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2023 Winter Vacay: A Trip Down Memory Lane, Part 6, Death Valley to Disney

On the road in Death Valley heading toward Panamint Springs

On our second morning in Death Valley, we woke early in preparation for our departure from the park. I knew I would want more time in the park, so I reserved a hotel halfway back to Los Angeles instead of making the full drive that day. We would backtrack first, heading toward Death Valley Junction to visit Dante’s View.

Dante’s View, considered one of the best views in Death Valley, sits atop Coffin Peak and 5,575 feet above Badwater Basin, and provides an amazing panoramic view of the southwest part of the park. It allows one to see both the lowest area of the park (Badwater) and the highest; the 11,049-foot Telescope Peak sits on the opposite mountain ridge. Apparently, the early visitors to the area from the borax companies found the view evoked visions of Dante’s nine circles of hell. I cannot imagine what they were thinking given the spectacular beauty of the scene laid before us. From the height we could really see the size of the temporary lake in the basin below. The view is somewhat famous as it appears briefly in the first Star Wars movie as Luke, Obi-Wan Kenobi, C3P0, and R2-D2 get their first view of Mos Eisley. There was certainly no water visible at that time.

Our view from Dante’s Peak

From Dante’s View we would drive about two hours over the majority of Route 190, past Panamint Springs, to the Father Crowley Overlook. It felt further and longer. Though the park was busy, there were times when we saw few other cars. The height of the mountains towering over the valley, the sheer expanse of the seemingly barren wilderness emphasized how very small we are. Maybe it was in part due to these feelings that when we at last arrived at the Overlook, we found it rather disappointing. The steep and narrow Rainbow Canyon, where fighter jets from the China Lake Naval Air Weapons Station or Edwards Airforce Base once practiced tricky maneuvers, is impressive, but I found the windy road, with its hairpin turns, far more interesting. If you find white-knuckle driving interesting. (I sort of do and don’t)

We turned around, and retook the twisty-turvy road, passing Panamint Springs again, before taking Panamint Valley Road out of the park. Suddenly, there was a valley full of golden flowers. It had been days since we had seen many natural colors other than the piercing blue sky and the varied tans and browns and muted reds of Death Valley. Although there is wildlife in the park, we had not seen any. Not a bighorn sheep or a lizard or a hare. We could not recall seeing living insects, just some dead in the salt flats of Badwater Basin. I do not remember any other flowers.

Wildflowers gone very wild near the Panamint Springs entrance to Death Valley

Before driving on to the big city lights in the direction of Los Angeles, I wanted to visit a ghost town. We had driven through several, but I had read about one in the area I thought we could stop at Baharat (or Ballarat)

Founded in 1897, Baharat was a thriving borax mining supply town. At one point there were reportedly as many as 500 people in the town and a swinging lifestyle with a saloon and several hotels. By 1920, the town was abandoned. Stories abound online that Charles Manson and his gang visited in the 1960s, leaving behind some graffiti and an old truck.

I turned off the highway down a dirt track toward the mountains and Baharat. Ahead I noticed a lot of dust rising, and it took me about half a minute to realize what it was – because I could not quite believe it. A single-engine plane was taxiing straight for us! It was still maybe 200 feet ahead when it was up and away and flew over the car. What kind of ghost town has private planes stopping by? That turned out to be the most interesting bit of our short visit to the ghost town of Baharat. I had hoped for more atmospheric photos of old buildings, but instead, there was a group of young men on noisy ATVs returning from an outing, a dude in an old truck yakking on with a visitor while his old dog lay just by the tires of his idling truck, and in front of the old fashioned trading post advertising “Shooting Range, Guns N Bombs! 200 yards” the proprietress was regaling a couple with some stories. Baharat or Ballarat did not seem like our kind of place. I got back in the car and we left.

The Baharat (not Ballarat!) sign post and supposedly Manson’s old truck

From Baharat, we had only an hour’s drive to our stop for the day in Ridgecrest, California. The road rose first into the Argus mountain range and then slipped into the Searles Valley. I thought the drive from Baharat into the mountains was nice, but once into the valley, the scenery was less so. We drove through a few dusty towns like Trona, that are functioning, populated towns with a gas station, schools, and a library, but still had the air of a ghost town. The area was dominated by a large mineral lake operation. As we approached Ridgecrest, much of the area to the right of the road was fenced off as it was part of the China Lake Naval Air Weapons Station, the navy’s largest installation that covers an area larger than the state of Rhode Island. We stayed just the one night in Ridgecrest. We ate Little Caesar’s pizza and chilled out in the room.

