We had a good time at Death Valley today. To help celebrate “Dark Sky”, they brought scientists from NASA Goddard, JPL, and other places to give talks. I learned why there are parts of the Moon that never receive sunlight. I’ve read that many times. It always seemed a little off. I just assumed the scientists have been thinking of this a lot more than I. Actually, the answer is quite simple. The Earth’s declination is about 25 degrees, Moon’s is less than 2. So the sun doesn’t change its path with seasonal changes. We also learned a lot about the mission to look for life in Europa. We even learned that last year’s Dark Sky was a bust. They had the heaviest rain ever recorded. Water couldn’t be absorbed quickly so a temporary lake was formed. There was mud everywhere. Then high winds came in and moved the lake about 2 miles downwind. Needless to say, nobody wanted to put up their expensive telescopes.

Besides the interesting talks, we visited interesting sites. “Artists Palette” highlights all the colors provided by the minerals in rock formations.

Natural Bridge is distinctive enough that Danita and I had our lunch there. We think it was a bit of a bust. Access requires driving 1.5 miles on a rough gravel road, then walking 2,000 feet uphill in loose gravel. When we got there, we found the formation just isn’t very exciting.

“Badwater Basin” got its name when somebody’s mules refused to drink the extremely salty water around the salt flats. This is the lowest point in the US.

Here’s a site we in the eastern US don’t see. Salt in the foreground; snow in the background.

Our last challenge in Death Valley is to get dinner. Dark Sky pulled a few extra visitors this weekend. Park attendance was about the same as on the 3-day President’s weekend. Food facilities are inadequate to the task of feeding all the visitors. Breakfast is easy for us, we’re up early. Lunch is even easier — crackers at extraordinary sites. Dinner is not easy. The restaurants that accept reservations are booked up to 8:30 in the evening. Informal restaurants are slammed with people. I can’t imagine what the crowds must be like in the summer. (Actually, I can’t imagine why anybody would come in the summer. But they do. In droves.) There is one dinner place that opens at 5:00. We will try arriving at 4:50 so we can be near the head of the line. We’ll see how well that works. If it’s too outrageous, we have a few crackers left.

I hope this finds everyone doing well.

We made it to Death Valley this morning. We spent most of the day visiting the highlights. I resumed my old hobby of eating lunch in amazing places when we visited Ubehebe Creator. This mountain blew it’s top about 2,000 years ago. I compared the size of this creator to information from the 1980 Mt. Saint Helen’s mountain eruption. The Ubehebe creator is impressively large, but apparently the Mt. Saint Helen’s eruption was much larger.

Another highlight was Zabrishie Point which has a nice view of the many geological features that make Death Valley so interesting.

This weekend is the Dark Sky Festival. We were motivated to go out at night and do some star gazing. We saw an impressive array of stars, but truth be told, we saw even more at Pipe Spring. My best ever star view was Mt. Haleakalā. Still, it was an impressive display.

I hope this finds everyone doing well.

We spent the day Tuesday at Joshua Tree National Park. If you ever visit, you will see scenes like this. It’s a shame my photography doesn’t pick up the rich colors and textures I saw when I was there.

I won’t bore you with a lot of pictures of different plants and such, but I have to include this shot of an actual Joshua Tree.

We did several short hikes. I was able to do a little rock scrambling. Mostly I determined that my body isn’t as flexible and balanced as it once was. Here’s one more pic. When I was standing there, the rock looked like it had been sewn together by aliens. The pick gives no hint to what I saw. That makes it a pretty good joke. Proof of alien visitors can be seen only in person. The evidence is hidden from the camera.

Today we’re taking a vacation from vacationing. We had our free hotel breakfast, leftovers for lunch, and reservations for dinner. Tomorrow is an all-day drive that will take us to the middle of nowhere. (It’s a big country.)

I hope all are doing well.

The tourist site we were going to visit is open every Monday except for Christmas, New Years, and one or two more. This year, they were also closed on President’s Day. It wasn’t on the list of closed days, but it sure was closed. So we watched the parade. It was the real deal with dance class girls, baton girls, school bands, and a queen. They also had these dune buggies, which were quite popular and quite loud. It is not cool to have a door that opens, even if the owner is getting a little less flexible and takes some time to crawl through the window opening.

We also visited the Shield’s Date Garden, where we learned everything there is to know about dates. They claim that 95% of all dates grown in the US are farmed in Coachella County. Shield’s is unbelievably popular. The parking lot is so crowded it was a miracle nobody got dinged. People were driving their super-sized pickup trucks, towing huge RVs through the lot so they could stop at the gift shop. Shield’s also has a restaurant. Every last seat was taken. People were sitting on every horizontal surface waiting their turn to eat at Shield’s. We left Shield’s and ate lunch at Farmer Boys. It is popular, but not so busy that we couldn’t get a table right away. Their hamburgers are huge.

I hope this finds everyone doing well.

San Diego had unseasonably cool weather, followed by a good amount of rain. Sunday erased all that with a picture-perfect sunny warm day. On our drive out, we stopped at the zoo. The zoo is quite expensive. Normally we wouldn’t have stopped, but my lovely eagle-eyed bride found out that seniors were admitted free in February. That saved us $130, making the outrageous parking fee seem a bargain. We weren’t the only ones who decided to enjoy a beautiful day in a beautiful park to enjoy some beautiful weather and some amazing animals. By the time we left, cars were circling the parking lot looking for an open parking space. The park is immensely spacious, but the crowds were filling it up. The keystone exhibit is a tram ride through an area they call the African Plains. We took one look at the hour-and-a-half crowd of people waiting their turn for a ride and decided to enjoy the Plains from several overlooks. We very much enjoyed ourselves. There are a few pics below. You won’t have any trouble identifying the animals.

