of the comedy.

We happily ate, drank, and ordered a round of desserts before returning to the hotel. The girls cleaned up and we crashed on the comfortable beds, and snored away the night before our long drive home. It had been an adventure.

Death Valley Part Four Gallery

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.

Death Valley Part Three Gallery

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 we cruised up to the intersection with Highway 190, which would take us into – and through – Death Valley proper. As we drove along it, it seemed that we had missed the most popular tourist pastime. There were a lot of cars parked randomly to the sides of the highway, and people were strolling out into the desert, and taking photos and such. I can only assume they were people that were just passing through and wanted a quick taste of the desert, but I don’t really know.

Before long Highway 190 climbs several thousand feet (about 5,000 if I’m remembering correctly) in short order. Towards the end of the climb, with lots of high RPMs, I saw Toyotie’s temperature gauge starting to head north of the mid-line (where it normally lives without fluctuation once warmed up) for the first time. Not a lot, but definitely some. It dropped back to where it belonged as soon as we reached the top. But I wondered what the effect was on most of the cars making the same climb in temperatures well above 100ºF in the summer heat.

The descent into Death Valley was nearly as rapid as the climb up had been. A short while later we found ourselves in Stovepipe Wells, which was to represent “civilization” during our time in the park. The general store was where we picked up our supplies and our gas, and there were serviceable public restrooms as well. It also was one of the better souvenir shops we’d seen. Stovepipe Wells is about a hundred miles from Ridgecrest where our day had begun. » Continue Reading