Tom's National Park Adventure

When I laid my head on my pillow last night, something my sister Sandy said to me had my mind spinning. My Uncles 90th birthday party is from 2:00pm to 5:00pm Saturday. I hadn’t looked at the invitation closely and just assumed the party would be later in the evening. That was my mistake.

This meant that my plans for the next four days were all wrong. I now needed to get to Burbank, CA twelve hours sooner than I had planned.

So…. First thing this morning I packed up camp and headed for Death Valley National Park.

About five hours later, I arrived at one of the hottest places on Earth.

I wanted to go there for two reasons. First, I wanted to see the miraculous Lake that was formed by an unusually heavy rain a few months ago. This happens so rarely that I knew it probably wouldn’t happen again in my lifetime. The second reason I wanted to go there was to get the stamp in the passport. I was unsuccessful in obtaining one last year due to a different freak rainstorm that washed the highway out in a flash flood!

I made it there, I took my picture, I drove to the visitors center and found out…… that the lake had already evaporated!

They have been experiencing some rather warm weather and poof….. no more lake!

I was able to get the stamp in the passport.

My original plan was to camp in the campground there tonight and then drive into Burbank tomorrow.

However……. It is a little too warm for that!!

I kept on driving and have ended up in a Motel 6 in Mojave, CA. They left the light on for me!

I will drive down to Burbank tomorrow and find another place to stay tomorrow night.