Month: May 2015

We visited the Donner Museum today. The exhibit hall was closed due to a remodel but we watched the video and learned all about the Donner Family. Apparently through Mom’s side of the family there are distant relations to the Donners. We also learned that one of the families that survived were the “Reed” Family. I wonder if I have immigrant trail blood on both sides of my family?

We hiked a short trail around the woods and across Donner Creek. I climbed every rock I could find to get up.

E and I found little tiny fish in the cold river.

Which lead to me wanting to cross the river via the giant rocks.

I made it safely across.

Check Emmerson’s blog to see how he did!

I went with Uncle Matt back to his house while Mom and Grandpa John went to visit the camper. I worked more of a structure I started in the morning.I have been hauling all the branches that have fallen in the side yards down to my fort area. I even fashioned a flag out of a branch and some twine!  It is now the Donner’s winter shelter. I am hoping it snows tonight so I can see how well it works!

We had a nice time with Grandpa. We haven’t seen him in about 6 years.

The drive back to the camper from Uncle Matt’s was very pretty. The sun was peaking through the rain clouds and the snow on the mountain peaks was glowing white.

 

We have landed in the mountains with green trees, water and peacefulness. We are staying at Truckee River RV park and it is very nice. We have grass outside of the camper and there are LOTS of birds to lay in the grass and watch. We saw Uncle Matt and he helped us celebrate adding California to our state map.

We dropped Dad off at the Reno airport so he can fly home for work. We got the truck washed and ran a few errands in Reno and then spent part of the day at a place called The Discovery. It is a hands of all ages science museum.

We saw a trout hatchery in the tanks. They will release them into the Truckee River in a few weeks.

We practiced weaving fake baskets.

We explored all the history of the area.

There was a lot of technology and we had a great time playing, building and exploring.

I made a cool airplane while multitasking watching a 3D printed make a tiny cupcake!

 

We have lots of plans for this area and will update in a week or so as the internet at the campground isn’t the best. We are borrowing signal from Uncle Matt to upload everything! 🙂

Well, we made it to California. Death Valley is up to 282 feet below sea level. The temperatures vary throughout the park today we had 70s in the mountains and 109 in the valley floor.

We camped at a place called Stovepipe Wells RV Park. It is a private company in the park but they had full hook-ups so that was a good fit for us. We didn’t want to be stuck with no AC in the heat.

We hiked a lot of trails. Some of my favorites were Natural Bridges, Salt Creek and Mosaic Canyon.

Natural Bridges had a huge natural bridge. In high water times the water rushed below the bridge carving out the canyon.

 

Salt Creek was full of an endangered fish called the Pupfish. We saw hundreds of them swimming in little spring fed streams. The water is over 90F and very high in salt but the fish have adapted.

We visited the salt flats that sometimes form a lake. Death Valley was formed with a plate slipped and moved away from another. The mountains on the west are high and don’t allow the remnants of the storms passing over the Sierra Nevada Mountains to reach the canyon. In the evening it is toasty hot but windy and dry.

We drove this crazy 26 mile road , Titus Canyon, that was only for 4x4s. It started out just bumpy but then got crazy twisty with lots of rough switchbacks. The truck handled it well. Dad was an excellent driver. After many miles and about 2 hours of driving we entered the Titus Canyon Narrows. The narrows were very cool and the truck barely fit through some of the spaces. We really wished we had the jeep for that trail but the truck did well.

We spent the evenings the pool cooling off after out hot hikes.

We saw something called the Devil’s Golf Course. “Only the devil himself would have a golf course this bad”. The roughness is actually salt crystals that have formed.

We hiked in Mosaic Canyon. It was cool in the shade but super hot in the sun. We drank lots of water as we hiked the several mile trail. We had to climb over giant boulders to keep going up the trail. Eventually we came to one we didn’t want to climb. This was one of my favorites!

We also visited Scotty’s Castle, former sort of home of Death Valley Scotty, a swindler and storyteller. We toured the house/castle/ranch and learned all about how he tricked investors into thinking he had a gold mine. Dad liked the old car.

Up early one day and we visited the Mesquite Sand Dunes. We had a great time playing in the sand and running up and rolling down the dunes. We tracked animals. This is a sidewinder snake and a lizard.

Our last hike was to Darwin Falls. It is a spring fed falls in the middle of the desert. It was a beautiful hike because the weather stayed around 75F and was even a bit humid! After we climbed rocks, over rivers and around trees we got to the waterfall. On the way out we saw lots of lizards and even a BAT!

The bat!

Daddy almost stepped on this cute little guy.

We earned a special hiking sticker for completing 4 points of hikes on our visit.

We called it a day and returned to the camper to organize, journal and relax. There was a Kyle Petty fundraising motorcycle ride happening at the Stovepipe Gas Station next door so we saw LOTS of motorcycles! The rumble went away, eventually.

We went back out to the sand dunes at sunset since it was a full moon. Thankfully we didn’t encounter any sidewinders!