A week after our return home from Death Valley, I was still buzzing from the trip. It had been an adventure, and I had already starting thinking about “Where do we go next?”

I started making some notes on my calendar, updating the list of company holidays, and I noticed that one was just around the corner: MLK Day. That would give us a three-day weekend to do something with. I started thinking of where we might go, and browsing some of my guidebooks. A plan quickly formed.

If we stayed overnight on Sunday night (not a problem with the Monday holiday), there was room available at the Ahwahnee in Yosemite. Because of the cost(!) and the popularity of the hotel, we’d never stayed there.  But it had been something that I’d wanted to do for several years and this seemed like a good opportunity.

The next step was looking through some of my trail reference books. From those,  I was able to identify a 30-mile offroad route into Yosemite that looked promising. I had been into Yosemite via the three most common routes I was aware of: Highway 120 from the west, Highway 120 via Tioga pass from the east side, and Highway 141 from the southwest near Wawona. I knew of the Hwy 140 entrance as well, but had never heard of a dirt road into the park. That was something of a dream combination as far as I was concerned.

In the Northern California “Massey book” (starting on page 226) this road was described as a collection of various forest service roads, winding along wooded Sierra mountainsides, on the Old Coulterville-Yosemite toll road, which was the original road into Yosemite Valley. It would normally be closed this time of year due to snow, but with the unusual dry weather this year it might yet be open. Since even the road to Glacier Point was still open – which was pretty unheard of – it was worth a look.

There was another important consideration in this trip, and that could be summed up as compromise. That’s often a key factor in family outings. Carrie and Allison had enjoyed the Death Valley trip, although both of them are somewhat less enthusiastic about “roughing it” than I am. This trip would get me to Yosemite – maybe my favorite place on Earth – and also I’d get a few hours of offroading in too. Score! But from their perspective, we would get to stay in a luxury hotel for the first time, really. We’d have fun in Yosemite, and I’d intentionally avoid any big hikes or other physical challenges for a change. We’d do the tourist thing, browse the gift shops and visitor center, have a couple of nice meals and generally take it easy for once.

I wanted them to share my enthusiasm for our family road trips in Toyotie, and not dread them. So this short trip was designed to make everyone happy, and in the end it was a complete 100% success. It seems that compromises don’t always have to be painful, as ours have sometimes been in the past. Maybe I’m slowly getting smarter about these things.

We left Sunday morning and drove up to Coulterville, a historic little town right out of the Old West. I’d been there a few years back with Antony while we were on our way to the GBES Navigational & Geocaching Rally in Nevada. It’s not much more than a wide spot in the road but it’s packed with several historic old buildings, a pioneer cemetery, etc. From there it was something like seven miles to the start of the Old Coulterville Road, and the dirt.

We reached the trail and I was happy to find the gates standing open, and no evidence of snow. There were warning signs about the trail being impassable and unmaintained starting in November, but that would be in a normal year, which this surely was not. My main concern throughout the 30-mile drive was that we could be halted at any time by gates, rockslides or washouts, or fallen trees. As it turned out, we saw evidence of all of these hazards along the way, but fortunately none that stopped us.

The road was a fun drive and very pretty along the entire route. As we were a solo vehicle in a remote area, I took it easy and paid extra care to avoid any hard hits that might cause a flat or other damage. The trail was mostly easy, but was sometimes rocky or badly rutted. There was one spot where a large tree had fallen on the downhill side of the trail, and its root ball had taken a very large bite from the trail. We’d have to winch ourselves out if we fell into that, and it would surely involve body damage. I had Carrie get out and spot me while I got the wheels up high on the uphill side of the trail. She said I squeaked past with about three inches to spare.

Along the way there were a few scattered fallen trees, but these had been cut by chainsaws or only covered part of the trail. The trail did narrow in places, with encroaching trees and brush that scraped at the roof rack and the CB antenna. At times I had to pick a line and squeeze through the brush while also accounting for the trail surface and ruts.

I navigated the numerous trail intersections and offshoots carefully, following the route I had created in my mapping software. Some of the side trails were gated, and most of those gates were closed. Some of them were ones I had identified as potential “alternate exits” back to civilization, so I was a little concerned to see our options dwindling as we went. I hoped that the main trail would remain open or we might face a lengthy backtrack.

