Day 2 “Sunrise to Sunset” March 20, 2016
Today we got up very early, ate oatmeal (in cups with
basically no spoons) and bagels in the hotel room and then quickly drove down
to Zabriskie Point to watch a spectacular sunrise. We all faced west because as the sun came up
in the East, it painted the mountains pink to the west. It was spectacular.
We then drove over to the road that took us
to Dante’s View. It was also
amazing. We parked then walked basically
along the ridge of mountains. It was
glorious but as we were heading back to the car, Grant fell and busted his right
knee and right hand very badly. Nick and
Ryan walked ahead and Grant and I walked back together after he quit crying. As we were walking, sort of out of nowhere,
we heard a bird singing. And sure
enough, he was sitting on this thorny bush right in front of us. It was like he was there to tell Grant that
everything would be okay.
We got back in the car, drove back west to our hotel room,
packed up our bags and went into the “camp store”. There we got coffee. Ryan bought a wind catcher and Grant got a
pocket knife. I got an awesome Death
Valley t-shirt. We got gas then drove
Hwy 190 north then west towards Panamint.
That drive took about an hour. We
talked about the presidential election during the drive.
After we passed Panamint Springs Resort, we drove for one
mile then turned left onto a very bumpy road and followed it back to a
trailhead, about 2.5 miles away. The
parking lot was full so we precariously parked on the side of the road. When getting out of the car, Grant dropped
Omnom (his strange green stuffed animal that he got for his birthday) under the
minivan, which we retrieved, and he also dropped his pocket knife, which we did
not retrieve. So he owned it for less
than one hour.
The Darwin Falls hike was amazing. It started out as just a gravel path in a
very arid, desert, landscape but then we came to a creek and the entire climate
changed to green and shady. We hiked
back to Darwin Falls and it was great fun.
The hike was flat but there were some fun water crossings and right
towards the end, you had to hike over some boulders.
We sat near the falls and ate a picnic lunch of
summer sausage, cheese, apples, trail mix, etc. and of course, it was delicious. While were where eating, a guy, his son and his dog Bella,
climbed passed us and Bella nearly fell back and hurt herself.
After we hiked back to the car, we got on the road for Joshua
Tree. We drove south on Hwy 178, through
the town of Trona, which was a depressing mining town. The kids watched The Bee Movie (an old
one). I lost all cellular service and
hadn’t printed out the map to Joshua Tree so when we were in Trona, I asked a
lady there if she knew how to get to Joshua Tree (she’d NEVER heard of it) or
if they had a California map – nope. So
we had to drive a little ways out of the way until we had cell service again
then were able to get directions to Joshua Tree. We lost 45 minutes or so because of this so
the drive took close to 4 hours. The
kids watched Home Alone then started Rookie of the Year. We pulled into the Joshua Tree Visitor Center
(that’s the NW entrance), around 5:45 and the Visitor Center had already closed
for the day but we were able to grab a few maps which was what we needed.
The original plan had been to check into our hotel then head
into the park to catch sunset but because we got there late we just went
straight into the park. I wanted to get
down to Keys View at around 7pm because I’d read that sunset was spectacular. We had some time to kill so we stopped first
at Barker’s Dam and stumbled onto such a cool, 1-mi loop hike.
The terrain seriously looks like you’re on
another planet between the strange rock formations and the Joshua trees. The hike was amazing. Then we just barely got down to Keys View in
time and it was indescribable. I think
it’s the prettiest sunset I’ve ever seen – very windy and therefore very cold
but utterly spectacular.
After that we drove back north then rather than retracing
our steps, we took the road through the park and up to the NE entrance (Oasis
Entrance?) It was now 8pm and we were
hungry and tired. We went through a Del
Taco drive thru (took forever), Grant fell asleep, and we checked into our very
nice Fairfield Inn. The kids thought the
hotel was so fancy.
It’s now 9:45 and I’ve showered and am just wrapping this up
so that we can go to bed.
What a day! The kids
have been so great. A little bit of
arguing but nothing too bad. I think
Nick and I have argued more than the kids have J
Until tomorrow….
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