The next day we drove to Disneyland in Anaheim. Although the return to increasingly larger towns and cities was gradual over several hours, the arrival back in the U.S.’ second largest city after spending days in desolate wilderness areas was a little shock to the system. C and I checked into the same hotel within walking distance of Disneyland that we stayed at in 2016. Then I left 4-year-old C in the room for just 5 minutes while I went to the first floor to get something. I told her to stay in the room and to only leave if it were an emergency. Unfortunately for us, while I was downstairs the Disneyland fireworks show occurred and C thought they were the signal of an emergency; I returned to find her running up and down the hall screaming… I made her recreate her hallway escapade for a video.

The Disney California Adventure Park opened in 2001

Disneyland was a big part of our 1984 family trip to California. What I remember is waiting in really long lines while sweating in the heat, being really scared on Space Mountain, and loving every minute of the Haunted Mansion. For my 9th birthday, I had a slumber party and as we settled down in sleeping bags in the living room we listened to my 45 RPM record of the Disney Haunted Mansion story.

The Disneyland of today is far more like the Disneyland of 1984 than Universal Studios. Many of the rides you can enjoy today are not only the same ones we waited in long lines for in 1984, but they were also part of the original 1955 park like Autopia, the Jungle Cruise, the Mad Tea Party, and Dumbo.

Creepy Christmas decor at the Haunted Mansion – one of my favorite Disney rides

C and I spent the first day at Disneyland and the second at California Adventure. It was our first time at the latter park. We loved California Adventure! The Incredicoaster was our absolute favorite ride – we got on it three times! – and it might have knocked the Loch Ness Monster in Busch Gardens Williamsburg off the top of my favorite coasters list. It was a great way to top off our amazing winter vacation.

Our trip was not all a recreation of the 1984 family trip. I remember parts of the trip, but so much is forgotten. My siblings, who are younger than I, remember even less. My sister C remembered playing cards on the train, barren landscape through which the train journeyed, and feeling like royalty eating in the train dining car. My sister A most remembered the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry, visiting Sea World in California (which I completely forgot about!), and the jolting of the automatic transmission rental car when our mom slammed on what she kept thinking was the clutch. My Aunt L passed away over ten years ago. My mom is currently in the hospital and unable to tell me what she remembers.

Of course, one cannot ever truly recreate the past and that was not my intention. Yet here I am, all these years later, and that 1984 travel adventure had made such an impression on me. This trip sure did shake loose some old memories and gave my daughter and me some new ones.

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2023 Winter Vacay: A Trip Down Memory Lane, Part 5, Mojave and Death Valley

When I planned out our trip, I had a strong desire to drive through the Mojave National Preserve. It would be quicker to drive using larger roads such as CA-247 to Barstow and then Interstate-15, but I was not necessarily looking for the fastest route. That way would not take me through the Preserve. Then again, I did not wish to be long delayed and there was a risk that driving through the Preserve we could be held up for as long as an hour by railway siding operations at the Kelso Depot. I opted to take the chance.

Road through the wilderness on Amboy Road

We left Yucca Valley early as there was a long drive ahead to Death Valley National Park. Soon after leaving Twentynine Palms, it was as if civilization disappeared (well, except we were on a nicely paved road). There was desert, scrubs, hills, and sky. There was little else until we hit the junction of Amboy Road and I-40, and the teeny, tiny town of Amboy.

Amboy historic sign with a view of the post office building and Roy’s

A historic 1850 railway station settlement and later popular stopover on the historic Route 66 highway, Amboy is now just a shadow of its former self. It still boasts the old post office building, though services appear permanently closed, and Roy’s Motel and Cafe (and service station) dating back to 1936. Online information says these businesses are run by the four people who still call Amboy home, though when I asked the guy behind the counter if he lived in town, he gave me a good long suspicious look, asked me if I were a journalist or something, then told me, no, he does not live there but he drives in from about an hour away. I liked the nostalgic symbols of the 1950s travel heyday–the diner, the roadside motel signage, and the Route 66 sign–but I did not wish to linger; the place felt trapped in time. Most of the other towns that once existed in the area have been long deserted.

We drove on taking Kelbaker Road through another wilderness area and into the Mojave National Preserve. For a long while the preserve looked little different from the other stark landscapes thus far that day. I know there was much more diversity in the terrain off the main road, but as our time was limited, I had to make do with the drive-through. Once we crossed over the railroad tracks at Kelso, then safe from the potential cargo train delays, I took the opportunity to make a quick stop.

The southern entrance to the Mojave National Preserve and a stop at the historic Kelso Depot

The Los Angeles & Salt Lake Railroad built the Mission/Spanish Colonial Revival Kelso Depot in 1924, replacing the earlier building from 1905. The once thriving railroad worker town had long ago fallen into disrepair although there are still some workers living on the other side of the tracks and the National Park Service is preparing the building to house a visitor center. That day I met a National Park ranger and an intern with brochures, pins, and stickers on a table in front of the building; they were happy to answer questions. Again, I could not linger because I still had a long way to drive and also C refused to get out of the car to even read one information plaque. So, I got back in the car and continued north.

