June 12, 2017 – Las Vegas to Death Valley National Park to Sequoia National Park
Atkins Go West 2.0 –Adventure of a Lifetime Continued…(May the Forest Be with You!
Weirdest thing we saw: The Opera House in Death Valley Junction, a hole in the desert wall with random creepy toys inside it in the middle of NO WHERE beyond Death Valley National Park., Joe-Nicholas’s eye swollen shut
Funniest thing we heard:
Most memorable moment of the day: Seeing the valley from the overlook at Death Valley
Captain’s Log: The adventure continued today in two different states and one national park. We woke up in Las Vegas early in the morning to find Joe-Nicholas’s eye almost swollen completely shut.
He had an allergic reaction similar to this about 2 months ago and we never really figured out what he was allergic to last time.
So our plan to sleep in a bit changed to “Let’s hit the Vegas Strip!” We got our luggage packed and to the car and took our swim bag with us. Chris had gotten a free dozen glazed Krispy Kreme donuts the night before so we had a quick breakfast in the room. We started off going to New York New York briefly and onto the strip through MGM resort. We found the Walgreens on the strip and bought all the allergy stuff we thought Joe-Joe would need.
Our exploring continued down the strip a bit.
Early morning is the perfect time to check out Las Vegas with children. Everything is pretty tame at 8 in the morning…except for a few random homeless folks (one looked like he was from the walking dead) and a lady that had a F$#@ Trump sign protesting on the bridge. The other folks that were handing out questionable picture cards of pretty young ladies left us alone with the kids. We finally walked back through New York New York and took some time to explore the cool “streets” inside. I also took a brief moment to show the kids how to lose a $1.00 in a Las Vegas casino. 
One pull of the handle and my dollar was gone. We made our way back to Excalibur to finally get some pool time in for the boys!
Excalibur has four pools. Three of the pools are kid friendly and the other is adult only. The boys jumped straight into the huge pool and within minutes had made friends with another little boy. They played and chased and laughed in the pool. Benjamin had his waterproof Go-Pro camera making movies all around the pool. The slide pool opened and we let the kids play in that pool for a while as well.
We headed out of Vegas and headed west towards Death Valley National Park. The drive to the park is barren, yet beautiful. We were actually on a gravel road for a bit of a detour due to road construction.
We finally entered California on this tiny isolated road in the middle of the desert so the California state sign was a little lacking! 
As we drove into Death Valley Junction (a tiny little town), we saw the Opera House still in operation-so weird!
We drove through canyons and rocky mountains and finally got to Death Valley. I’m not sure what I expected out of such a place with such a name, but this Park BLEW MY MIND! It was beautiful. It was breathtaking. It was weird and hot and sandy. We first took a pictures at the Park sign of course!
Our first adventure started at Dante's View, which was a 20 mile drive off of the main road. We drove straight up a huge mountain to an overlook of the valley. To our east, there were the beautiful mountains that we had been driving through, so that is what I thought we were up there to overlook. My mind was blown as I looked down to Death Valley to the west. I cannot describe the beauty of open salt basins and an expansive valley beneath these towering rock peaks. 
Everything here was extreme! The heat, the beauty, the size of the mountains. As we looked out over the valley, we could hear fighter jets doing maneuvers in the distance. Death Valley borders two different military bases included Fort Irwin where my brother is stationed. We really lucked out on a day where the high was only 95. The expect temperature next week is 121! We ate a picnic lunch at the overlook then drove on to our next place. Our next stop was at Zabriskie Point where we hiked up a small ridge. This is where part of the Star Wars movie was filmed. It had white sand and rock and looked just like scenes from our favorite movie!
We passed by the sight where in 1883-89 the 20 Mule Team pulled Borax out of the mines of Death Valley on a 10 day trip through the desert each time. They only operated for 6 years, but the mule team is still famous to this day. We stopped by the Visitor’s Center for our usual souvenirs and to take a picture with the famous thermometer and -190 sea level sign.
