Well, after Vegas we needed somewhere less intense to recover and chill out. What better place than Death Valley!! Calling in at Pahrump, pronounced thrrrruuup, we bought copious amounts of water and gas for the journey ahead. Just outside Death Valley is a small town called Shoshone where I had the pleasure of staying four years ago with my son Christopher but this time only had time for a cold beer, alcohol free of course, in the famous Crowbar Saloon. Death Valley is a very strange place where temperatures reach 120F regularly, on this visit it was a cool 116F so we kept our cardigans and vests on!! After stopping for a few photos in Badwater which is the second lowest point in the whole western hemisphere at 86metres below sea level, we continued through to Mesquite Dunes which, as the name implies, are Sahara like sand dunes with the finest sand and covering miles as far as the eye could see. And if you’re a Star Wars fan then you’ll know the location as Tatooine!! Yes! This is where R2D2 and C3PO were lost in the very first film. Then onto Olancha and the Rustic Lodge where we encountered our first traffic jam. Evidently the Burning Man festival had finished that day and tens of thousands of anti establishment, save the World, fight the Man hippies were heading home to LA in their very expensive gas guzzling RVs and 4WDs!! Right on brother 😎😎😎. We eventually got to the lodge and chilled on the porch with a beer or two watching aforementioned festival goers drive past on the highway for hours until around 9pm when it suddenly became very quiet. Shortly after the lights on the porch were turned off and the whole of the night sky was visible with the Milky Way, perfectly clear to the naked eye, shining right through the middle of a jet black sky and, with a distant lightening storm over the mountains, it made for a memorable evening. Off to bed and tomorrow we make for San Francisco but not without a stop off at a quiet little spot called Hanford. Plus we get to meet a few big trees, a couple of humming birds, some chipmunks and one mother of a storm. Keep visiting.