In the morning at Furnace Creek Campground, I hung out and wrote in my journal. This is something I do in every trip I take.
Because earlier today I was learning some boy scout camping techniques with my father, I wrote about that:
We then headed to the north of Death Valley, making a quick stop at Scotty's Castle (very boring). We were not sure if we should do a backcountry road trip or not, and the woman at Scott's Castle Visitor Center said don't do it. She discouraged us saying how the road was bad and how people get stuck with flat tires all the time. My parents then held back on our goal to go to Race Track but I insisted on doing it. We had to. It looked beautiful in the pictures and our friend Anne had spoken amazing things about it.
I won.
Ubehebe Crater was on the way and that was just the beginning of our adventure! The crater was caused by magma hitting water and steam blowing off the top of the mountain. It was huge. And very very windy when you stood on top of it.
The road to the Racetrack was bumpy and we were afraid of flats and flying rocks from the tires. But it was not as bad as the woman made it sound and the view was something really wild. Every few miles, the landscape changed. Our favorite part was a section with mountains filled with cacti (plural for cactus).
That night we camped at the Racetrack on a place that was quite remote and had only a couple of other tents, each respecting privacy and space between each other. We had to withstand the aches from sleeping in a rocky floor, but the sky was bright with stars and the fire was homemade (without matches!).
Click here to view more photos of March 16
