Looking back on these photos from five years ago, I think we may have been partly nuts for planning such long road trips with kids so young. But my how happy I am we did it! Talk about a giant confidence boost once we made it home. If we can drive to Death Valley and back in a week, tent camp, hike and more with four young kids, what can’t we do?!

This was trip number two with this group of friends. Our first was a summer road trip to Glacier National Park and Banff National Park the previous year.

Per usual, we left before dawn, the timestamp on my photo reads 5:33am. I remember the roads being a little icy, I even have a picture of a de-icer truck we followed. But we made it down to Weed, California for lunch at Mt. Shasta Brewing Co. There was a big open space in the restaurant that the kids danced and played games in until it was time to hit the road again.

We thought it’d be fun for the kids to spend our first night on the road at Circus Circus in Reno, Nevada. We weren’t wrong! We played around at the arcade for awhile and if memory serves me correctly, I’m pretty sure a couple of the dads even did a little gambling that evening.

The next day it was Death Valley or bust! I traveled to Death Valley in high school once, so driving down these long desert roads was a fun jog to my memory. We stopped for lunch at Tonopah Brewing where they had a long empty table, perfect for our group.

After lunch, we stopped in at the old ghost town Rhyolite. When I was younger, there were no fences around most of the buildings and you could actually go in and out of most of them as you pleased. In fact, I was in a photography class in high school during this trip and I’m sure I could dig up some of the photos I took. I’m always so fascinated at the thought of ghost towns. What were they like in their prime? Why did everyone leave? After touring around for awhile, it was time to head to camp to set up tents and living quarters for the next few days.

We tried our hardest to squeeze in as much as we could in our four full days at the park. Death Valley is HUGE. Like millions of acres huge. Day one was spent at Badwater Basin, Natural Bridge Trail, Devil’s Golf Course and Artists Palette. Each stop was along Badwater Road and we spent an hour, give or take, at each destination.

• Badwater Basin: the lowest point in North America at 282 feet below sea level. Not much of a trail, more of a salt flat we were free to explore. The ground looked like mud and snow, when in fact it was hardened salt. The story is, a geologist took his donkey down there for water. When the donkey wouldn’t drink it, the geologist coined it as having ‘Bad Water’, thus receiving its name.
• Natural Bridge Trail: Located very close to Badwater Basin, it was a drive up a gravel road to the trail head. This was a short sandy hike up a canyon, with the highlight being a natural rock bridge we could walk under.
• Devil’s Golf Course: an area of boulder like salt formations. It is located in the same basin as Badwater, but the terrain is much different and very tricky to walk around on. We only had one catastrophe with Henry falling off on of the rock formations. He scraped up his forearm pretty well. 
• Artists Palette: This is a one-way road over and around rolling hills that are magnificent in color. There is a pullout where you can park and snap photos and get a better look at the beautiful hills.

Day two started with a ranger led hike up the Golden Canyon. There are many ways to do this hike, but we treated it as an out and back. This trail was also the backdrop to a Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope. It was a very easy hike and interesting to learn more about it from the Ranger. There was at one time a road through Golden Canyon that you could drive on, but it was washed away in a flash flood in the 70’s.

We stopped quick at the Salt Creek Interpretive trail on our way to our next hike. Josie had a rough night (I don’t remember this, again using my original travel journal!) so her and I waited in the car while the others looked for pup fish.

It was then on to Mosaic Canyon. I don’t recall much about that hike, other than I remember really liking it. It was up a small canyon that seemed more like an obstacle course than an actual trail. There were also spots of really soft, slippery slopes of rock that the kids had fun sliding down.

One of the things we heard that couldn’t be missed was a sunrise at Zabriskie Point. We crawled out of our tents in the pitch black and made our way there. I remember wondering how many mornings we ruined for people trying to enjoy a quiet, peaceful sunrise as all 15 of us stormed the viewpoint. It truly was stunning though and I’d recommend anyone seeing it if you find yourself down there.

Our only other plans that day was to swear in Junior Rangers and then spend the day at the pool with the kids. We camped in Furnace Creek where there is also a hotel and a pool. We were able to pay a day fee to use the pool and swim all day long.

We spent last full day in Death Valley checking out one more area of the park. Stop number one were the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes. We had a lot of fun exploring the dunes and vegetation among them. We even saw tracks of what we thought were little bugs crawling across the sand.

One of the neat things about this park is all the off road driving you can do. Our second stop on our itinerary were the Wildrose Charcoal Kilns. To get there, we had to drive down a pretty tough dirt road. We were just happy no one got a flat tire on the way in or out! The kilns were built in 1877 and were used to make charcoal for a mine 20 miles away. The kilns were only in production for three years. They were very cool to see, but once we saw them there wasn’t much else to do in that area. We walked up the wash a bit, but that was all.

We had a little time left, so we decided to stop by an old abandoned mine on our way back to camp. I’m having trouble recalling the name, but after consulting my travel journal, it was the Eureka mine. While the shafts were all locked up, we could still look into them as far as the light would carry. We were also able to tour around the old homestead and everything that was left behind. From structures, to small artifacts, it was interesting to see how people lived in a different time in the tough desert conditions.

It was then back to camp and a walk over to the restaurant at Furnace Creek for one more round of Gin and Tonics, toasting to a trip well done.

On our drive home, we stayed the night in Winnemucca, Nevada. While there isn’t much to do in Winnemucca, they do have a delicious Basque restaurant, The Martin Hotel. Basque is a family style meal, where the meal comes out in large dishes meant for sharing. They’d bring out the salad and other sides, we’d dish ourselves up, and pass them along. Main courses were generally on our own, but everything else was family style. Unfortunately, Josie got a bee in her bonnet during dinner, so Chris and I had to take turns in the car with her. So the meal was a bit rushed for us, but the food was delicious. If you find yourself in Winnemucca, I highly recommend the Martin Hotel!

I believe we stopped at Riverside Brewery & Restaurant in Bend, OR for lunch before making the rest of the trek home. We had such a good time on this trip! Death Valley is definitely a place you could visit over and over and do different things every time you go. I’d love to go again someday!