Leaving Las Vegas -- Thurs., Dec. 29, 2011

Las Vegas, Death Valley National Park, Sparks: We got up super early (5:30 am), had breakfast, spent some time online, worked on the jigsaw puzzle and left Laura's house about 8:30 a.m. A meeting was scheduled at 9:30 a.m. with our renter in our Las Vegas house.

After the meeting, we headed north for Death Valley National Park.

On U.S. 95 north of Las Vegas we found the historic marker for the Nevada "Test Site." Any of you who grew up in the late 50's, early 60's may remember news of the bomb testing and mushroom clouds in the Nevada desert with houses being flattened or all the windows blowing out. This is the place...

A coyote ran along the road by us at one point...good wildlife sighting.

First stop: Rhyolite, a ghost town. Semi-interesting. Here's some pics:

House made from beer bottles.

 
Back to U.S. 95 to head north to Scotty's Castle. When we arrived at Scotty's Castle, the next castle tour was in ten minutes. Good timing. What a lovely oasis in the desert. We took the house tour, but not the underground tour. Next time we will plan to do the underground tour. Fascinating tour with a great Park Ranger guide.

Good reference map.

Death Valley Ranch aka "Scotty's Castle"

Courtyard

Original name of the property.

Dining room with original tableware.

Kitchen sink and counter.

Two ovens, two warming ovens, six burners.

Exit to outside from music room.

What a nice break in our long-drive-of-a-day. We even bought sandwiches and chips for lunch at the National Park Visitor Center.

Time for the rest of the drive back to Sparks. We would have liked to stop in Hawthorne, NV to see the museums, but they were closed by the time we passed through. We did have a beautiful high desert sunset...

Got home about 9:00 p.m...a 12-hour day. Everything was fine with the 5er after being gone for six days. Nothing frozen!