The rest of the day was taken up by our uneventful drive to Palm Desert. I’ll spare you pictures of the Interstate. ;-) I hope this finds everyone doing well.

It took almost all day Sunday to move ourselves to our hotel in Ventura. There were no mishaps, but we were kind of tuckered out when we finally got settled.

Monday we went to the Reagan Library. It changed a lot since I saw it. One thing that didn’t change was the overpowering presence of the building. Besides being very impressive architecture, it is situated on the top of a mountain overlooking Semi Valley. Very impressive views.

The changes were mostly good. They used to display hundreds of the gifts that Reagan received from other heads of state. Most of them are no longer displayed. Instead, they did a very effective job of describing the tenor of the times, then described how things changed during Reagan’s presidency. I mostly appreciated their presentation. They included some things that were unrelated, such as a steel beam from the 9/11 attack on the New York World Trade Center. (GW Bush was president.) Understandably, they skipped over some things I thought were important. For example, they mentioned nothing about Iran-Contra, Oliver North, or North’s secretary (who sneaked classified documents out by hiding them in her underwear). A very nice addition was the plane Reagan used as Air Force 1. We spent most of the day in the library and felt it was time well spent.

Today (Tuesday) we did a walking tour of Ventura. The highlight was the Mission Basilica San Buenaventura. Strangest fact: this was the only mission that had wooden bells.

We’re going viral! When we were in Tucson, we visited a carriage museum. They were filming a short and asked if we would be willing to participate. You can see us in this 7-minute video. If you are impatient, skip ahead to 6:20.

Tomorrow we take our longest train ride: Ventura to San Diego.

Wednesday was a sea day. It was nothing to write about. Except for the 45 minutes we lost power very early in the morning. Other than that, a totally typical cruise day.

Thursday we saw two great shows. The first was an excursion to Puerto Vallarta. The excursion focused on tequila — how it is made, how to properly drink it, and of course how to buy it. I always thought there were two types of tequila — flavored and unflavored. It turns out that if you want to spend enough money, you can buy high quality tequila. I don’t even like tequila. But it was a way to get off the ship and enjoy the warm, sunny weather. The excursion included a dance show almost as a time filler, but Danita and I enjoyed the show immensely.

The show is called Mayaheul. Mayahuel is the Aztec goddess of the maguey plant, fertility, and nourishment. She is also associated with love, magic, and transformation. The show had the four Aztek elements of earth, fire, water, and air. Never mind that the Azteks never were near Puerto Vallarta. The dance was a riot of fun. Dancers were swinging from the ceiling, running up and down the aisles, using fire rings as hula hoops, and playing loud drums. I tried to get two quick pics. One of them came out reasonably well.

The other great show was the evening entertainment in the ship’s main auditorium. They had an illusionist who put on a fine act. He had rods with LED flashing lights floating in the air, rods turning into scarves, ropes turning into rods, and all manor of entertaining illusions. The illusionist will be back tonight. We’ll be sure to get good seats.

Today and tomorrow are sea days. Sunday we’ll disembark, then take the train from LA to Ventura. I hope this finds everybody doing well.

Our mission today was to visit Spanish Missions. The first was San Diego de Alcala, near the port town of Lorreto, on the western shore of the California peninsula. (Mexican California, of course). This was a quick stop. You see the original church (circa 1650) with a new bell tower. (The original bell tower was damaged in an earthquake). I can personally vouch for the bells correctly clanging out the time.

Here’s an interior pick. Mexicans worship in and love these old churches. They don’t have a lot of money. We wouldn’t call the churches pristine. But the structures and decorations are all in good shape. The circle of blue light is a modern addition. LED lights appear to encircle Jesus.

The highlight was the Javier Vigge Biaumdo mission. This was located due east, near the east coast of California. To get there, we took a 45-minute bus ride through some fairly extreme mountains. The road was paved, but narrow with plenty of switchbacks, tight turns, and drop-offs — many of which had no guard rail. This mission is about 100 years newer than San Diego de Alcala. It’s located at one of the largest oasis in California.

Once a year, they have a huge celebration at this mission. People come from all around the area, mostly riding horses. Some folks are so distant that it takes 2 weeks to complete their horse ride. The road connecting the two missions is 700 years old. Back in the day, it took two days to ride between these two missions. The Jesuits built a “half way” house. It’s nothing but a small building. We didn’t stop there, but the door was open. I saw many decorations, flowers, etc, all in good shape. The building is obviously visited frequently. Here’s the inside of the mission church.

This mission was the first to plant grapes in America. They original grape tree is still there. This provided the first wine made in America. They still produce wine today.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

We visited El Serpentine. It’s a site dedicated to preservation of endemic species, especially those species who are endangered. Our tour guide was Marcos.

The strangest critter we say looks like a worm. It isn’t a worm because it has two front legs and worms don’t have legs.

This center started out with a friendship between a local and a US citizen in San Diego. The US guy had money. Both shared a passion for reptiles. Together they partnered the San Diego Zoo to provide their expertise in animal care and exhibit structures. The US citizen visited Mexico and disappeared. The Mexican authorities couldn’t find what happed to him. The FBI came to La Pax and were equally unproductive. The US family withdrew the money. Today, this is a 100% volunteer organization. The Mexican owner is retired and has enough of a pension that he doesn’t need an income. His full time efforts go towards education and preservation. Our guide was one of the volunteers working at the site.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.