The middle of April we made a quick decision to get away to California and drove through the night to Death Valley National Park where we spent seven days before going on to Joshua Tree National Park. The first day we came into the park from the northeast through the town of Beatty and the Death Valley Road but turned off on the Titus Canyon Road which we followed to its end where it intersected the Scotty's Castle Road.
Western Meadowlark
We stopped at the ghost town of Leadfield an old mining town on the Titus Canyon Road. We saw the ghost of one of the original inhabitants dressed in a jeans skirt.
Indian pictographs
When we reached the Scotty's Castle Road (the castle and the road to it were closed) we headed west on the Ubehebe Crater Road and then south on the Racetrack Valley Road, a rough gravel road on which we traveled over twenty miles to the Racetrack via Teakettle Junction where tradition dictates leaving a teakettle on the sign. We stopped often for photos of wildflowers, cacti, the Joshua Trees and the Teakettle Junction sign.
The Racetrack is a playa, a dry lake bed on which stones move mysteriously leaving their tracks in the lake bed when it is wet after a rain. The formation on one end of the Racetrack is known as the Grandstand. We stayed the night there and watched the moon rise and the sun rise the next morning.
No comments:
Post a Comment