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Thursday , November 19, 2020 Final approach to home.  From Death Valley going south rather than heading west and connecting up with HWY395 we head west but then cut off earlier and travel the road through the Panamint Valley and into the Searles Valley.  These parallel the Hwy395 but further inland.  The scenery is stark but surrounded by mountains (The Panamint Range and Argus Range which are obscuring our view of the Sierras.) Although the landscape is stark there is still beauty to it and it was obviously a lake bed long ago. As we head out of Death Valley we see some impressive alluvial plains and it suddenly occurs to me that the incredible uplifting that we saw in the Titus Canyon may have actually started with the formation of alluvial plains ( that are already on a slant) that then are being uplifted more by earth movement.  I have wondered how the earth got some of the layers in mountains almost vertical.  This satisfied me a bit how this is accomplishe...
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 Wednesday, November 18, 2020 We are leaving Ely, Nevada today going towards Death Valley, California.  The interesting part of this drive to me from Ely to Death Valley was that most of the drive through Nevada was over 6,000 feet.  We were driving through high dry desert.  Very high desert.   We decided to enter Death Valley through Titus Canyon - a 27 mile gravel rocky road that takes 2-3 hours.  Fascinating.  Canyon is just outside Beatty, Nevada which is at an altitude of 3,307 ft.  So we are dropping 3307 ft in 27 miles.  That should start to give you a hint of what Titus Canyon drive is like.  We will be driving through rugged mountains, steep, deep valleys and an incredible narrow canyon passage for the finale.  The magnitude of this drive is hard to capture in pictures, but we will try.   There were also amazing subtle layers of colors but that too was difficult to show in pictures.  C learly  you w...
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 Tuesday, November 17, 2020 Off to Ely.  Ely, Nevada.  Halfway destination between Boise, Idaho and Death Valley, California. The altitude of Ely turns out to be 6437 - higher than Lake Tahoe at lake level.  It gets about the same amount of rain as San Diego of 10 inches, but will get an average of 50 inches of snow.  Rather surprised to not see snow on the ground when we got there as we saw a lot of snow elsewhere.  Especially in the mountains.  After we passed through Twin Falls, Idaho we turned due south to  head for Ely.  The passage on that highway reminded me a great deal of traveling on HWY 395 in the Eastern Sierras.  The snow covered mountains made that impression even more vivid.  It was a beautiful high desert landscape surrounded by snow tinged mountains. All you other travelers that go on HWY 395 - doesn't this corridor (above pictures)  remind you of the Sierras? High winds was a big part of this journey.  Bo...
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 Monday, November 16, 2020 Sadly, we leave Juliaetta and Kenny and Jessica.  So, the main reasons for this cross country adventure are over and the remainder of the trip is wending our way home, using short trips of 5 or so hours to determine our stops and if something fun/interesting happens on the way or in that town where we are staying then that is all a bonus. The corona virus is gearing up all over the country now and it seems each city that we leave is reporting more and more cases.  We feel a bit like we are dodging the gauntlet.  We have been faithful about wearing our masks and social distancing the best we can and washing our hands a lot.  And as we head home to San Diego it seems like that has also become a hot spot.   So our first destination after leaving Kenny and Jessica on a rainy day  is Boise, Idaho.  (1st picture below is actually driving down Middle Potlatch Creek Road away from their house, gloomy and rainy...a bit like ...
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