Death Valley

We had a long drive from Sequoia to Zion and skipping through Death Valley was too tempting to resist...although it was quite a bit out of the way. 

We met up with Laura's childhood friend Justin Ruzic near his base in China Lake for a quick visit at a park while the kids played and then continued on to the park.  We arrived at the west entrance around 4pm and drove through the desolate and uninhabited valley that dips below sea level.  We saw a couple of fighter jets zooming through the valley about 10 miles away, but we couldn't make out what kind they were.

We stopped at the one general store and restaurant open in the park to buy the requisite patch for the kids adventure vests and have dinner.  After finding many posters on the walls of the restaurant, we found out that many of the multiple desert scenes in the Star Wars movies were filmed in Death Valley.  We spied a few tall sand dunes in the distance and decided to check them out.

The dunes were set in the bottom of a large valley and were isolated in an single area.  The sand was soft and fine and we took off our shoes and walked around barefoot.  It felt like being in the Sahara Desert with the towering dunes with serpentine pinnacles. 

We eventually drove out towards our hotel in Las Vegas.  Laura was a little miffed that we missed the free drinks and hors d'oevres at the Embassy Suites, but the drive through the park was worth it. 

Here are the best pictures in no particular order.