C stands in the desert alongside CA-127 as we await the green light to move past the road construction

It was another 40 minutes through the desolate Mojave desert to the town of Baker and then north again on CA Road 127. About 30 minutes north of Baker we were stopped by road construction. There was already a line of several cars and motorhomes. I wandered up to the lone construction worker holding the stop sign and asked how long the wait would be. He said we needed to wait for the “escort car” and it could be about an hour. Big sigh. There was nothing to be done about it though. There was no telling how long it would be for that “escort car” to arrive as looking ahead I could see no road construction at all. I used the port-a-potty (thank goodness they had one as I had been swigging down the water) and moseyed back to the car. Other travelers were wandering off into the desert alongside the road. Some were already quite far from the road. No one expected this to be a short stop. I alternated small talk with the guy on the motorcycle behind us and hanging with C in the car or on the roadside. It was about 45 minutes in total before the escort vehicle leading the group of cars from the far side of the construction came through.

The Ranch at Death Valley seemed an almost impossible oasis surrounded by an unforgiving otherworld.

We were now quite far behind schedule. C fell asleep in the car. My eyes glazed over the scenery as we drove on, and I took little in. Despite the occasional breathtaking view, the pretty oasis town of Shoshone, and the rather bizarre Death Valley Junction, reported to have a population of “less than four people” and a boarded-up building with an “opera house” sign, the view was mostly the same bland tan sand stretching for miles. From Death Valley Junction we turned west toward Death Valley and within 30 minutes we were pulling into the oasis that surrounds the resort complex of the Ranch at Death Valley, our accommodation for the next two nights. With a park the size of Death Valley, the largest in the contiguous United States, I knew we would want to stay inside rather than outside.

The stunning sunset at Zabriskie Point

As the drive had taken longer than expected, we had only so much daylight left. We checked into the hotel quickly and then drove back to Zabriskie Point. We arrived just around 3:45 PM, luckily scored a parking spot immediately, and sped-walked up the paved walkway to the viewing area. Spread out ahead of us lay the undulating convolutions of sentiment carved after millions of years. Breathtaking.

We had an hour to wait for sunset so we walked down to a dusty plain below. Perhaps the flattened area and dust left after years of borax mining in the area? We goofed off a bit and then climbed back up to watch an absolutely stupendous sunset.

In the morning, we made our way to Badwater Basin – the driest place in the U.S. and at 282 feet below sea level, also the lowest point in North America. At the time though, Badwater Basin was actually not dry as a small lake had formed after heavy rains the previous summer and some of that water yet remained. I had looked forward to photographs of the geometric salt polygons, but instead, we found piles of salt sticking up out of a glassy, shallow lake, like lumps of sugar in a giant cup of tea.

As we drove back from Badwater towards the Ranch, we stopped at the Devil’s Golf Course, an expansive plain of jagged salt crystals, and the Artist’s Palette. At the latter, we parked far from the site and walked over a few hills to get to the view of the swath of colored volcanic deposits on a hillside. Honestly? The palette was smaller than expected and lacking in variety; it was mostly a chalky mint color with a small spray of pale pink against the predominantly golden dirt. Still, it was fun to get there – especially after climbing up and over a few hills to then see a parking lot just below the palette…

The ruins of the Harmony Borax Works at Furnace Creek, Death Valley

Following lunch back at the Ranch, we drove only a short way to the site of the Harmony Borax Works, listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The 1880s to the early 1900s marked the heyday of borax mining in Death Valley. Harmony was the mining operation that opened the valley to large-scale borax mining and was famous for its use of 20-mule teams that hauled the borax across the valley to the railroad 170 miles away in Mojave, California, though it operated only five years from 1883-1888.

I then drove us 30 minutes to the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes. As we had for the whole trip, we were racing the early winter sunset. Arriving at 3:30 PM, we would have an hour to crawl around the dunes before we would lose the light. Though large areas of sand dunes are not plentiful in Death Valley and the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes are not the only ones, they are both lovely and very accessible, sitting just off the park’s main road.

The sun sets on the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes

C and I climbed up and down the dunes, our feet sinking deep into the soft sand. We were having fun running hand and hand down the dunes until C smacked me in the face with the shoes she held in her hand and swung wildly as she ran. I opted to lope down the dunes beyond arm’s reach from her after that and to video her cinematic rolls and crawls on hands and feet. We watched an foolish driver in the distance with their car hopelessly stuck in the sand (an alerted ranger had to call in a team to get them out) and another foolish guy flying his drone above the dunes, expressly against park rules. But mostly there seemed a lot of happy people sitting or strolling on the dunes. Here we all were, experiencing the stark beauty of one of the most inhospitable places on Earth.

After the sun slipped below the horizon we headed back to the car and drove back to the Ranch. Though we had reservations in the fancy dining room there, we canceled them. After a day of exploring and hiking, we were up for a quiet night before we would depart the park the next day.