The long way to LA...via the Death Valley...

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This entry was not in the plan, few days before Christmas, the Death Valley was not even in my mind. So if you ask, and I can do last minute too!



While driving from LA to Las Vegas, I saw 2 or 3 times "Death Valley" at intersections. Our original plan for this 27th December was to take the relax drive from Las Vegas to Los Angeles and stop on the way to the outlets for some more shopping. But here it is, I just made my math, and we have too many kilos for the small plane we are going to take in a few days time. So no more shopping, let's try to keep it as simple. I went to google map, and find out driving from Las Vegas to the Death Valley and on to Los Angeles would be something like 8 hours. I did forget one thing, is that once in the Death Valley, there are few stops you want to take, few hills you want to hike. Eight hours it was not!

I dropped the Grandparents for their rental car, went back to pick up the kids at the hotel...and we drive....without much planning...and any GPS. Well, we may have missed a turn, but that stop, still in Nevada with the sign "Brothel" and "Alien Center"....made us all laugh a lot. I have to admit, we didn't stop for a visit! We may have been easy an hour being schedule, and we were not even in the Death Valley National Park!



Once in the park, this place remind me of the huge trip we did back just three years ago, going all the way from Zion, Bryce, Antelope, Monument, Horseshoe Bend as well as Canyonlands and Arches. This trip was an amazing one, one that my parents are partial reproducing this week. But we never made it before to the lowest point of North Amercia, the great National Park of Death Valley. Do not ask me why I forgot about this place!



The pass is only 20 usd for what is a huge National Park. Very fast, I found out we would never arrive close to LA before sunset. This was a fact...The next question was...would I even make it out of the Death Valley before 5pm, as sunset is pretty early this time of the year...and would I do any mistake when it comes to have enough petrol for the ride ahead?



The good news, is that the answer was a perfect yes for both questions. Roads can be tricky around the National Park...and even way behind it. But I made it to road with a decent marking on the road before it was too late. For the petrol, we had a close call, but we made it. Imagine, petrol around Las Vegas goes as low as 2.4usd a gallon now...nothing. In the park, we saw it at 4.2usd a gallon....and all around LA, the lower we saw it was 2.83....but as high as 3.8usd a gallon...that's a huge difference, sometimes just 5 minutes away! And our little Jeep this week is a true American car...consuming like I have never seen!



We ended up spending hours in the National Park, walking on the salt pan, walking and driving through few canyons. This place is simply gorgeous, and pretty famous with Indian and Chinese, I guess the new face of famous world places when it comes to tourism. There was no time for lunch, but the car was loaded. We ended up arriving at our hotel past 8pm. It there that I was happy I had chose a hotel on the outside of Greater LA....after driving for more than 12 hours that day, the last 3-4 hours being night driving, I was happy not to have to face the legendary traffic jams of LA. That would be for the next two days!



What a long day, but what a gorgeous day...one more place that we have enjoyed in our quest to discover the world!

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