Day 23-April 12, 2018-Furnace Creek Ranch, Badwater Basin, Devil’s Golf Course, Artist’s Palette
Much cooler today, only 83 at Badwater Basin, the hottest place.
We made it through the wind last night. Still windy all day but a lot cooler. Spent the morning doing some cleaning chores and looking at maps and books. We know the general direction we’re going in from here but there are a lot of options. We have no internet so it’s a bit old school trying to look up info. But I’m getting ideas and can check them out further when we get service again. Furnace Creek Ranch is a small village that’s almost walkable from the campground. It has everything you could want or need: a hotel, golf course (-214’), spring fed swimming pool, laundry, riding stables, general store, bar, diner, sports courts and gas station ($5.27 a gallon for diesel). We can use any of the facilities there while we’re at the campground. We drove through and looked around, very nice place to stay. General store seems to have all the staples. A lot of people were golfing today. It’s adjacent to the Borax Outdoor Museum that has exhibits about Death Valley’s mining and railroad history and a 20-Mule Team Wagon. There’s another hotel about a mile up the road, too. Drove about 16 miles south to Badwater Basin, the lowest point in North America at -282’. Walked out on the salt flats and ate lunch in the parking lot. Headed back up north and drove down a dusty dirt road to Devil’s Golf Course, an immense area of jagged rock salt spires formed by wind and rain. Still heading north a few more miles to the one-way paved 9-mile road called the “Artist’s Palette” because of the beautiful colored rock formations caused by minerals. The road swerves and sways up and down the mountains and we had an incredible view. There are pull-outs to stop and admire them and to see the how water has carved the rocks over millions of years. The pictures don't do it justice, it was just gorgeous. Back to the campground just in time for the wind to pick back up again. Going to be another rocky night. We watched a woman try to set up a tent in the wind, it was great entertainment. Sat outside and read for a while, beautiful evening, but had to go in because the wind was getting out of control and it was getting colder and colder. Peeked outside about 11:30 to see the stars. Death Valley is the third and largest International Dark Sky Park and the stars were brilliant.