Aaron's Status

5:53 pm

After a much-needed sleep in our little room in the Treasure Island hotel, we gathered our shit, loaded up our rented Nissan Rogue, and set off for Death Valley National Park to start the “actual vacation.”

We stopped at a Target on the way for some snacks and essentials (read: Burt’s Bees) and then made another brief stop at the Rhyolite “ghost town,” which is conveniently on the way into the park. It’s true that Rhyolite isn’t the most amazing thing to see, but it is a pretty interesting historical relic. A town that almost instantly appeared the moment they found gold there, and only a few years later was all but abandoned.

After heading out from there, we paused at the Death Valley National Park sign for a family picture and then went to our hotel to see if we could check in early. We couldn’t, so we decided to head up to Artists Palette.

The last time I was here was like, I don’t even know, 20 years ago? Seeing Artists Palette again was pretty cool, it is as unique and grand a place as I recall. We stopped in a couple places and walked the paths up into the formations to get a closer look, which I’m pretty sure I’ve never done before, so that was neat.

I’ve taken a few photos so far. I don’t think any of them are going to be real winners, but it’s also been nice to exercise the photographic muscles a little bit. Probably more about this later on, after further reflection.

From there, we decided to head over to Zabriskie Point for sunset, which was also pretty amazing to see. The eroded shapes of the foothills are quite something and the dusk light cut across them making nice shadowed forms.

After the sun went behind the mountains we stopped off at the Visitor’s Center to buy a park pass, the requisite magnet, and let the kid get a souvenir. Finally after all of that, we came back to the hotel and checked in. It has been a day and it’s not even over!

We’ll all get dinner together at the “saloon” in a bit and then wind down for sleep.