We took a fantastic trip to Death Valley with my parents and brother. We stayed in the middle of NOWHERE in a little place called Amargosa Valley, NV.
There will be a ton of pictures in this post, we had three cameras and lots and lots of kodak moments. Consider yourself warned.
The Hotel:
We stayed at the Longstreet Inn and Casino. As I said earlier, it is in the middle of nowhere. There is a building, a pond, a giant cow and a windmill. That's about it. Chloe loved the pond. The ducks there were completely used to people and would walk right up to you. It was crazy! Chloe would squeal and giggle. We fed the ducks a couple of times and i'm pretty sure that was Chloe's favorite part.
Badwater Basin:
Badwater Basin is the lowest point in North America. The air is so thick there you can basically swim in it (kidding). Really though, you can feel a difference.
Devils Golf Course:
The Devils Golf Course is a valley full of huge salt crystals. Its the coolest thing!
Scotty's Castle:
It would take a whole blog post to tell the story of Scotty's Castle. Basically a rich man named Mr. Johnson was conned into investing in Walter "Scotty"'s gold mine in what is now Death Valley. Turns out there wasn't really a gold mine and though Mr. Johnson was quite upset, he and Scotty became good friends. Johnson and his wife started building this 1.5-2.5 million dollar home/ranch in 1922 as a vacation home but when the stock market crashed in 1929, Johnson lost a lot of money and was unable to finish construction. The ranch has been preserved in its unfinished state since that time. We did a house tour and a tour of the underground tunnels. I'm only going to post pictures of the outside because there are way to many rooms to document it all in a post. If you have never been there, I highly suggest you go see it!
Front of the castle:
This is half of the unfinished swimming pool. On the other side of the bridge there is a deeper section that is about the same length. The pool would have held over a million gallons of water when it was finished.
Back of the castle:
Clock tower:
Todd & Chloe in one of the underground tunnels. The windows you see are actually windows that view into the pool. All throughout the tunnels there are beautiful Spanish tiles that were purchased for the pool and other projects that were never finished. Thousands and thousands of tiles..
Rhyolite:
A mining ghost town. Coolest part? There is a house made out of empty glass bottles.
We had a really fun trip! Some things didn't go according to plan, but it was still a blast.We tried to drive out to the Sailing Stones but the road was too rough and we had run out of time. We were really looking forward to that and are determined to go again next year to see them. Chloe was very sick of the car by day two and threw several tantrums. She was a grumpy, grumpy kid. It was a good eye opener for Todd and I though. Chloe is a super happy and calm baby but we can't expect nor plan on her being calm and happy all the time, especially while traveling. We were both exhausted and a little traumatized by the end of the trip but it was all worth while. Now we know more of what to expect the next time we stay in a hotel with a toddler.
Everyone should go to Death Valley, okay? It's a blast and there are so many cool things to see.
