Fall trip 2018

This is a catch up blog for past activities.

Wednesday, 7 October, 2018

Son Tim had arrived from Houston the day prior to us arriving back from the East Coast so we now scrambled to get groceries purchased, the RV ready to go, and get both the truck and RV loaded for the Fall Trip.

All was done on time so on Friday October 19^th we left at 7:15 in the morning. I like to leave before the daily commute traffic starts to build. We stopped in Fillmore for a breakfast sandwich and again when we got on Hwy 138 so Tim could check on a Geo-cache. We stopped in Mohave for fuel then drove North on Hwy 14 to the Garlock road. Eventually we ended up going through Trona to Panamint Valley.

The rest of the gang was already set up in our camp site but they nicely left me room to just pull in off the road.

We planned to explore and watch Military jets fly through Panamint Valley. It is a great place to see jets at low altitude.

Unfortunately I had a bad cold so spent most of my time in the RV snoozing. I did make one trip to the site of the Death Valley Superintendents summer cabin off of Wildrose Canyon Road. It had been on my trip list for years so I didn’t want to miss it this time. We also continued on to the Charcoal Kilns before returning to camp.

On Wednesday the 24^th of Oct we drove to the Elks Club in Ridgecrest and dumped our holding tanks bought groceries and had lunch before driving on to Baker, CA where we spent the night parked behind the Mad Greek Restaurant. Dinner was of course at the Mad Greek.

The next day we drove to Death Valley and parked at Sunset Campground for 2 nights while we waited for our reservations to take effect at Furnace Creek Campground.

On Saturday we continued our tradition of attending Beatty Days in Betty, NV. They have a parade followed by activities in the park. Old cars are on display, food booths are going, and the beer booth is busy. We usually stay around and have lunch then leave.

Waiting for the parade to start.

Here comes the parade.

Arriving back at Furnace Creek we moved our rigs to Furnace Creek Campground to start our 2 week stay for the Death Valley 49ers.

Did I mention that we collect Mylar balloons? Well we do. Check out “Desert Balloon Recovery Crew” on Facebook. This year we collected 50 Mylar balloons while on our fall trip. Tim collected 17 in one day while Geo-caching. Remember, all those balloons used for that special event eventually end up somewhere.

Our Mylar Balloon haul.

Tim on the salt pan at Badwater.

Hiking Natural Bridge Canyon.

Tim returned home on November 3^rd from Las Vegas. It gave us a chance to have a nice lunch at Gordon Biersch Brewery on paradise Road before he left.

On my way back to Death Valley from Las Vegas I stopped in Pahrump for fuel and groceries.

I left Death Valley on November 12^th after attending the Death Valley 49ers annual meeting. The plan was to stop in Baker again for the night but the temperature was projected to be 34 degrees so Jeff and I moved on to Boron and the Arabian Oasis RV Park where the temperature the next morning was 28 degrees. Thank goodness I had my electric heater. I got home about 1PM. Another good fall trip.