Woke up and decided to conquer the rock
pile behind Tall Wall. Kids could have stayed here all day. We hope to
come back to Alabama Hills for much longer. We all got pretty high on
the boulders. I hadn’t actually planned to climb high but Isaac was
frustrated with not being as capable as Jack. So I climbed with him and
we talked about how just because you are short doesn’t mean you have to
get frustrated or discouraged. After all I’m shorter than Daniel. We
just have to find a different way. And we did! We all got pretty high.
I'm counting three different walks for today's hike (bouldering at Alabama Hills, two short stops in Death Valley and walking the strip in Las Vegas). These make up our 32nd hike for 2021 (32/52). We walked a total of 3 miles. This brings us to 96 miles hiked this year.
This afternoon we made it to Death Valley. The kids got
their Jr Ranger badges abs then we stopped at the Badwater Basin to
check out the salt flat and be at the lowest part of the US — almost 300
feet below sea level!
Before leaving Death Valley, we had time to stop at Zabrieskie Point. We could have explored here a lot more, but we are running out of days and have a lot of miles ahead of us to get home.
Day 24: After a day of climbing, hiking,
site seeing and driving, we landed in Las Vegas. We set up camp at the
Oasis and then went into town for dinner at Sickies Garage — which was
delicious but took forever. Then we drove down the strip and tried to
see the Fountains at the Belaggio. We waited for 45 minutes before
giving up (they are supposed to run every 15 minutes). That was
disappointing but it was still neat to see the strip when it wasn’t
super crowded (we did have to avert little eyes a few times).
