Kieran and I stayed up late packing, then I had an amazing sleep. The kids decided they wanted to sleep in Kieran's wagon so I had the entire wagon to myself. The wind was calm and I had a wonderful night.
We loaded up the car, watched over by a black bird. I saw it and thought "grackle" - and was delighted when I searched and found I was right. We had a plan to drive pretty much all day. We had the ultimate goal of getting to Pagosa Springs, a stop-over town after Death Valley. We had programmed in a stop at the "Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas" sign, which was along the way but also something Kieran really wanted to see, as we missed it last time because we flew into Vegas.
We stopped at a petrol station in Vegas to fill up before heading into Death Valley. We were delighted and surprised to see it had poker machines. Kieran and I both had to put a dollar in, I managed to win $20 which was hilarious and awesome.
We kept driving to our next stop - Pahrump. I had this as a food stop, but couldn't remember where or why. It was a much bigger town than I thought it was going to be. We went to a Casino for the fun of it and for a toilet break. While Kieran and the kids were busy I sat at a $5 blackjack table with $11 - I wanted to keep a $1 chip. I put $5 in and didn't lose once. I walked away after 10 minutes with $100.
We enjoyed the audio guide so much that we decided to get the tour for Death Valley. Death Valley is huge, and is the largest National Park outside of Alaska. The guide kept us entertained and informed with regular updates. As we started it told us about a side-trip to Devil's Hole, which is fascinating to learn about. Not as fascinating to look at, but we did have fun getting out of the car.
Our first stop on the official tour was Zabriskie Point. This was a great stop. Charlie was still asleep when we got there, so I went up first with the big kids. We took lots of photos and the kids enjoyed checking all the look outs. As we came down, Kieran and Charlie were on their way up. We got some photos and admired the badlands, then back in the car.
The visitor centre had a good museum and gift shop, and even had a ballot box in it. It was election day, however there wasn't any phone reception throughout the park which meant I couldn't check on the results. This wasn't by design but was a great way to not get distracted.
We didn't have enough time to see everything so we decided we would go to Badwater Basin, then come back via Artists Pallette. I was hoping we would have time to see the sand dunes before dark. Our guide told us about how many of the areas had been used for set-locations for the Star Wars films, including the sand dunes. It makes sense why films would choose Death Valley as the set for other planets - there are parts that looked extremely unreal. There were also parts that looked a lot like sights around Woomera, like the salt lakes and coloured hills.
Badwater Basin, which is the lowest point in North America, was a long drive. We got some photos, but as it was a giant salt-lake it wasn't as mind-blowing for us, as we've been lucky to see so many in South Australia.
We went via the artist drive which was also a fun drive but felt familiar. The palette itself wasn't as sensational as I thought it was going to be, but I think that's because it was too dark when we got there, and it also reminded us of the colours from the hill at the Village Club in Woomera.
After the artist's drive we carried on into the darkness. Our guide told us about all the incredible sights we couldn't see, but we still enjoyed it. We did pull over at the sanddunes, grabbed the torch and walked out. We had so much fun. The kids were initially very scared to be out in the dark, especially because our guide warned us about rattlesnakes. Their reservations soon dissapeared as we had fun being silly and running around in the dark. We took photos, and tried to get some shots of the milky way. It was the perfect break after a long day in the car.
We followed along with our virtual guide until we reached lone pine, or home away from home for the evening. We got there in time to dash out to get food before retiring for the night.
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