It seems that our main destination for the day, Death Valley National Park, doesn't have a lot of towns nearby with hotels eager to let us stay for the night. After checking availability in every town anywhere close to the park, we decided visit the park for just an afternoon and then continue on to Visalia, California to place us next to our plans for tomorrow. But more on that later.
Death Valley is the one place we've been in two years of road tripping that experiences their high season in the winter. Something about 120 degree summer days keeps the visitors away when the other parks are being overrun with tourists. I imagine those sweltering summers also has something to do with the lack of towns anywhere near the park. But this was the middle of winter and there were an abundance of tourists.
We pulled into the park around noon and took the first turn up a steep and winding road to a spot called Dante's View, where you can see the highest and lowest points in the contiguous US. Sounded pretty cool and worth the half-hour drive, so we checked it out. Our reaction? Meh.
Onto the visitor's center where the usual suspects could be found: park rangers too old or out of shape for "the field", small children running around seemingly without any sort of supervision, artifacts and information about the park, and every conceivable item one could put a national park logo on for sale. In the midst of all this, I was excited to find a series of children's chapter books featuring fictional mysteries taking place in national parks. I bought all five of the books featuring parks we'd been to. Stoked.
Anyway, I've gone on way too long about just getting to the park because, quite honestly, this park was a disappointment. We came to calling in Gravel Pit National Park because everything we saw that was supposed to be worth seeing appeared to be, well, a big gravel pit. Big piles of brown dirt and rock as far as the eye can see. Imagine the beauty! Imagine the splendor! It's too dry for vegetation, as well as for most living things. So, instead, you get endless quantities of dirt and rocks.
We took one short hike, where we saw a lot of rocks and dirt. Our guide book suggested driving through "Artist's Pallette," where we saw a lot of rocks and dirt. Then, as we drove out of the park, we saw a lot of rocks and dirt. Signs along the road invited us to visit sites that truly sounded interesting. There were signs for places like, "Devil's Golf Course" and "Natural Bridge". In spite of these appealing names, we barely slowed down, knowing full well what we would find at the end of that road: a lot of rocks and dirt. I'll admit, I'm exaggerating a bit, as there were plenty of things to like in the park. Plenty of times where we were impressed by the natural beauty of it. But, in comparison to where we've been, it just didn't stack up.
Who knew there were so many shades of brown?
Now, for the exciting part of the day! As we left the GPNP, we saw a gas station ahead and, considering our dwindling fuel supply and the desolation that we would face over the next 60 miles, thought we should stop in for some gas. That was until we caught sight of the price: $4.09 for a gallon! Outrageous! Truly offended, we drove on.
Bad idea. Thirty miles later, a town on our map failed to ever appear and the gas light on the car turned on. We were thirty miles from the next town, driving down a pitch black highway, with enough gas to get us about twenty-five miles. Did I mention we didn't have cell phone service and there were hardly any houses out there either?
As the gas level dipped to less than empty, we began discussing in earnest our plans for when we ran out of gas. Perhaps I would run to town. Or maybe just to the point where we could call for help. Then there was the possibility of hitch hiking. Clearly, none of these options were sounding too appealing. So, we hoped, prayed, crossed our fingers, and kept on driving.
As the lights of Baker, California shone on the horizon, we regained hope. I slowed down to ridiculously slow speeds in the hope that we may just make it after all. And we did. I don't know how. It's like the story of Hanukkah, only instead of a lamp burning for seven days, our car drove 7 miles without any gas. A real (two days after) Christmas miracle.
The rest of the day was largely uneventful. The exception was a stop at a dirty diner called, "Peggy Sue's" which featured tons of autographed pictures of celebrities, average food, and waitresses who seemed none too happy to be wearing vintage diner waitress uniforms. Our hotel that night was a little bit on the dumpy side. But we were happy to be "home" and excited to hit up Six Flags Magic Mountain in the morning.
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