We encountered only one other vehicle on the entire drive, an older Tacoma going the other direction from us. They may have been hunters.  Nearing the end of the trail at Foresta, we encountered a group of hikers at the waterfall where I had to drive through about thirty feet of the waterfall’s runoff. Then as we reached the end of the dirt road in Foresta, we saw that the bridge there was closed! Dire signs warned against any attempt at driving over it. Thankfully, our luck held and we had a quick alternate road available to another bridge that was open.

From there we quickly reached 120/Big Oak Flat Road, ate lunch at Half Dome View, and then drove into Yosemite Valley amid the usual “ooooh” and “WOW” sounds. It had been a few years since Carrie had been to Yosemite and I think it was Allison’s first time. She was thrilled to be able to play on some old snow and iced-up streams before we made our way to Yosemite Village and then finally to the Ahwahnee.

Our stay at the hotel was perfect and we enjoyed everything thoroughly. The Ahwahnee is a beautiful and large lodge, which also served as the inspiration to the large hotel in The Shining movie. I loved the old wood beams, fireplaces, and the grand lodge feel of the place. We ate dinner (and breakfast the next morning) at the hotel’s equally-expensive but very nice restaurant. The food was great and I actually enjoyed getting “dressed up” for it. Allison behaved perfectly, which is something of a rare thing when eating out, and that pleased us to no end.

We reluctantly checked out after breakfast on Monday morning and drove through the valley, making the obligatory stop at Tunnel View before driving up to Glacier Point, a wonderful and unprecedented treat for mid-January. There was some snow around but not much and the road was almost completely clear, especially on our return trip where the sun had cleaned it off. Glacier Point was just a little brisk and fog blew through the southeastern end of the valley, but otherwise the weather was splendid and I marveled at our good fortune.

We drove back to the valley – stopping to photograph a roadside coyote – and had lunch at the deli before picking up an inexpensive print at the Ansel Adams gallery, and began the long drive home. Sometime close to sunset we stopped at the huge and wacky Bass Pro shop in Manteca, gawking at the high ceilings, waterfalls into a large fish tank, and other unusual wonders. It’s a bit like the “Red State” version of an REI crossed with a theme park. It was a great excuse to stretch our legs, and from there the rest of the drive home was certainly pretty dull in comparison.

We made it home without incident, covering 450-miles over the trip, nicely within Toyotie’s 500-mile range. It had been an absolutely perfect two-day family getaway, for which we were grateful.

The next weekend, the late snow finally arrived and closed Glacier Point Road and others, almost certainly including the Old Coulterville Road. We’d just squeaked by at the right time!

Yosemite via Offroad Gallery

…..

Editorial note – As I worked on this post, I learned of a rockslide in Yosemite from the Yosemite Conservancy’s Facebook page:

“Due to an overnight rockslide, the Big Oak Flat Road is closed from the Foresta Road junction to the El Portal Road junction. There is currently no access to Yosemite Valley from Highway 120. The rockslide has caused major road structural problems; a complete assessment will be made later today and more information will be subsequently provided. The road is closed indefinitely.”

Happily, the damaged section of road is scheduled to re-open – with a temporary stretch of gravel – this weekend.

The infamous fuel pump end cap that detached at Echo Canyon.

Recapping, our complete trip totaled 1,250 miles. 450 of those miles were within the boundaries of Death Valley National Park, according to the maps I used. (Note that the park boundary on the west starts way out in Panamint Valley.) We spent a total of 130 miles on dirt.

Our drive from Stovepipe Wells to Titus Canyon to Homestake camp was about 100 miles. Returning to Stovepipe Wells from Homestake (backtracking to Ubehebe Crater etc.) was about 71 miles. Because our driving speeds were so moderate throughout the drive, we experienced better than normal gas mileage as well. YMMV!

Approximate driving distances*

Hampton Inn Suites in Ridgecrest to Stovepipe Wells: 100mi.

Stovepipe Wells to start of dirt road to Titus Canyon, off Hwy. 374: 28mi.

Titus Canyon drive, from Hwy. 374 and ending at North Hwy. pavement: 27mi.

Titus Cyn. dirt road exit/North Hwy. pavement to intersection with Hwy 267 to Scotty’s Castle: 19mi.

North Hwy/267/Racetrack Valley Rd. intersection to start of Racetrack Valley Rd. dirt near Ubehebe Crater: 6mi.

Racetrack Valley Rd. start to Teakettle Junction: 20mi.

Teakettle Junction to Homestake Camp: 10mi.

Stovepipe Wells to Wildrose campground: 31mi.

Stovepipe Wells to Furnace Creek: 25mi.

Furnace Creek to Badwater Basin parking lot: 18mi.

