Death Valley Camping Trip, February 2014

For Valentine's/President's Day weekend, we spent time with our friends the Okerlund family in Death Valley.  It's the perfect time of year to go there, and the weather and scenery were amazing!  We camped in the Texas Springs campground near Furnace Creek and drove all over that area of Death Valley seeing and hiking through places we'd never seen before.  Can't wait to do it again!

Jason took some fantastic photos of the scenery and our hikes.  I took pictures of life at our campsite. :)  Enjoy!

Gold Canyon

Artist's Palette

Card games at the campground

My just-woke-up face.  The coyotes yipping at night and the moon-as-bright-as-sunlight made for a rough sleep for me.  Thank goodness my sleeping bag and sleeping pad were jjjust rrright.

Rhiannon's just-woke-up face

Wade slept well!  :)

"Mom, take a picture of you kissing me!"

Yep, we got a little reception up there. :)

Sun setting over our camp

Brandon and Wendy--good buddies!

Our campsite

Mountains in the west

Artist's Palette

Their orders when I went to the local store with Wendy

Camping Queens

Artist's Palette

Badwater

Near the Natural Bridge area--we saw the bridge and kept on going.  There were some neat things to see!  Rhiannon and Wade had SO MUCH FUN with these kids.  Jason and I realized we need to go camping with friends more often--the kids entertained themselves!

Natural Bridge hike--this was scary for me, I'm not gonna lie!

Badwater

Badwater

Natural Bridge area

See!  There's the bridge! :)

Devil's Golf Course--so interesting.  Sharp and hard to walk on, but worth it!

Devil's Golf Course

Brandon was offering a dollar to the first kid who found a "golf ball" out there.  Here was an example of one that had fallen in.

Texas Springs campground--that's our kids at the top of that hill.  They had a blast climbing that and playing Capture the Flag when it got dark with our friends and a bunch of Boy Scouts.

Breathtaking!

Gold Canyon

Gold Canyon

Gold Canyon

What a beautiful place!

Jason, Wade, and the Boy Scouts

Jason celebrated his 37th birthday by going on a camping trip with Wade and 19 young men in Death Valley!  They had a fantastic time, as you can see from these amazing pictures that Jason shared...

I. LOVE. THIS. PICTURE.

Can you see the rainbow?

 One of the leaders took this great shot of a visiting fox...he was pretty bold.

Jason said the young men were really great and friendly with Wade--he was obviously in heaven.  Wade was super proud of himself for eating not one but TWO hamburgers for dinner and for beating Dad at Superman Uno in their tent.  And I was very glad to hear that the group sang "Happy Birthday" to Jason and that one of the boys gave him a bag of cookies that his mom had made.  The group had amazing weather right up until Saturday morning when they got to the top of the sand dunes to ride boards down them (the main point of the trip).  All of a sudden this huge wind whipped up a sandstorm--they all tried to go down a time or two and then they hightailed it out of there.

Back here in Ridgecrest we'd had terrible wind/rain since Friday night, so I was praying for the boys all night long.  I was very happy to hear that MOST of the trip had been great! 

 

Death Valley camping trip

Spring Break started out with lots of rain and wind, so chances of a much-anticipated family camping trip were looking slim.  Jason and I were checking the weather forecasts often and keeping our fingers crossed.  On Thursday we got everything together for camping, hopeful that our wishful thinking would work!  We decided to go for it on Friday and were blessed with fantastic weather most of the trip!

Our first stop was to Scotty's Castle in the far northern section of Death Valley.  You can read more about it at this link:  Scotty's Castle in Death Valley.  Basically it's this amazing, totally random mansion built in the 1920's with a lot of history and mystery behind it.  We took a tour with one of the in-character park rangers and really enjoyed it.

Next stop was to the Ubehebe Crater.  The picture I took doesn't really capture how huge it is.  Jason was hoping we could hike around the entire thing, but Rhiannon and I chickened out.  Wade and Jason loved it, but Rhiannon said it was the scariest thing she'd ever done in her life, especially with some strong winds blowing.  She preferred to call it the Heebie-Jeebies crater, ha-ha!  :)  Maybe we'll give it a try another time--I'll need to be in better shape with some good hiking shoes and more gumption!

Here's more on the crater:  Ubehebe Crater in Death Valley

In the early evening we found one of the few tent sites left in Stovepipe Wells.  It's a good thing we got there when we did because people were driving through all night trying to find spots.  Maybe the fact that it was Friday night had something to do with it, too...  We were surrounded by very nice people to the left and right of us, but the young adults a few tents down were obnoxious--their "party" started at 10pm and went til who knows how long.

Our favorite things were collecting rocks, playing hide-and-seek, cooking s'mores and roasting Star Burst candies, telling stories, and using the awesome Coleman Roadtrip Grill that Jason got for us--it was great!  

Even with the loud neighbors, crowds, and lack of sleep, we all agreed that we had a wonderful time.  Hopefully we won't wait another 4 years to go on our next campout!