Today started out great. Skies were blue with some whispy clouds. A new Starbucks in Twentynine Palms allowed us coffees to go, and we headed off towards Death Valley.

We had a few travel options but the weather looks questionable by Wednesday. In view of this, we decided to briefly check out Death Valley and head towards either Bishop CA or Carson City NV, depending on how long the drive is taking us.

The drive into Death Valley was easy, the scenery was wide open and the sun was shining. We were expecting an entrance gate somewhere after we entered the park, but nope. We found an open store and asked for information and was told because the park had eleven entrances, they put the info center in the middle of the park – about 1.5 hours from our current location. Next visit…

We did find a hike to take a short distance from the store. It was the Darwin Falls Trail. Apparently this is a desert waterfall and is somewhat rare.

It was a fairly easy 1 mile hike (each direction), but the last .25 mile were scrambling up and over large boulders and crossing small creeks. Whew!

All in all it was a nice break from the car.

Now on to Carson City. We made the decision to drive further because we’d like to be home tomorrow. It’s doable; however when we arrived in Bishop, the signs were flashing that traction devices were needed in 48 miles. Oh no! My car isn’t ready for that!!

We stopped for the night in Bishop and will review our options in the morning.

We have shopping to do when we get home. I hope there are supplies left!

#westcoasttravel