Badwater Basin parking lot to southern intersection of West Side Road: 26mi.

Full length of West Side Road: 36mi.

* All distances rounded up for simplicity & for conservative planning.

Just a few of the many resources used for planning our Death Valley road trip.

Observations & Lessons Learned

1. It seems that we narrowly avoided a disruption to our trip in the form of the reported power outage at Stovepipe Wells. I’m not sure how widespread the outage – which lasted a few days – was. If gas was also unavailable at Furnace Creek then it would have definitely been a major inconvenience. Lesson learned: while gas might be unavailable where planned for a variety of reasons, it’s probably more likely to happen in remote locations like DV.

2. Speaking of gas shortages, losing the aux tank fuel pump also lost us half our onboard fuel capacity, which I’d been using as a reserve. It was still available via my siphon in an emergency, but my lesson there is that it’s better to have fuel in the main tank than the aux tank.

3. The weather was pretty nice when we were in DV, but cold (mid-30s) overnight at Homestake. Someone who was there the following week reported an overnight low of 18F. When car camping, the best bet is to bring too much cold weather gear than too little, at least during the winter.

4. We ran our SPOT Connect throughout the trip and overall it performed well. Battery life was well beyond what I had anticipated, using lithium batteries as directed. However, the SPOT interface is still a bit flaky and we drove around for most of a day without the automatic tracking on like I thought it was. With no data/internet connection for the mobile devices, it wasn’t possible to check the SPOT tracking page to verify that things were working as expected. Overall though it has worked very well for us.

5. Next time I will pre-load offline maps into MotionX GPS HD on the iPad 2. Trying to cache MotionX maps (in GPS HD or Drive HD) when I had a data connection was not at all reliable or effective. In any case, my good old-fashioned paper maps came in handy.

6. Overall, our gear worked very well. Tent, sleeping bags, kitchen kit, tools, etc. all performed as expected. I did forget to bring the tire chains, although it turned out that we wouldn’t have used or needed them anyway.

7. I did note that our typical road trip pattern – driving around all day and camping overnight – was a serious obstacle to static solar power generation. Heavy dust would have been an issue for mobile solar generation too, and along with washboard road battering may be detrimental to the longevity of  expensive solar panels. But solar power generation is most likely to be needed in a longer-term static campsite, like when we’re at OX12.

8. Lastly, Death Valley is amazing. I’m not a huge fan of broiling temperatures, but even the deserts have seasons and I planned our visit accordingly. There’s a lot to do and see in the park and the whole family had a total blast. I’m looking forward to visiting again and exploring more.

……

And about that fuel pump incident… I’m still not sure what caused it. The most obvious possibility is that a rock was kicked up, or a root or branch, and the pump or the fuel line was pulled and the end piece came out. I would have thought the pump and lines were pretty well protected, but a lot of rocks were kicked up on this trip, so it’s certainly possible.

The fuel filter unit. Ain't it cute?

Another thing I thought of was that the end piece could have been pushed out with pressure. The fuel system on these things create a pretty strong vacuum and then when the fuel suction decreases, it can cause the aux tank walls to “BONG” out again. Perhaps that that kind of pressure change could pop out the plastic end piece.

So, what to do? First off, I repaired the fuel pump myself. I popped the end piece back on using two small clamps and hand-tightening each until the end piece popped back into place. It’s worked fine ever since, with no leaks. I’ve been using and closely monitoring it to be sure, and it handled our recent Yosemite trip (30 miles of offroad) with nary a glitch.

Fuel pump with the one end cap still off and vice grip improvised clamp.

I think that if I can get a good tie-down of some kind to stay on the barrel-shaped pump, it would help prevent a recurrence. Also, I’m going to zip-tie some pipe insulation around the pump as padding from rock strikes. I will also look into reducing the fuel system vacuum, if appropriate. I believe that Toyota does say that the factory fuel cap is designed to reduce that. Lastly, I’ve zip-tied the pump and lines so they don’t hang down as much as they used to. Hopefully one of those improvements will be the silver bullet. Time will tell.

I did note that both issues we had in Death Valley – the fuel pump and the battery cable coming off the post – were not issues I could blame on Toyota. It was an aftermarket auxiliary fuel pump, and my failure to tighten the battery terminal bolt sufficiently after I had loosened it.

Lastly…

Toyotie in Titus Canyon

Editorial note: This short post wraps up our Death Valley trip. It covers our drive home and our stop in the historic town of San Juan Bautista, so fair warning: the actual Death Valley and offroad coverage ended with the previous post.

