Vacation, day 7

[sauergeek]

We got up early this morning so we could get breakfast at the '49er Cafe. However, before breakfast, there were three stops on the way in. First was a random stop along CA Rt. 190 to look at all the blooming wildflowers. We found probably a dozen different kinds of flower blooming along a small stretch of shoulder. I can't identify any of them, but we both took many pictures.

The more formal stops were Dante's View and Zabriskie Point. Dante's View is a 13 mile detour from CA Rt. 190, on the way into Death Valley proper in from Death Valley Junction, but it is a detour absolutely worth taking. You climb up to over 5,700', and get a magnificent view of most of Death Valley. The road near the top is a 15% grade and full of tight turns, not quite switchbacks but serving the same purpose. The vegetation on the way up gets progressively denser as you go higher; at points the vegetation has completely overgrown the unpaved shoulders and started to stretch into the road. When we got to the top, we found six guys (probably German as that's what they were talking to each other in) driving six Porsches (some Boxters, some Caymans), all with Georgia plates. Driving up and down the Dante's View road must have been fun in those cars. On our way down, after the extremely steep, curvy stretch of road was over, I put the car in neutral and rolled the rest of the way down -- 12 miles. I just steered and occasionally hit the brakes for a curve. Fun!

Once down from Dante's View, we headed for Zabriskie Point. The parking lot for Zabriskie Point is immediately off CA 190, and from there it's a short hike on a paved path (rather wide, so likely a now-closed road) to the top viewing point. There are wonderful rock formations, carved out by water, visible from the viewing point; there are also some colorful hills on the opposite side of the viewing point.

After our first three stops, we still had enough time to grab breakfast at the '49er Cafe at Furnace Creek. I had biscuits and gravy, which is heavy, filling stuff. The sausage gravy had plenty of pepper in it, and the biscuits were nicely flaky[1]. jiapa had a bacon-and-gouda omelet, which came with hash browns and toast. Most of the time I cannot eat an omelet that I have not cooked, because the eggs are still somewhat runny, especially around the filling. This omelet was cooked solid through -- joy! jiapa thought it was overcooked, which is unsurprising. The hash browns were not the deep-fried vaguely potato things that fast food places serve. Instead, they were shredded potato, pressed into a cake, and pan-fried until the outside was brown, the way (I think at least) hash browns should be. The toast was two thick slices of multigrain toast, with butter and a jelly assortment. The toast was still warm even after everything else was gone -- I'm not sure how.

With breakfast over, we headed out from Furnace Creek, this time headed north and a bit west. We stopped at Salt Creek Nature Trail, which is a wooden boardwalk built above the salt ground that Salt Creek runs through. Salt Creek is the home of the Death Valley pupfish, which is found nowhere else in the world. It is a former freshwater fish, which was able to survive the relatively rapid conversion of Death Valley from a broad lake into a nigh-uninhabitable salt plain with very little water in it. The fish feed on insects that live in the creek; blue herons in turn feed on the fish. There are also small lizards that live in the area that eat the same insects, and are in turn eaten by snakes.

After Salt Creek, we drove by Devil's Cornfield, which is a large expanse of arrowweed on both sides of the road. The arrowweed has grown with its roots partly above the ground, so that it looks like bizarre corn sheaves standing in the desert. We then passed the Sand Dunes, which look, well, like sand dunes. Neither of us felt inspired to go hiking in them.

Our next stop was Marble Canyon, which is beautiful. It is layers of limestone-turned-to-marble, with masses of sedimentary rock on top of it. Water has eroded away both the sedimentary rock and the marble. While the sedimentary rock looks like weird concrete, the marble has polished up beautifully between water and people going across it. When the water has cut through multiple layers of the marble, it looks like something an abstract sculptor could have carved. Occasional tenacious plants live in cracks in the marble; more live in cracks in the sedimentary rocks.

Lunch was at the Stovepipe Wells restaurant. We got there at 1:45 PM, just before it closed for the afternoon at 2 PM. jiapa got their fruit plate, and thoroughly enjoyed it, saying it was just what the doctor ordered[2]. I got a chicken salad sandwich with grapes, lettuce, and tomato on it, and pasta salad. The sandwich could've used a bit more spicing -- perhaps paprika -- but was otherwise tasty. They listed "premium beer" on the menu, but the most exotic thing they had was Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, which I ordered. It came in a bottle, and was not appreciably different in southeastern California than it is in either Massachusetts or Virginia.

Our next series of stops were north of Stovepipe Wells: Ubehebe Crater and Scotty's Castle. Ubehebe Crater is an enormous volcanic crater, which cuts through several layers of rock. We did not stay long, as the wind was constantly near hurricane force, heading up and out of the crater, at the edge of the crater. jiapa speculated that the wind might be caused by local convection, but I'm not convinced that local convection could get wind going that fast, that consistently.

Scotty's Castle is an enormous, unfinished castle built, as a vacation home, by millionaire Albert Johnson. It acquired the name Scotty's Castle because Johnson's friend Death Valley Scotty (Walter Scott, actor and later swindler) watched it for Johnson when Johnson was not there. The castle is based on Spanish castles, and paid ranger-guided tours are available daily on the hour. It is beautiful inside and out, though far too dim inside to take pictures[3]. It's pretty! Take the tour, be impressed by all the gorgeous details[4] inside.

