Winter 2022: Death Valley National Park and Las Vegas

Parump, Nevada 

We knew that after Joshua Tree we would add Death Valley to the itinerary, so our challenge was to find a place to stay near Death Valley.  It's not really that easy.  While there is camping in the park, we wanted to also consider places that might work for longer stays.  I found Wine Ridge RV Park in nearby Parump.  WIne Ridge is a 55+ park and is very nice - one of the nicest places we stayed all winter.  We even participated in a few of the events during the week.  When we evaluated for long term stay Wine Ridge scored 64.7 out of 100.  There's just not that much to do in the immediate area.  And by that I mean there's no breweries.  

Wine Ridge RV Park with Mt. Charleston to the east

Death Valley National Park
The entrance to Death Valley was about an hour from the RV Park, and then another ten miles to the first scenic view, Zabriskie Point.  It's just a short walk from the parking lot to your first view of the landscape.  As with many national parks, it's just hard to even comprehend what you're seeing, and of course pictures just don't do it justice.

We checked in at the visitor center, where the world record highest air temperature of 134°F (57°C) was recorded at Furnace Creek on July 10, 1913.   We were there in early February, and the temperature was 83.

We then continued to Badwater Basin which is 282 feet below sea level.  They have a mark up on a cliff of what sea level is.  It's weird.

We took a brief hike to the Natural Bridge, and then a bit longer hike through Golden Canyon, and took in Artist's pallette, a scenic vista with a stunning glimpse into Death Valley’s colorful volcanic past.

We feel so blessed to have enjoyed the scenes of Death Valley before the historic flooding that occurred in August of 2022.

Las Vegas

On our way back to Arizona we stopped in Las Vegas to visit Tim's brother and catch the Super Bowl at their place.  The drive from Pahrump is pretty short, once you go over the Spring Mountains, you'll see Mt Charleston and the Red Rock Canyon to the north, and then the expanse of Las Vegas straight ahead to the east.  We found a great place near Henderson, the Las Vegas RV Resort.

Site 282 at Las Vegas RV Resort

The RV resort is a fairly nice place but not really in a great part of town.  Using our long term critera, the resort rated 53.7 on a scale of 100.

While we were in Las Vegas we enjoyed Able Baker Brewing Company, HUDL, Bad Beat Brewing and Lovelady Brewing.  Yeah we were busy.   Next up for Winter 2022 - exploring central Arizona.

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