There will be one more post after this one to conclude this series. That post will include a post-trip debrief, including notes, mileages and coordinates.

…..

We awoke early at the hotel in Ridgecrest. Not by choice, of course. We had a long drive ahead of us and had arranged to meet my sister’s family in San Juan Bautista early that afternoon. After a nice hot breakfast at the hotel – and checking my jury-rigged fix of the aux fuel pump leak yet again – we packed up and hit the road.

The drive north was (happily) uneventful. Now down to just one 24-gallon fuel tank instead of two, we made a single gas stop in Lost Hills again. We stretched our legs and made use of the restrooms at the uber-tourist trap of Casa de Fruta just north of Hollister before arriving at San Juan Bautista. We decided to grab a quick lunch before my sister’s family arrived to meet us.

No sooner had we parked and crossed the street when I heard a “Hey! What are you guys doing here?” It was my good friend Andy’s son, as well as his sister-in-law’s family. Small world again! There were big smiles all around and we laughed about the chance meeting in this small town.

We had a nice lunch at Jardines de San Juan. They were desperately understaffed so our order was taken and processed at glacial speeds, and my sister’s family arrived before we’d gotten our bill. They sat down with us and ordered some lunch for their kids while we all caught up on things in general. We wrapped up lunch and took a walking tour of the old mission and the small downtown area. Check the gallery for captioned photos of the scenic and historic old town.

It was a really nice visit. San Juan Bautista is a tiny town that has maintained a very genuine feel, and they haven’t (yet?) been overrun with the dreaded “upscale shopping opportunities” and chain stores. We don’t visit here very often but have always enjoyed it when we do. It was good to get the families together again too and watch the “cuz’s” just naturally fall into playing with each other again, despite not having seen each other for a few years. It was a great way to wrap up our long road trip.

After saying our goodbyes, we hit the road for the last time and within an hour were back home once more. We unloaded our luggage and such from the Land Cruiser and settled in at home, happy to be sleeping in our own beds again that night. It had been a great trip, and an adventure, and the buzz from the trip stayed with me for the next week. It wasn’t long before I had started planning the next quick getaway, taking an old dirt road route into Yosemite…

Death Valley Part Five Gallery

“It’s not an adventure until something goes wrong.” – Yvon Chouinard

We woke up at Wildrose campground and had coffee (hot chocolate for Allison) and our traditional family camping breakfast, warm Mountain House granola with blueberries and milk. It was our last day in Death Valley and it was nice to not have as many pans and dishes to clean up before we hit the road again. We packed up and got going.

We backtracked up Wildrose Road then were back on 190 heading east, passing Stovepipe Wells yet again, along with the nearby sand dunes and The Devil’s Cornfield. This time we stayed on 190 as it curved to the southeast, passing Furnace Creek for the first time. Eventually we stopped at Badwater, where the parking lot was full of other tourist cars.

We found a place to park on our second pass and walked out onto the salt flat. My GPS was reading about 270 feet below sea level here, at the lowest point in North America. We marveled at the vast salt flat and were glad to have moderate weather. I bet it’s a very different experience on the salt flat when it’s 125F in the summer…

We enjoyed casually walking around on the salt flats for a while before heading back to the parking area. It was then that I noticed a sign far up on the cliff there that read “SEA LEVEL”.

Back on the road we continued south, enjoying the terrain as usual, until we reached the intersection with the southern terminus of West Side Road. I was happy to have reached dirt again, although with a little trepidation as we quickly encountered our old friends The Washboards again. Happily, the washboard here was quite mild compared to Racetrack Road and before long it vanished entirely.

We sped along West Side Road, encountering a few other oncoming vehicles here and there. The road seemed to have been recently graded in places and it was a joy to drive. I had to pay attention, watch for potholes, stretches of soft sand, and corners, but overall this was a road where you can “stretch your legs” within reason. If the speed limit and conditions ( a closed course) permitted, this would be a fantastic rally race stage. This road was a ton of fun!

After several miles I was happy to see a few old Series Land Rovers parked on a wide spot in the road, apparently having a lunch break there. I slowed down so as not to blast them with our dust trail – which up until now had probably been visible from the International Space Station – and exchanged waves with them. We drove past beckoning side roads heading off into the mountains to the west, with enticing signs like “QUEEN OF SHEBA MINE”.

