New Life In Death Valley

New Life In Death Valley

This winter, we wanted to get in one last excursion before the arrival of our daughter (expected in April- you’ll have to wait to learn her name!). We have a theme to our travels, which tends to be NHL arenas & national parks, so for this “babymoon”, we did both. This is the story of our trip to Las Vegas (“The Meadows”) and Death Valley (“The Valley”).

Our journey begins at Phildelphia International, with a 7PM flight to Vegas. Other than some issues with the airport Chickie’s & Pete’s and a couple of rowdy passengers on the plane (don’t go too hard at the airport bar, folks), it was a relatively uneventful trip.

When you arrive in Vegas, they really hit you right in the face with it. Slot machines & liquor.

We went to the rental car desk to get our car, which was supposed to be a Corolla-or-similar, but they informed us that they were completely out of that class of vehicle and the only replacement the could give us instead was a convertible Mustang. Bummer.

After that, we headed to our hotel, checked in, and crashed cause it was already pretty late for our time-zone-adjusted brains and we had a big day ahead of us in the morning. I was excited to learn that were across the street from the Battlebots arenas but sadly realized that they wouldn’t be filming again for another couple weeks.

The next morning, we got up early to grab coffee & breakfast in the hotel restaurant. I love travelling West and being on East coast time- you get up early but it feels like you’re sleeping in, it’s like cheating.

After breakfast, the first stop of the day is the Hoover dam, roughly a 45 minute drive out of town.

We’re signed up for the tour that lets you not only see the power turbines but also goes way deep inside the dam through all sorts of tunnels.

I had visited the dam once before back in 2009 and at that time, this bridge was still under construction so it was kinda cool to see it completed and in use.

A couple of neat factoids about the Hoover Dam, so you can at least say that you’ve learned something by reading this post:

• Planning for it began in 1921 and construction began in 1931
• Six companies joined forces to build the dam, in a joint venturely aptly named “Six Companies, Inc”
• It took them 4 years to build tunnels to divert the river before they could start construction on the actual dam itself, which itself took only 2 years to build (that part blew my mind)
• The dam consists of over 3 million cubic yards of concrete

Ok, enough dam facts, here’s some cool inside-the-dam pics.

A pretty cool diagram of how the dam actually functions and a lot of the plumbing that you don’t ssee from the surface

The turbines that the dam uses to generate power. Each clocks in at something like 400 tons.

One of the coolest parts of the tour was getting to walk through a ventilation shaft in the middle of the dam and peer out down at the water.

For reference, the vent we’re peeking out of is here, about 540 or so feet down:

Further and further through maintenance tunnels we go into the dam.

These are the original markings made by the engineers building the dam. Notice the little hand-written equations stuff to make sure they were on the right track.

The concrete walls retained the texture of the wooden structures that they were initially poured into.

Luckily for us we did not have to take the stairs to get back up to the surface.

Once you get outside, you get a good clean look at the intake towers (and just how low the water levels are in Lake Meade)

Tourism of the dam was actually part of the original plans (the first tour taking place in 1937), so the whole place really has a great “art deco” feel to it.

We saw a film crew filming some kind of motorcycle scene going across the dam at some point, so if you see something like this on TV/in a movie/in a commercial, look for us!

That about wrapped up our time at Hoover Dam. On the way back, we caught an obligatory drive-by glimpse of the famous “Welcome To Las Vegas” sign.

But more importantly, it was lunch time and we got to satisfy a craving that had been months in the making.

After that we pulled a few handles at Paris.

After a few hours rest back at the hotel, we geared up to hit our next NHL rink- T-Mobile Arena, home of the Vegas Golden Knights

That night they faced off against the Edmonton Oilers, so there were a lot of Canadians in the arena, including this couple sporting one of the best custom-jersey-pairs I’ve ever seen:

Let me tell you, the theatrics for VGK are second to none. Their pre-game ceremonies included a full-on ice-skating sword duel.

The hype is definitely real.

Oilers win! Final score 4-3, 2 goals from Leon Draisaitl.

On the walk back to the hotel, we caught the Bellagio fountains.

An excellent & eventful day.

The Sunday morning sun rose and we started our last day in Vegas. I had some chilaquiles for breakfast and damn were they good.

Since not much is really going on too early on a Sunday morning, we decided to start off with the Atomic Museum right down the street from our hotel.

