Shoshone, California (near Death Valley)

N 35* 58.775 W 116* 16.301 This morning we drove 225 miles from Joshua Tree to Shoshone, California, just southeast of the entrance into Death Valley National Park. After unhooking the trailer, and a run for Cathryn and Adrienne (Bob doesn’t do afternoon runs) and showers for everybody, we took a short trip through lots of geology. Shoshone is at about 1700 feet. To get to Death Valley, you drive up to 3300 feet and then down to minus 74 feet in Death Valley, all within 24 miles (half an hour). We really didn’t have time this afternoon to see much of the valley but we did want to at least get an impression before we venture out tomorrow. And what an impression it was! Stark, varied, layered, subtly colorful and desolate. Wea look forward to our survey tour of Death Valley tomorrow. We only have about 6 hours to check out Death Valley and we suspect that will be enough for a “windshield tour”, but the finer details will have to wait for another visit. We need to leave here by 2 or 2:30 tomorrow in time to drop off Adrienne at the Las Vegas airport for her return to Boulder. The visit with Adrienne has been great, but too short! Yesterday afternoon we took two short hikes in Joshua Tree National Park: Barker Dam and Hidden Valley. They were beautiful, but we were probably on “rock overload” by this point, so we need to make another trip to really capture these locations. There were lots of climbers hanging from ropes, installing protection and climbing in cracks: what fun – but not activities Cathryn and Bob will be engaging in at this stage of life. This evening before dinner we had Adrienne playing Doctor, taking out stitches from Cathryn’s chin. The operation went well and everyone felt good about being able to do it without a visit to a Doc-In-The-Box in Las Vegas.