Death Valley National Park 2018

May 12, 2018

Death Valley is known for being hot, but the Lord gave us a break today by making the high only 92 degrees! When we got to the first stop this morning, Dante’s View, it was a breezy 59 degrees at the top of the mountain where we got some fantastic views of the park valley.

Since we’ve been so tired from this week of hikes, we mostly drove to viewpoints and short walks around Death Valley to keep out of the heat and to rest our feet. Here are some of our favorite places with the labels below! We tried to include people in the photos to give you a point of reference for how big some of these mountains are.

We saw a sign for “Indian Tacos and Shaved Ice,” which of COURSE caught our eye, so we headed for the Timbisha Shoshone tribe restaurant and headed in for our lunch. The room was empty and quiet, except for a very large Indian man wearing an apron sitting in the corner, watching us look at the menu. He didn’t smile. He didn’t speak. He acted like we weren’t there at all. We saw that the tacos were $8 each and shaved ice was $4, and turned to walk out. He looked up, and back down. We left. This was the most uncomfortable situation we’ve experienced this entire trip. I’m still not sure what to think about it. Evidently they either weren’t really open or don’t serve to white people…

We needed gas while in the park, but only got a couple of gallons because it was $4.74 per gallon. PLEASE get us back to the $2.50’s soon. Thank goodness for a hybrid.

Tonight we’ll stay in a hotel in Ridgecrest, CA and see a movie. Tomorrow we plan to relax, travel the rest of the way to LA, and do some laundry. Taylor is staying until Friday for work, but I will head home on Tuesday. Our last national park is Monday – Channel Islands National Park. We’re getting close to the end!