Tuesday, October 18th: Left Boston early in the morning, arrived around Noon in Santa Barbara.
First bit of good news: We secured a 4 wheel drive car--Jeep Compass. This was a load off my mind since on leg of our planned trip involved a 1.6 miles of steep dirt road which would have to be hiked if it couldn't be driven.
We drove to our hotel, which was two blocks from the beach and near Stearns Wharf and then arranged to meet Surenna for Tennis. She has improved a lot since she was a kid and beat me in a set 6-3. Later we dined at Santa Barbara Shellfish Co. on Stearns Wharf, where a fair number of hooligans were leaping off the roof and into the water, some 40 feet below.
Wednesday, 19th: We met up with Surenna for street tacos, went to the beach (I swam about 1,000 ft out to the sandbar) Then we went to the Secret Bao then drove towards the Santa Barbara Bowl, parked and then walked the rest of the way to the Death Cab for Cutie show as the sun began to set. Sometime earlier we purchased bottles of water, a cooler and fixings for some lunches for later in the trip. I put 4 of the water bottles into our room refrigerator's freezer compartment.
Thursday, 20th: We set out for Kernville CA and Johnny McNally's lodge. Our 2nd happy surprise of the trip was that the valley is heavily used by nearby military installations for fighter-jet missions. We heard many screeching fly-bys. We went on a hike and got a view of (I think) an F-18, an F-15 making turns with afterburners lit, and a pair of F-16s in formation. We lunched when we arrived, on roast chicken sandwiches, grapes, seltzer and tortilla chips--most of which came out of the cooler. We re-froze some water bottles in the room freezer. We ended the night at the lodge's restaurant. I had a 24oz Porterhouse and Vaishali had a disappointing portion of salmon--overcooked and flavorless, though the home-made pickles were really good.
Friday, 21st: We drove to the Grove of 100 giants and saw some Giant Sequoias, really absurdly large trees. Also, other pine and fir trees in the area were unusually large. Then we made our way to Sherman Pass and hiked to the summit of Sherman Peak--altitude, 9,909 ft. After the hike, we had a lunch from our cooler of deli and more of the sourdough loaf we had purchased in Santa Barbara. Much of this day's drive and the previous were extremely precarious, twisty and unpaved. We arrived in Lone Pine in the late afternoon and had dinner in a local diner (The Whitney Restaurant).
Saturday, 22nd: I had consulted with the desk clerk about if 190 was really closed, as Google maps claimed and he indicated that you can get through, though it's down to one lane in places and so there might be some delays. This was good, since the route Google wanted us to take was about 2 hours longer and took us all the way down to Indian Wells. We made our way to Telescope Peak via 136, which became 190 and then the Panamint Valley Road. From there, we took Wildrose Road to Wood Canyon Road and finally to Charcoal Kiln Road. We had been on dirt roads, some of it very rough for about 40 miles but at the charcoal kilns the road became much worse--the sign advised that you needed a high clearance 4 wheel drive vehicle. We had the latter but clearance wasn't much higher than a car, but we tried anyway and made it to Mahogany Flat Campground and the end of the road.
All this time, we had been climbing out of the Panamint Valley and were now at a pass between it and Death Valley. The trail lead around the ridge line on the Death Valley side, though for much of the hike I had the two valleys mixed up. We started at around 8,200 feet of elevation, so you are immediately looking down over 8,000 feet into the canyon. Vaishali was overcome with vertigo, but powered-on through the tears and we made it to the saddle--this was a ridge line at almost 10,000 feet, where you could see down into both valleys at the same time. In exposed areas the wind was about 30 mph and we had already decided not to go on, though our planning still allowed for possible visit to the summit. We found a sheltered spot and enjoyed our lunch sandwiches that we'd made back at the Jeep just before setting-out.
On our way back to the car, we were passed by a couple who indicated they'd done the summit. They said the wind was 80 mph in the heights and they'd had to climb on all fours.
On the drive back, we retraced our path back to Wildrose Road and then took Emigrant Canyon Road North, all the way back to 190--which was totally closed in the Westerly direction. So, had we tried to get into Death Valley that way, we would have been in a pickle--you couldn't trust Google maps AND there was almost no cell signal anywhere. So we totally lucked-out that our path, past Telescope Peak, just happened to be the only way into the park from our direction.
One thinks of Death Valley as below sea level and indeed, some of it is well below, but where we came in at Emigrant Campground, it's over 2,000 feet above sea level. There were long stretches of road where we were coasting at 75 mph. I would say that we coasted most of the almost 10 miles of this stretch. We made it safely to The Ranch at Death Valley, in Furnace Creek. We swam in their heated pool--it's really cold when you get out, since the air is very dry and the wind, constant. Later we dined at the Inn at Death Valley--expensive but fancy.
Sunday the 23rd of October: We explored Death valley and traveled to Tecopa Hot Springs. Our strategy was to see all the things along Badwater Road and then go back to 190 and see the things along 190 on the way out of Death valley. We saw The Devil's Golf Course and then went to Badwater Basin. At the basin were salt flats and we walked about half a mile out. Right at the start was a little bit of open water--the badwater, very salty, of the name. The salt flats were slightly damp in low areas, indicating that we were at close to the water table. In places, there were little holes dug into the salt flat and these were filled with water, much like if you dig a hole in the sand at a beach. One nice detail was that a sea-level sign was placed on the cliff--It seemed a long way up, but was about 285 feet up. On the way back to 190, we took a detour to a box canyon which had an arch and a one-way scenic "Artist's Palette" loop--in which we pulled-off the road and had lunch. On 190, we took a small detour to stop at Zabriskie Point, where a small hike up a paved path rewarded us with great views back in the direction of Death Valley. A much longer detour to Dante's View gave a vertiginous view straight down into Death Valley, with Telescope Peak right across from us. This was our last stop.
The springs at Tecopa were very rudimentary: Mostly trailers and run-down looking buildings. The nice thing was that our air b & b was spacious, airy and comfortable. We took in the mineral waters and then picked up some food at the nearby bbq place/brewery.
Monday the 24th of October: We were low-ish on fuel, the local places were over $7 per gallon and so we hoped to make it to Barstow before running out of gas and in good time for lunch. We got gas for under $5 per gallon and I decided to fill up the tank, even though I was pretty sure we wouldn't use it all up (we pre-payed for the tank). After that, we went to the Harvey House, a Spanish Renasance style structure, which used to be a hotel and now houses 3 museuems. One was completely closed that day (RT 66), one was open (NASA Goldstone Visitor's Center--free stickers!) and one was sort-of closed (the rail museum, but the rail displays were outside and you could still look at them.) The building was sited right by actual, working tracks and some large freight trains rolled past while we were there. We got a good tip from a tour guide about a nearby Mexican diner. It was inexpensive, English was a distant 2nd language and the food was really good.
We made it to our hotel in West Hollywood (Chamberlain West Hollywood)
by the early afternoon, we had drinks by the rooftop hotel and later, walked up to Sunset Drive and had dinner at Mel's Drive-In.
Tue the 25th of October: We walked about a mile to the original LA Farmer's Market and had a bite to eat and then to the LA County Museum of Art. Later, drinks by the pool, an Asean restaurant on Sunset and then to The Laugh Factory. They seated us in the very front row, so yes, the comic acts threw a fair amount of shade our way. One thing which was really cool, was that the MC, played the piano with one hand and the trumpet with the other.
Wed the 25th of October: We journeyed home, with a stop at a great diner close-by LAX.
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