On the way back south from Scotty's Castle, we got rained on. In Death Valley. Which gets, on average, under 2" of rain in a year. One of us is a rain god -- or perhaps it's the car.

Our last tourist stop for the day was Rhyolite, a ghost town[5] just outside of Beatty, NV. Unfortunately, the clouds (the same ones that rained on us) were blocking out what light was left at 6:30 PM, so we could see nearly nothing of the town. There was far too little light for pictures, and we thought trying to navigate a town that had multiple mineshafts within the town boundaries was just plain dumb in the dark. We drove up the paved main road, admired the ruined buildings, and left.

Dinner, as planned, happened in nearby Beatty, NV. We drove into town, having no idea what was available for food. After driving the main road all the way through town, we found the Death Valley Candy Company, and had to stop in just for the name. They appear to be primarily a reseller of various manufacturers' candies; it is unclear if they make any of their own[6].

We ultimately ended up having dinner at an excellent Mexican restaurant, Ensenada Grill. jiapa ordered generic, boring American food: a burger and fries[7]. I ordered shredded beef tacos. Before the food showed up, they gave us a basket of tortilla chips and salsa. Ensenada Grill makes their own chips and tortillas daily[9], and they are obviously fresh and crunchy without any soft or oily spots.

The two tacos came with shredded beef, lettuce, and tomato in the hard tortilla shell, with rice and refried beans with cheese on top on the side. The taco shells were heavenly: fresh-made and wonderfully crunchy. The beef was subtly spiced, and the vegetables were fresh. The refried beans were tasty, and still had readily distinguishable beans in a sauce[10]. I normally am not fond of refried beans; however, I ate them all. The rice was spiced with something with a bit of zip; I suspect hot paprika, as the rice had a reddish tint. It was pleasant to eat, but not as good as everything else.

For dessert, we had originally been planning to go back to the Death Valley Candy Company, as they have an ice cream counter. However, in the restaurant we saw a couple at another table with milkshakes, which inspired us to order milkshakes ourselves. jiapa got vanilla; I got chocolate. We each were given a parfait glass of milkshake with whipped cream on top, and a giant steel cup with the rest of the milkshake in it. I finished mine, slowed only by an occasional cold headache. I don't know what they did to the milkshake, but it was delicious. The chocolate was there, but not overwhelming; the sugar was also properly understated, but still present. jiapa couldn't finish hers, but took the remnants back to the hotel room in a take-out cup, so she could finish it there. It was that good.

On the way back from Beatty to Death Valley Junction, I noticed that we had a mostly-clear sky, so we stopped to look at the stars. Even with a partial cloud cover, the stars were far better than anything I've seen on the east coast, or in Michigan. Stunning.

Tomorrow, we visit the Hoover Dam (finally!) and go back to Las Vegas to see the Kinsey Sicks at the Las Vegas Hilton.

1. In the past, I tried making biscuits and gravy without having ever tasted it before. Aside from me undercooking the roux, what I made was remarkably similar to what I had for breakfast today. Other than these two examples, I've not had biscuits and gravy before; I will try it in other places to get a feel for the range of the dish. I think I like it.

2. Not my bad joke, for once.

3. I could have taken pictures with a flash, but would have had to sacrifice my wide-angle lens to do so, and even had I been able to get the width, the flash likely would have ruined the shots. I did not attempt any inside.

4. Details include hand-carved roof beams of California redwood, hand-hammered hinge plates on the doors, fancy tiles laid in patterns next to plain brick-red tile, carved inscriptions in beams, stucco laid so that it looked old even when fresh, furniture built in place that could not fit through any door or window of the room it sits in, an antique bed with with a modern copy right next to it (I can't tell which is which), and a monster organ that has mechanically controlled slats opening into the next room (full of pipes and other musical gadgets controlled by the organ), which vary the volume of whatever is playing behind them.

5. Rhyolite was founded shortly after two prospectors found gold there. At its peak, in 1907, Rhyolite had a population of at least 8,000 people, a post office, three train lines, three banks, its own train station, and four daily papers. In 1916, the post office closed, and the power was shut off; everyone and everything else was already gone. The gold had run out.

6. Even so, I picked up a bag of milk chocolate covered pretzels, and a bag of dark chocolate covered pecan caramel clusters. They smell delicious, but I haven't had occasion to open them yet.

7. jiapa doesn't like beans, tomatoes, peppers, or raw onions. If you know of a commonly available Mexican main dish that has none of these ingredients, let her know! If there had been other options for places to eat in Beatty, we'd've gone there. As it was, the only other options were even worse: a pub that served only Polish sausage sandwiches (she doesn't like most sausage)[8], and Sourdough Saloon, which had music so loud it was at a pleasant volume with the front door and all the windows closed. We didn't even bother going in there.

8. Yes, jiapa is an incredibly picky eater. She's slowly getting better.

9. I asked one of the servers if the restaurant made their own chips. Before she answered, she gave me an incredulous look, as if she'd never heard of a Mexican restaurant that didn't make its own chips or tortillas. No wonder people from the southwestern US gripe about the Mexican food on the east coast.

10. Most refried beans I've encountered were this dry-ish uniform brown goop. The refried beans served at Ensenada Grill were radically different, and delicious!