We drove onto BadWater Basin,
the lowest elevation in the United States where the highest ever temperature was recorded back in ….135 degrees! The drive was well worth it as we got to see the salt plains up close and was able to walk across the warm salt (almost like warm gray clay). We had pictures made with the sea level sign that was placed high above on the mountainside.
Chris took us down this crazy gravel road to the Devil’s Golf Course.
It looked as if we were on another planet. The salt crystals in this area of the valley rise up in unusual formations all over the valley floor. We finished this part of the Park with a drive down the Artists Cove? One part actually looked like smooth rocky road ice cream melted down a mountainside. Just down the road, the rocks were so colorful at a place called the artist’s palette. The rocks contain many different types of minerals so the rocks are colored with greens and pink and reds and browns. The desert flowers and plants were even gorgeous on this drive. Our final adventure at this park was to the Sand Dunes.
The sand was as fine as baby powder and it shifted with the wind. It was what I imagine in my mind as a true desert. Kayden and I took our shoes off and put our toes in the hot sand. It was so different from where we had just been, but it was beautiful too.
We drove onto BadWater Basin,
the lowest elevation in the United States where the highest ever temperature was recorded back in ….135 degrees! The drive was well worth it as we got to see the salt plains up close and was able to walk across the warm salt (almost like warm gray clay). We had pictures made with the sea level sign that was placed high above on the mountainside. 
Chris took us down this crazy gravel road to the Devil’s Golf Course.
It looked as if we were on another planet. The salt crystals in this area of the valley rise up in unusual formations all over the valley floor. We finished this part of the Park with a drive down the Artists Cove? One part actually looked like smooth rocky road ice cream melted down a mountainside. Just down the road, the rocks were so colorful at a place called the artist’s palette. The rocks contain many different types of minerals so the rocks are colored with greens and pink and reds and browns. The desert flowers and plants were even gorgeous on this drive. Our final adventure at this park was to the Sand Dunes.
The sand was as fine as baby powder and it shifted with the wind. It was what I imagine in my mind as a true desert. Kayden and I took our shoes off and put our toes in the hot sand. It was so different from where we had just been, but it was beautiful too.
We headed out of the park towards Three Rivers, California. We left about 6:00 and knew we had a 5 hour drive ahead of us. What we didn’t know is that for 3 ½ hours of that drive, we would pass maybe a dozen cars only. We had not planned for dinner just thinking we could stop along the way somewhere. We were so wrong! We did pass through a little town that looked like the most depressing town in America. We looked it up on Wikipedia and found out that this is the ONE high school in America with a dirt football field. We passed by the school, which looked like a small prison with a dirt courtyard. This high school was featured on several news outlets because of the football field.
Along the desert mountains, I also spotted one of the creepiest and unusal sights ever. I just looked over on the side of the road into the mountainside and saw random old toys placed in a tiny cave that overlooked the road. It was so strange. We were miles away from any other human and here was a pile of old toys staring at us. The kids were totally amused and completely creeped out. It looked like a scene from a scary horror flick!
Another unusual thing we passed were the huge windmill farms that have red plinking lights atop hundreds of tall windmills. Had I not already had the out of body experience of seeing evil red eyes blinking at me in Denver on our last adventure, this would have freaked me out as much as it did last time. It is just a sight I had never seen in Tennessee and my mind could not make sense of what I was seeing. This time, I knew exactly what we were seeing and no X-Files theme music was needed.
Anyway, no restaurants until about 9:30 when we got back to civilization. We found a truck stop and jumped out into FREEZING wind and temperatures-quite a shock after being in Vegas and Death Valley all day. After a delicious Subway dinner, we hit the road for the final leg of this long trip to Three Rivers. The kids slept as we drove through tiny towns filled with orange groves. We arrived at the hotel at around midnight, gave Joe-Nicholas more allergy medication (eye was looking almost normal), and hit the bed.
We are all loving this adventure together.
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