Death Valley

A couple of years ago we had spent part of an Easter vacation in Death Valley and loved it. We decided to go back right after Christmas to see all of the sites that we missed on our first trip. We were joined by Brian's sister Kim and her husband Rob from Jamul CA (near San Diego).

Death Valley Photos
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December 26th -- Foster City to Furnace Creek Ranch
Death Valley is not the most convenient place to get to from the Bay Area, especially in the winter when three of the mountain passes are closed. To get there from here requires driving I-5 south, cutting across the San Juaquin Valley to Bakersfield, head over the Tehachipis to Mojave, head north towards Ridgecrest Once there it's about a two hour drive to Furnace Creek. About 9 1/2 hours in all.

Driving Interstate 5 is much different that driving around Foster City and we thought that this trip would be a great way for Patrick to get some driving practice in. So he drove the first 2 1/2 hours and by all accounts did pretty well ("I only got honked at twice").

The trip was uneventful. This time Brian did not make us stop at the Tehachapi Loop as he did the last time through here. There were also few planes stored at the Mojave airport than there were in 2004.