Day 9

Today was another long driving day. 300 miles from Death Valley to Zio National Park, plus a 35 mile detour to see Badwater Basin – the lowest place in the United States.

After breakfast at the Toll Road Restaurant, we packed up and set off into the heart of Death Valley. We passed enormous sand dunes and found more super straight roads. We briefly stopped at the site of an old Borax mine, long since abandoned – definitely not the easiest way to make a living!

Our original route had us travelling south and exiting Death Valley via Badwater Road (highway 178 if you want to follow along on Google maps…)  However due to a serious storm a few weeks ago, a lot of the road is damaged and impassable. According to a news article, a 1,000ft section has been washed away completely and in total, 20 miles is covered in mud a debris.

So the new plan would be to simply drive down to Badwater Basin and then back up the way we came.

At Badwater Basin it was really hot. On our 20 minute walk across the salt flats we both drank a lot of the water we’d brought and marvelled at how people could ever have worked in this heat.

On the hillside above the road, about a third of the way up, there’s a sign marking sea level, 282 feet above us. Crazy. Laura also made use of the restroom here (sidenote: surely it’s a toilet – no-one goes in there just to have a rest do they?) and reported back that it was very smelly in there. 

On our return drive we detoured off onto a dirt track to see the Devil’s Golf Course, so called because on the Devil would ever try and play a round of golf there. In reality, it’s just some super jaggedy salt formations. Pretty cool though.

Devil's golf course 

Salt formations at the Devil's Golf Course

After passing through Furnace Creek we stopped at Zabriske Point. The view from here was very pretty and as it wasn’t originally on our route it more than made up for the closed road.

As we left the park we saw a scorpion run across the road. Thankfully we were in the car though so he couldn't get us! After leaving the park we entered Nevada and headed East through the town of Pahrump which was a lot bigger than I’d expected. I would even describe it as ‘sprawling’. Still, it’s got a funny name though. He he. We also got surprised when a dust devil spun right across the road in front of us! 

Dust devil in the distance

Our route took us right through Las Vegas and some heavy traffic. I think at one point I actually heard the sat nav say “I told you so” as the route it had wanted us to take had been slightly to the north and bypassed most of the city. Ah well, it gave us a chance to look at the sights that we’ll be seeing properly next week!

The scenery on the drive was, again, spectacular. As we entered Arizona it felt like we were driving through mini Grand Canyons. At one point, the road took us through the most amazing canyon (the Virgin River Gorge). I have no idea how they managed to build the road through it.

Arizona!

Crazy road through the Virgin River Gorge

The mountains in the distance almost didn’t look real.

As we entered Utah (our fourth state of the day!) we quickly realised that we’d forgotten to account for the time zone and our ETA suddenly moved forward an hour from 6.30pm to 7.30pm. Oops!

Approaching Zion, the view again became spectacular. In the early evening light the mountains looked gorgeous.

When we got to the Bumbleberry Inn at Springdale, it was really sweet and the staff were really friendly. Our room was HUGE and had a lovely view.

View from our room at the Bumbleberry Inn

We keep forgetting to mention how nice all the people are that we’ve encountered in America. People we talk to are just so friendly and polite. Cars seem to give way to pedestrians, shop owners go out of their way to help you.

Springdale is a small but lovely little town. All the shops and businesses are really well maintained and the buildings all seem to fit in really well to the surroundings. We wandered up and down the road looking at the restaurants (and looking at number plates – we’re obsessed) before settling on dinner at Oscar’s.

Dinner was lovely, but there was SO much food! Our nachos (black!?) could have fed a party of 6 and the homemade guacamole was AMAZING. We boxed most of the burrito (that’s lunch sorted for tomorrow then!) but ate all of the burger. I also accidentally ordered a 32oz beer. Oops.

So, 300 miles travelled, lots of scenery seen. Another amazing day.