Eventually we reached my lunch goal which was Shorty’s Grave. An interesting burial site with historic markers, it also marked the location of the lowest benchmark in the United States that is listed in the NGS database. I’d previously been to the southernmost benchmark (on the Big Island of Hawaii) so it was fun to be at another extreme location.

People had left coins at Shorty’s Grave – I’m not entirely sure why – and Carrie somehow conjured up a Mexican coin which we left as a token of respect for Shorty. As we ate lunch by the Land Cruiser, the Rovers passed us with more waves, and then Carrie and Allison were chased by a lone red ant. We figured it had a tough time as it was living in Death Valley so we didn’t have the heart to just squash the little guy. It was pretty funny how much of a sensation a single ant can cause with my family.

As we finished lunch, I was taking some photos when a white van approached from the north, driven by a German (I think) guy and his American girlfriend. They stopped and she rolled down her window and said – and I swear I am not making this up – “Excuse me, is there like a place where people go?”

I honestly wasn’t sure how to answer that, and I politely told her as much. I offered that there were many interesting places in Death Valley, and that the nearby Badwater Flats was a popular tourist spot. It didn’t seem that they had heard of it, or any other place in Death Valley, apparently. Astonished to encounter two utterly oblivious people far out on a dirt road in Death Valley, it suddenly became clear why the ranger had treated me like she had. There really were people out driving around in the middle of nowhere with not one clue as to where they were, or where they were going. Wow.

We drove the rest of the way north on West Side Road, and I still revelled in the drive. This was perhaps the most fun dirt road I’d ever driven. All good things must end though, and we eventually reached the pavement of 190 once more. We turned north again and drove to Furnace Creek, where we stopped for a rest break and checked out the enormous gift shop. I picked up a surprise gift (an anklet) for Carrie and some cold Gatorade. This was tourist central though and apparently there was cell reception here as well, and before long I couldn’t wait to get away from Civilization again!

We took the road up to another tourist-packed location, Zabriskie Point. The crowds got on my nerves and I wondered how some of them had survived to reach adulthood. Despite that, the overlook was very impressive with the views of a lot of truly spectacular scenery. Mother Nature was certainly not subtle about showing off here!

Heading west, I pulled over at a dirt side road I’d spotted on the way to the point, marked with a small sign for Echo Canyon. Still having some time to explore, I turned off the highway and once more we were driving on dirt, weaving through the desert gravel road and enjoying ourselves. We passed some vehicles that were remote camping out there, before we reached the mouth of Echo Canyon and I stopped to take some photos.

As I finished up, I thought I smelled something like exhaust or gas, which isn’t something I liked to smell. I was about 40 yards from the Land Cruiser and wondered if maybe someone had a gas camp stove or something back among those campers. I checked the wind and it seemed to be coming from that direction, which was a relief. I strolled back to Toyotie and when I did I was immediately aware of another strong whiff of gasoline. Concerned, I bent over and peeked underneath, which was when I noticed what appeared to be a waterfall of gasoline gushing out from the back.

Sh*t.

………..

My mind kicked into that unique temporal distortion when things seem to spontaneously speed up and slow down at the same time. I opened the driver door, dropped my camera on the seat and while retrieving the keys announced “There’s a problem and you both need to get out of the vehicle right now.” Carrie understood the tone in my voice and immediately got going, helping Allison out and away from the Land Cruiser. I handed her the keys as they went and quickly told her  we had a gas leak and I was going to look at it.

I took another look and knew I was going to have to get underneath to deal with it in one way or another. Was I really going to slide on the gas-soaked gravel underneath a 4×4 at the mouth of a remote canyon in Death Valley, with more gasoline cascading down on me? Yeah, that pretty much summed it up. Underneath I went.

I determined that the gas was running out of a hose that was hanging down, with a grey cap on the end of it. It was located just in front of the auxiliary gas tank. Getting my hands on it, I quickly determined that it had come off of the side of what appeared to be the fuel pump. There were no screw threads or other obvious mechanism to quickly reattach it. Every moment, more gas poured relentlessly out of the hose. I took a quick breath, shoved my hand into the stream of fuel, and plugged the leak with a finger. Gas trickled down my arm as I tried to figure out what to do next.

I called Carrie over to assist me. I walked her through the process of opening the rear carrier and liftgate, something she’d not yet done on our “new” vehicle. Creating a plan of action, while trying to describe to her what to do, and while plugging the proverbial gasoline dike was not a simple mental task. But she got the back open and retrieved the Pelican case with my tools as I asked, and opened it up on the ground near me. I couldn’t use my left arm with my right arm plugging the gas at an awkward angle, so I had to shift position. I knew a little gas would escape again, but grimaced as a spray of gasoline hit me in the face. Luckily, I shut my eyes in time. I assume that I cursed.

