We went to Death Valley to celebrate our 11th wedding anniversary!
We first went to Dumont Dunes on Sunday night and parked our 5th wheel trailer there. We had made arrangements with some other families from church to meet at Dumont to enjoy the beautiful desert dunes and ride our quads.
The next morning (around 11:00 a.m.) we took the "short" drive to Death Valley and Scotty's Castle. Neither of us had checked a map, but the town of Baker, California boasts that it is the "Gateway to Death Valley". We had noticed a highway sign that read "Death Valley Junction....30 miles", so we assumed that we'd be there in half an hour, take the tour, and be back before dark. WRONG! "Death Valley Junction" is NOT "Death Valley". It is just an interchange that leads to Death Valley. We got to "Furnace Creek Visitor's Center" and toured the small visitor's center that explained about Death Valley's history. Then, it took us another hour to get to Scotty's Castle! We arrived at the castle around 3:00 p.m. and took the 3:45 p.m. tour of the basement and generator building, and bought tickets for the final tour of the day--5:00 p.m. We ended back at Dumont Dunes around 9:00 p.m. Everyone was really worried about us. We were out of cell range, so we couldn't call to let them know we were okay. We really enjoyed seeing the castle and hearing the story of "Scotty" and his association with Mr. and Mrs. Johnson. We discovered that Mr. Johnson earned about $750,000 annually back in the 1920s, so he was able to afford the castle and use it as a vacation home. We took about 100 pictures, but we will post just five more, so as not to bore you!
This was Gary's favorite part of the tour--Mr. Johnson's gun rack!
This is Mrs. Johnson's dining room table displayed with Italian flatware that bears the crest of the Death Valley Ranch, with a "J" and an "S" on either side (for Johnson and Scott.) Look closely at the edge of the plate--it is curled up. Scotty told visitors that the dishes had curled up in the heat of Death Valley.
The beautiful upstairs music room has a pipe organ with 1,121 pipes ranging in size from 16' to just a few inches. In the 1920s, it cost Mr. Johnson over $50,000 to purchase, transport, and install the pipe organ. At the end of the tour, the guide pushes a button and the organ plays Bach's "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor".
This picture shows Debi standing on a bridge over the swimming pool that never was finished. It is estimated that the pool would have held over one million gallons of water, had it been completed. There was even an underwater viewing area in the basement of the castle.
Gary stands on the same bridge over the pool area. The front entrance to "Death Valley Ranch" is up the stairs behind him. Happy 11th Wedding Anniversary to us! Here's a link to the National Park Service's webpage about Death Valley:http://www.nps.gov/deva/historyculture/scottys-castle.htm
