The morning of September 25th, 2021, we were on the road again headed to our next destination.
Death Valley National Park!
I had never had any desire to go to Death Valley prior to Michael getting me the book about the National Parks, but after reading about it I knew we had to add it as a stop to our trip.
We pulled over at a lookout point and hiked to the top...it wasn't super hot yet, it was around 10am and it was 82 degrees.
This is Zabriskie Point...it was a fun lookout area that was worth the walk!
The main point of our visit was to go to Badwater Basin....it is the lowest point in North America at 282 ft below sea level.
The stories behind the name suggest that Badwater Basin earned its name when a mule belonging to an early surveyor refused to drink from the spring-fed pool near the present-day boardwalk. The water isn't necessarily bad though...just really really salty!
Look at all that salt!
We even tasted it to make certain it was salt and sure enough it was salt!
This is my big ball of yarn per se!
Once I heard it was the lowest point I knew I just had to be here! Imagine if the ocean was here I would be standing 282 ft below the surface! That's insane!
You can see they've placed a white sign up on the hillside to indicate where the ocean surface would be. Way up there!
We wanted to walk out a bit on the salt flats. They do allow you to do this, but they do discourage you walking out there much after 10am. It's so flat you don't really realize how far you've gone and you can quickly get yourself in big trouble. We only walked out a little ways.
Just enough for a photo op!
It's incredible how desolation can be beautiful!
Interesting fact!
Once we left we drove over to the other side of the valley and started climbing out. We stopped at this pullout point and looked down into the valley where we had just been. There was a plaque there dedicated to a fighter pilot that died during a training accident in the valley.
Then it was off to final destination for the night....Lake Tahoe!
We rented an Airbnb from Sun Bear Realty. We had to stop by their office and get the keys to the property. When I first planned this trip I had use staying in a family suite at a hotel in California, but it was going to cost $1200 for 2 nights. I figured I could probably find something cheaper and thankfully I did. We got this whole house to ourselves on the Nevada side of the lake for only $700 for 2 nights. Which is still extremely expensive, but not for the Tahoe area really!
I didn't take a picture of the front of the house, but the backyard was a dream. It was actually one of the main reasons I booked this house.
It had a bocce ball court!
The inside was so gorgeous....here's the living room. We never even turned the TV on. In fact we barely watched any TV our whole trip except the kids watching movies in the van while traveling.
Ella and Zeke each got their own twin bed.
Owen and Jack shared the other bed.
Michael and I had this nice master bedroom.
This was the family room right off the garage.
Kitchen / Dining room!
The kids bathroom they shared.
Extra bath right off the family room.
Once we got settled in we headed out for dinner. We ate at this nice local place called Incline Burgers and Brews. It was fabulous and everyone was so kind. This was the beginning of us falling in love with Tahoe!
After dinner we came back to the house and it didn't matter that it was almost dark....
the bocce ball court had lights!
0 comments:
Post a Comment