Death Valley and Beyond

Bob and I enjoyed our stay at Nellis AFB. We had a great site.
Upon leaving Las Vegas, we drove to Death Valley National Monument in California. We entered by way of Pahrump, Nevada. It was not a bad drive, but we did climb in elevation before we descended into the valley.
We stopped for a picture at the entrance...
...but DeAnna fell asleep and didn't want to be in the picture.Chris, Bob and I are the only ones in the picture. Bobby and Cathy left Vegas about an hour after us.

Our first tourist stop was Furnace Creek Inn.
This gateway marker was located west of Furnace Creek Inn. It is dedicated to would be miners of the 1849 gold rush who didn't make it through the valley.We parked at Furnace Creek Visitor Center to wait for Bobby and Cathy. While we waited, we ate lunch then looked around the bookshop. We picked up the Junior Ranger packets for the kids. This would be their third Junior Ranger badge.
Ranger Brook swore the kids in as Junior Rangers for Death Valley after quizzing them on how to protect our national parks and monuments.
Our next stop was the trail to see the endangered Salt Creek pupfish. From Death Valley Bob and I drove to Beatty and north to Tonopah to spend the night in the parking lot of Banc Club Casino. When we arrived in Tonopah, it was 35 degrees! We drove through snow flurries at the higher elevations. We thought would arrive before us as they left before us and we thought they were going the same way....but, oops, they followed the GPS directions and ended up in Bishop, California and had to backtrack to Tonopah. We made it there several hours before them!

We left Tonopah Monday morning for Fallon, Nevada and Fallon Naval Air Station. It was a long drive so Bob and I stopped at Walker Lake with the kids to eat lunch and throw rocks.We enjoyed our brief stop at Walker Lake even though the weather was still cool.We made it to Fallon Naval Air Station where we took a break from driving and got our laundry done. Bob and I did some geocaches so we wouldn't fall too far behind in the standings.

We planned to visit Lava Beds in northern California Wednesday after leaving Fallon, but we found out the roads are still closed due to snow and another storm is on the way!