Heading down south on the 395 we stop at Bishop for suppliers and a visit to the Tourist info center. Then outside the grocery store we end up chatting with Nancy and Jack from Orange County.
A little further down the road we visit Independence to fill up with gas and head over to northern Death valley.
Our plan is to take the northern entrance to Death Valley and camp at the Mesquite Campground, then maybe visit Scotty's Castle first thing the next morning.
It's a good idea to always gas up, and carry several separate containers of water (a couple of gallons per person, per day). The distances are big, and an unexpected breakdown or sudden bad weather can leave you stranded. We always travel with a satellite phone, but why take chances? These distances are miles, not kilometers, and are mostly rough dirt roads.
Not the usual kind of sign you expect entering a campground. Here, having these things reduces the emergency calls.
The various mountain ranges surrounding Death Valley have dramatic sculpture as well as color. This is a great example of folding, exposed through a rock cut at Devil's Gate to make the road more passable to traffic.
Many miles on dirt roads leads us to a notable intersection. Someone built some cute inukshuks that will last a long time in the desert dryness. In Saline Valley there's teakettle Junction as well.
It's hard to know when campgrounds in out of the way places will be empty or busy. One year, the Mahogany Flat campground up in the Panamints had a parking lot completely full and we had to camp basically on the edge of the hill ( it was a long weekend). So this time it might be the same story at Mesquite Campground - it's fairly easy to get to by desert standards, and the scenery is spectacular. With only a couple of other campers who left at daybreak, we had the place to ourselves by the next morning except for a family of Desert Hares living in a nearby bush who studied us quite a bit that evening. The weather was gorgeous and fine for sleeping.). In the morning we had a winged visitor for a few minutes.
An Electronic Ranger collects your registration and payment by credit card thanks to solar panels and telemetry link.
Just fillin' it up...the water containers that is.
