Lonesome Road

Saturday, Jan 21…

"Compass feet" point the way.

We stopped in town for a few grocery items and learned that Vons (grocery) is part of the Safeway conglomerate. (Way back in our first week we discovered our QFC card was honored by Ralphs’s Grocery.) Anyway, as we drove thru downtown we realized a portion of Route 66 runs through Barstow. One motel complex looked like it had been around since the highway was built. Still, it was fun to relive a few blocks of history. After dieseling up, we turned onto Hwy 58 (to 395 to 178) heading north to Death Valley.

As always, the scenery is great and the horizons distant on all sides. By Hwy 178, though, population is sparse (in part b/c we’re still in the Mojave Desert, which is huge). Along this stretch we go through just one town, Trona, which has quite an interesting story. It sits along the western edge of Searles Lake (another endorheic  water body - about 96 sq miles in area and now dry), and the sole purpose of the town was/is to extract numerous salts and minerals from the lake bed. (Back when the Periodic Table had only 104 elements, 98 of those were reportedly present in the lake.) Current population is around 1900.

Tiny Trona ahead.

crystal carbonate from the lake

Picturesque it is not. (also note highway)

Trona Pinnacles 
(We missed these somehow, but
apparently they are very popular
as backdrops in movies and TV.)

We cling to the mts...  endless valley to the right.

On a clear day...

Hwy 178, known locally as Panamint Valley Road, ends at Panamint Springs, where we turned right into Death Valley, slogged across the Panamint Mts on Towne Pass (el 4956’), and pulled into our campsite shortly before dusk. After we settled in and had dinner, Greg joined our neighbors to chat around a great little (gas) charcoal fire pit they carried with them. (I was inside trying to catch up this blog. My new goal is Jan 31, which should be no problem.) When Greg returned he said rain was forecast for Sunday afternoon so we should get a reasonably early start in the morning. DV is bigger than New Hampshire – we know we can’t see all of it in a day anyway, so we’ll just do what we can.

BlogThoughts… California highways are generally not impressive (and Greg would say that assessment is kind). Not enough maintenance, for sure, but what he really hates is the poor signage. Freeways often lack any indication of what services are available at exits, and route markers are sometimes hard to spot (or simply missing). And when I look at the picture just above, I am reminded of the several times I've thought about how difficult it would be to have a medical or mechanical emergency out here in the middle of nowhere.