And We're Off!

Day one…and most of day two…are behind us, and we’re staying the night in Las Vegas with some family friends of Jim’s. With over five hundred miles behind us, we’re only in the next state, but we’ve already seen so many different types of landscape! That’s one thing I can give California: there’s definitely a variety of scenery. The passes into Yosemite were all closed, so we weren’t able to actually go into the park, but the snowy mountains that surround it were humbling in their size and stature, looming above us as we made our way down highway 395.


We spent the night at a campground in Independence, CA. It was a pretty site, just at the foot of the mountains, tucked into the trees near a little creek, the dry desert on the other side of us. We set up our tent and I made sandwiches for dinner while Jim tried to start a fire with wood that ended up being wet (what a waste of $6!). We bundled up tight to sleep in the freezing tent. We were the only one in the campground; the others were smart enough to bring their RVs.

In the morning we packed up camp and hit the road. In a little over an hour we were in Death Valley, climbing to over 6,000 feet and descending below sea level countless times before arriving at Badwater, the lowest point in California at 282 feet below sea level.

We walked out onto the salt flats, which crunched like snow under our feet. A sign on the mountain nearby marked where sea level was. Beyond the salt flats, snow sat on the mountains, over 11,000 feet higher and only about half a mile away. The temperature went up over ten degrees there, and as we came out of it, we could feel the air cooling.

The car wasn’t terribly fond of the elevation changes. Jim commented multiple times on the loss of power. We felt bad for the big trucks and RVs putting along up and down the mountains, a distinct smell of burning brakes trailing behind them. We had no such problems, thank goodness.

We made it into Las Vegas a little before 5:00. Tonight we sleep on a soft bed and shower in hot water (although we don’t feel too sorry for ourselves yet…and you shouldn’t either…we’re only on day 2!) Tomorrow we head for the Hoover Dam and the Grand Canyon.