Carrie fished out the vice grips that I  requested (“They look like this one but with a longer front, like an alligator.”), and setting the adjustment with my free hand, I carefully-but-awkwardly clamped it onto the fuel hose on the other side of the fuel pump. Temporarily blocked in this manner, the waterfall ceased and I was able to free my other hand and take a deep breath.

My mind was now racing for a fix to this situation. The grey piece wouldn’t easily go back onto the pump, nor was I sure that it ever would at this point. I could potentially travel with the vice grip in place like that, but it could come off at any point and that would be a Very Bad Thing. Using my Leatherman tool, I loosened the hose clamp and took the grey plastic bit off, and tossed it into my tool box so it wouldn’t get lost. I didn’t think that just tightening the hose clamp down on the hose would result in a gas-tight seal, so I had to come up with another solution..

As I lay on the large gravel rocks underneath the Land Cruiser, I was grateful that I’d been in situations before that demanded an improvised solution, and fast. Mentally speeding through options and available resources, brain set to Maximum Efficiency (for what that was worth!), a simple but strong plan soon presented itself. I retrieved my screwdriver bit set. Selecting a bit I was unlikely to need, I verified that it was the right diameter to fit inside the end of the fuel line. It was solid, wouldn’t be crushed by pressure, nor melted by the gas. It should work. I inserted it into the open end of the line and tightened the hose clamp down around it. Tentatively releasing the vice grips, the improvised plug held. The emergency had passed.

I crawled out and again took another deep breath, but not too deep as my clothes, arms, face, and hair reeked of gasoline. At this point a couple was hiking out of the canyon and asked if we were OK, and I was relieved to be able to honestly say that were were good now. I used a couple of zip ties to secure the hanging fuel line, and I was done.

I reassured the family and explained that the crisis had passed, and that I had managed to fix the problem for now. I’d want to stop a few times to verify that the improvised repair remained viable, but otherwise we seemed to be out of the woods.

I started up the Land Cruiser and verified that there was no more leak. With the fuel pump kaput, the formerly-full auxiliary tank was now useless unless I made a manual transfer via my siphon hose. We now had no reserve except in an emergency, but we had plenty of gas in the main tank to get by on.

It was now about 4pm, a half hour or so before sunset. Besides smelling like a walking Shell station (“No smoking, please.”), my arms were smeared with black grease in a dozen places, and I was struck by that twitchy weariness that comes after a right proper adrenaline dump. I drove carefully, with one eye often in the rear mirrors, and we stopped a couple of times to make sure that the leak hadn’t returned to haunt us. It was still OK.

We turned onto paved 190 heading east for the last time. When we reached Stovepipe Wells I topped off the main tank (after checking for leaks yet again) before finally being able to give my hands and arms a bit of a scrubbing in a restroom, which helped a little. There was another wonderful Death Valley sunset in progress, a fitting end to our adventures in the park. We climbed aboard Toyotie and topped the eastern rim of the valley as the last red rays of sunlight gave way to darkness, and our two hour drive to the hotel in Ridgecrest.

….

Safely at the hotel (and another check for leaks), I wondered what the nice young lady behind the counter thought of this disheveled desert freakazoid who reeked of gasoline. And did he really have a suite reserved?

No matter, because I did. I’d paid in advance and had gotten a great rate, and we gratefully dropped our bags in the large, comfortable room. Due to my inhuman state, I was granted first use of the shower so that we could go out to eat after. It was one of those most-welcome showers, with very hot water, when you really really need one. On the downside, washing my forehead and hair drained the leftover gasoline into my now painfully-burning eyes, and I could do nothing but keep flushing them with shower water until the pain became bearable.

After I cleaned up (Allison pointing out “Daddy, your eyes are really red!”), we went out for dinner and were grateful to be able to eat and relax. Only my hands still vaguely smelled of gas now, so I felt a lot more human. I mentioned how if things had been different, and Carrie had been lying under a 4×4 at the mouth of a desert canyon, with gasoline spraying in her face, I would have had the good decency to at least take some pictures of the comedy.

We happily ate, drank, and ordered a round of desserts before returning to the hotel. The girls cleaned up and we crashed on the comfortable beds, and snored away the night before our long drive home. It had been an adventure.

Death Valley Part Four Gallery