After that, we decided to hit up the Gold & Silver Pawn Shop, better known as the shop from the TV show “Pawn Stars”

We made one last stop in Vegas after that: The Pinball Hall Of Fame

Row after row of machines, from old to new. Really awesome place, and probably the cheapest attraction in Vegas- just a few dollars in quarters lasted us over an hour of playing in there!

Love me a classic Tetris machine!

So long Vegas! Time for a ride through the desert… next stop: Death Valley

The sun was setting by the time we reached the park gates.

By the time we arrived at The Oasis, night had fallen and it was incredibly dark- you couldn’t see anything outside of the range of your headlights. The Oasis (formerly known as the Furnace Creek Inn) is a historic lodge that originally opened in 1927.

With nothing but darkness outside (and a cloudy sky), we retired early in advance of a big day to come.

We awoke to find that once the darkness had lifted, a simply stunning desert scene lay before us. You would never have known the night before that such sprawling salt flats & towering mountain peaks were right in front of us.

We took the little secret pathway behind our room to go get coffee & breakfast and get ready to get out there.

The first stop of the day is the Furnace Creek Visitor Center.

After orienting ourselves & talking with some of the park staff, we decided our first stop should be the iconic Badwater Basin- the lowest point in the Western hemisphere. Before we even reach it, the landscapes are already incredible.

Once you reach the basin, you can see a plaque way up on the rocks.

Zoom in and you see “SEA LEVEL”! That’s right- you are 282 feet below sea level once you reach the basin.

The salt flats appear to stretch on infinitely.

Badwater Basin also happened to be the windiest place I’ve ever been, I guess maybe because there’s very little to inhibit it. Can’t say that I have ever felt wind like that before.

After Badwater Basin, it’s a short ride down a dirt road to Devil’s Golf Course.

Crystallized salts compose the jagged formations of this forbidding landscape.

One thing that really struck me at this point was that unlike some of the other deserts we’d been to in recent years, Death Valley has next to no vegetation in it. While sage brush and cacti are a common sight in the deserts of Arizona and Utah, Death Valley is a truly barren wasteland of salt and stone.

Our next stop is Artists Drive, a 9 mile lop twisting and turning through some very rugged canyons and mountains.

The crown jewel of the Artists Drive is Artists Palette. More than five million years ago, repeated volcanic eruptions blanketed the landscape, depositing ash and minerals and delivering a wide range of natural colors.

Our next stop was yet another iconic and unique Death Location, Zabriskie Point. It’s a truly otherwordly place unlike any other I’d ever seen.

After having visited the lowest point in the Western hemisphere, we drove up to Dante’s View, which overlooks Badwater Basin. It’s a 5500 feet higher and 30 degrees colder- quite a swing.

At this point, we headed back towards the hotel to rest a bit. There was a coyote waiting in the parking lot, but he didn’t bother anyone.

The pathway from the parking lot up to the main hotel area goes through one of the original mining tunnels set up in the area nearly 100 years prior.

We hung by the pool for a bit (though it was still a bit chilly).

The sunset from the observation deck was sensational.

After dinner we went back up to the observation deck to watch the night sky before bed.

We started the next morning with coffee on the hotel patio.

It was clearer that morning, so we decided to head out to some of the same spots we were at yesterday just to take it in and get more photos.

Artists Drive & Artists Palette

Devil’s Golf Course

Golden Canyon Trailhead (notably, this is where the Jawas capture R2-D2 and C-3P0 in A New Hope!)

After the morning photo shoot, we drove out to Stovepipe Wells and got lunch at the Toll Road Restaurant. The walls there featured posters of all of the different movies that used Death Valley as a filming location.

Near to Stovepipe wells is the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes, which is the site of yet another Star Wars scene set on Tatooine.

At that point, we headed back towards our hotel and relaxed for a bit before dinner. The sunset was even more glorious than the evening before.

After dinner, we drove back out into the desert to Harmony Borax to do some star gazing. When we first got there, we were alone and you could hear the coyotes yipping in the distance.

The last morning of the trip afforded us one last morning coffee on the observation deck.

The ride back to Vegas was a nice one, including passing through the Ash Meadows wildlife preserve

I tried one last slot at the airport before we boarded our plane.

All in all, an excellent last-hurrah before we bring our little girl into the world.