is about an hours drive away. Our RV friends Rod and Jean, who were staying at this RV Park, were nice enough to drive and we headed out to the valley. Rod is into geocaching and he has a small GPS to find the cache. The different caches are listed on a geocaching website. I asked Rod if he would find one near Death valley do we can search for one, which he did. It was actually on Rt. 190, the road to Death Valley. We did find the cache and here we are enjoying the spoils!
Moving on, we first stopped at Ash Meadows, a wildlife preserve. I am glad we stopped because we saw some very interesting things. We drove over to Kings Pool near the Point of Rocks area. It was a pool fed by springs that the water is 1000 years old and has been seeping through the Nevada Mountains all these years! And it was extremely clear. Several Pupfish were in this water, which was like bathwater. From this pool a small stream flowed out of it and meandered through the desert sand and rock.We stopped at the Crystal Reservoir, a man made lake with very clear
water in the middle of the desert! Near us was Devil's Hole, a breeding area for a very rare Pupfish that is in danger of extinction. At last count in the spring was 36 fish. That is 36 fish left in the entire world! They breed in the summer so the fall count is usually higher. Since there is no current at Devil's Hole, the fish have lost one of their fins since they do not need it to stabilize themselves against the water flow.
Finally, we checked out the Crystal Spring Boardwalk, which was built along a small creek that was fed from yet another series of springs. The wooden boardwalk travels about .6 miles, one way. At the end of the walk was a large, crystal clear, 20 foot deep pool. It was a blue color and really beautiful. Again, the water
was very warm from the hot springs feeding the pool. We even saw a couple of ducks enjoying the beautiful day and the warm water. I had to get down and test the water to see if it was actually as warm as we were told it was!We left Ash Meadows and, after lunch at the Longstreet Casino, we finally continued to Death Valley. We came in off Rt. 190, past Death
Valley Junction and the Amargosa Opera House. Our first stop in Death Valley was Zabriskie Point, a high bluff you can walk up and take some great pictures from. this is where the Twenty Mule Team hauled Borax out of this desolate place. There were many people taking photos and you could look down into the valley from here.Next we went to the Furnace Creek Visitors Center. I would bet by the
name that it gets rather "warm" at this location in the valley! Many of the ox drawn carts and other equipment was displayed here. In their gift shop, 
we saw a neat little bottle filled with gold flakes and had to have it as a memento of our visit to Death Valley. At one point Rod picked up the GPS unit and it showed us at -247 (that's 247 feet BELOW sea level!), and I believe the basin of the valley goes even lower than that!
We then drove down Artists Drive where the multicolored rocks called
the Artist Palette are located.This was a beautiful area and the one way drive took us through the rocky hills and the spectacular views of the rock formations. On this road, vehicles longer than 25' are not allowed and we saw why! Peg and I walked into
a small valley between the rocks to get a picture of a purple rock, up close. Peg decided to rest nearby as I took the shot.
By the time we got done at Artists Drive, it was getting late and we did not have the time to drive to Scotty's Castle and Museum so we went to the Golden Canyon Trail which we walked a shot way into. Apparently, there was a paved road through here and a heavy rain dropped so much water in Death Valley that the road became a river and the asphalt was washed away, except in a few places. We did get a photo of us in the canyon trail.This is the largest national park in the US and we just barely saw a few of its wonders. The day was perfect and Peg and I and Rod and Jean really had a good time...
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