We woke up at our warm campsite looking over Death Valley. Breakfast was Cowboy Omelet before we geared up for a bike ride into the mountains that surround the valley. Our campsite is about 100 feet below sea level, so we were biking to get above the water line. 1 1/2 tired hours of climbing later we reached the top of foothills and started into the canyon. The soft gravel slowed us down and we soon decided to turn around and enjoy the downhill ride back home where Thanksgiving turkey sandwich fixings waited for us.
Our leisurely day wrapped up with an improvised version of BJ and Lisa’s campsite game of cairn toppling (this highly evolved game involves stacking rock towers about knee high and then lining up to throw rocks to knock them back down. It’s more fun than it sounds!).
Once the sun had set at 4:30 – since we’re on the eastern edge of the PST time zone and in a valley, things get dark REALLY early – we whipped up our early bird special dinner and were eating steaks by 5:15. The stars were out and we had an outdoor showing of a U2 concert on the flat screen and then early to bed.
159 years ago, 100 settlers dropped into Death Valley as a shortcut on their way to the California Gold Rush. By the end of the month, they’d killed their oxen for food, burned their wagons as fuel, and one man had died. 2 settlers were sent out on foot to find rescue. The two men walked hundreds of miles and returned with supplies for the starving group. As the weary pioneers left, one turned and said “Good-bye Death Valley”. The grim name stuck.
As we leisurely relaxed in the pink glow of the sunset, 5 miles from the site where the settlers struggled to survive, we couldn’t believe how much has changed in such a short amount of time.
What Say You?