Day 11 - 26 Sept: Death Valley, CA, to Hilltop, NV

In order to beat the heat we got up with the sun and hit the road. In the cool and light of early morning the valley seemed much more appealing, and we were pleased and a bit proud to have spent the night on the valley floor.

So we returned to the sand dunes for another look in better circumstances, and to see if we could spot any tracks of nocturnal critters. And there were loads, including the unmistakable markings of the sidewinder.

Chuffed to bits at that, we set off for one of the ghost towns - Rhyolite. A brief step out of California into Nevada. Not much left, but interesting all the same.

Then to the lowest point in the US, Badwater Basin at -282 feet. Again, really interesting...

..and the boys decided to fulfill their Ice Bucket Challenge obligations there, albeit rather late in the piece and with a bucket of melted ice. Video's too big to upload here.

Then it was time to head out of Death Valley, with a couple of last stops...

Golden Canyon:

Zabriskie Point:

And Dante's View, just a short distance as the crow flies from Badwater but about 6,000 feet higher:

..before leaving California behind for now and venturing into Nevada for real this time. We drove along dead straight roads for a couple of hours, stopping in a scary town for supplies before heading up again into the Spring Mountains.

We looked set to have our first rain since Big Sur, and as it was still only late afternoon and the idea of sitting out the remainder of the day in the van didn't appeal, we decided to head down into Las Vegas. Hadn't really intended to bother with it, what with having the boys with us, but did a drive down the Vegas strip* both ways as it got dark. We all agreed, it's a bizarre place. Abandoned any idea of trying to stop on the strip - we had wanted to get food, at least - because we couldn't find anywhere to park our behemoth that had high enough clearance and seemed safe, plus the traffic was crazy and an epic thunderstorm blew in. We didn't even take any photos, just marveled at the insanity of it all, then headed out again.  

Decided to duck off the freeway to find burgers or something, but instead stumbled across a cute little family Italian and had probably our best meal yet in this country.

Made it back to the mountainside campsite, where it felt like the van might get blown away, or at least the pop-top might, so decided all four of us would have to be inside the van for the night. Cosy!

* Sorry, my cultural reference points don't seem to be getting any more useful.