As we were coming into the area, we kept seeing dust storms and the winds were getting stronger. Once we arrived the winds were about 20 mph with gusts up to 50-60 mph. We decided not to put the satellite up until the winds settled down later that evening. On Friday, the winds came up again, but not nearly as strong and we couldn't see the dust storm in the distance that we saw at the foothills.
The Longstreet Inn & Casino (and RV park) was pretty desolate, but they really had a nice facility around the hotel. The RV park was primarily just a gravel parking lot, but they had full hook-ups at every site and the spaces all averaged about 75 feet long. Nice view of the mountains and a small pond. Most nights we only had one other RV in the park, but on Halloween we finally had about 8 other guests.
On Saturday we drove up to Beatty and then onto Death Valley entering on the Day Break pass. On October 18 they had flash floods in the park and the main roads have just been reopened, but Scotty's Castle and the road up there will be closed for at least 7-8 months. They are still working on the roads at the south end of the park, so we hope to go back into the park later in November.
Here's what we did see:
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| View of Death Valley as we peaked over Daylight Pass |
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| Mesquite Flat Dunes |
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| Stovepipe Wells |
The drive up to the charcoal kilns was quite an adventure. It turned out to be 28 miles off the main road, through all kinds of curvy roads and tight canyons and then at the end of the paved road we encountered a gravel road with several areas of large rocks and washed out portions for another 2 miles (seemed like 7). We almost gave up about 1 mile from the kilns, along with many others that we saw, but Craig was adamant that we were going to make it after we had driven so far. The drive back went very smoothly and seemed half as long as the drive there.
The kilns were erected in 1877 by the Modock Consolidated Mining company. They stand about 25 feet high and 30 feet across. They were used to convert logs to charcoal for the two silver mines located about 25 miles away. Each kiln held 42 cords of wood and after burning for one week would produce 2,000 bushels of charcoal. These Wildrose kilns are considered to be the best surviving kilns in the western states since they were only used about 3 years.
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| Wildrose Canyon Rose |
We left for Pahrump on Sunday, November 1.
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