Death Valley Off Road Trip - October 2013

In mid October, Nancy and I joined our Land Cruiser friends for a trip to Death Valley to do some off-road exploration.   The trip was lead by Andy P. and there were 5 other vehicles – Andy along with passenger John F, Dan S, Tom F, Pasquale B, and Scott S and his daughter Grace.

Dan, Nancy, Steve, Pasquale, Top, Andy, Scott, Grace, John

We left Sacramento Sunday morning and drove  pretty much straight through to our destination for the night at the Fish Lake Hot Springs.  Fish Lake is just across the border in Nevada and it makes a nice camp spot on the way to Death Valley.   Unfortunately the springs were quite crowded that night – there must have been about 20 vehicles parked there – it was an off-road motorcycle club from Salinas.  We were fearing the worst but they were a very well behaved and quiet group – there were as old as we were so their rowdy days were far behind them.

The Ponds at Fish Lake Hot Springs

The springs at Fish Lake were very well maintained, nice and clean.   There were some ponds adjacent to the springs that were just beautiful and to my amazement they were full of goldfish.   I guess someone had released them and in the warm spring water they had done quite well.   What a sight to see golden fish swimming around in a pond in the mountains.

Goldfish at Fish Lake Hot Springs

Next morning (Monday) we headed south to Dyer and drove into the National Park on Eureka Dunes Road skirting around the very majestic Eureka Dunes.   From there it was through Dedeckera Canyon up and over Steel Pass and then down the wash to Saline Valley Hot Springs (a place we had stayed in in prior years).

Eureka Dunes

There were a few people at the springs but the area is so large that we didn’t collide.  The springs were beautifully maintained and very clean.  There is a shower area in a grove of palm trees and even a toilet with a library of books.  It appears that there are some longer-term residents at the springs that take pride in maintaining the facilities.

Tuesday morning we pushed on down Saline Valley past the swampy vegetated area where apparently in the previous week a vehicle had gone into the undergrowth ignited the vegetation with their hot exhaust. They then bogged down in the mud and were then unable to get their vehicle away from the fire.   While they were not hurt their vehicle burned up.   The fire was still smoldering but we did not see any sign of the truck.

We traveled all the way to the southerly end of Saline Valley and turned up towards the Lippincott Mine.  It was a nice long grade up to the pass with some spectacular switchbacks.  Not too challenging but challenging enough to be interesting and exciting.  Nancy did a fine job of driving.

The approach to Lippincott Pass

We dropped down from Lippincott pass to the Race Track where some of us stopped to take a look at the stones and their tracks across the playa.  Quite an interesting phenomena – a perfectly flat playa across which in the right conditions (moisture, ice and wind) fairly large rocks are pushed across the ground leaving trails on the playa.  No one is sure as to the exact mechanism, but it appears that wind is the driving force in just the right combination of surface water and ice.

Stones on the Playa at The Racetrack

In something of an anomaly at the far side of the playa there was cell phone signal.   There are areas of Sacramento where I can't get a signal, and here in this remote corner of the Death Valley we have signal.

On past Tea Kettle Junction (where there were far fewer tea kettles than 2 years ago), and then up towards Lost Burro Mine and White Top Mountain.   We went to the end of the trail by White Top and were treated to a spectacular view of Panamint Valley below.   We choose this overlook area for our campsite that night.  It was much higher here and there was a nip in the air.

Fine food from Andy for dinner – salmon sashimi from fish he caught in Alaska the previous month and an amazing sea food chowder.   Pasquale brought out his guitar and serenaded us with some equally fine music.  We were living well.

The next morning we headed south on Hidden Valley Road over Hunter Mountain until we joined up with the southerly extension of Saline Valley Road.  From there it was a fast run across the valley floor through some nice examples of Joshua Trees until we joined up with the paved road to Panamint Springs where we took advantage of some very expensive (> $6 per gallon) gasoline.

Joshua Trees

Panamint Valley Road was supposedly washed out and was closed.   We skirted around the barriers and headed south.   Taking to the dirt we traveled down the eastern side of Panamint Valley, past the town of Ballerat and the active mining operation that is going on there.   Ballerat looked pretty deserted but the Manson families Power Cruiser is still parked in the middle of town.

We traveled south to the entrance to Goler Canyon and made our way up the canyon over the Mengel Pass to Striped Butte.  Goler Canyon is very impressive (very similar to Titus Canyon) and fun to drive.  It is, of course, the last hold out of the Manson Family and Charlie was caught hiding under a sink in the Barker Ranch up this canyon. 

Near to Striped Butte there is a cabin, the so-called Geologist’s Cabin, and fortunately it was unoccupied so we made camp there.   Another beautiful location and the perfect spot for more salmon sashimi and some of Tom’s Salmon Fish Cakes.   Pasquale again provided some great music as we polished off the last of my Talisker.

The Geologist's Cabin, Striped Butte

Thursday morning we headed down Warm Springs Valley until it joined up with highway near Ashford Mill.   We took the pavement east over Jubilee Pass and Salisbury Pass.  We then took off northwards on dirt on Greenwater Valley Road until turning west on Gold Valley through the Amargosa Range to the end of the trail at Willow Springs.  We did a short hike down the valley but the loose rock and gravel didn’t make for very nice walking conditions.

Heading back out to the east we found a nice flat area to make camp.    Tonight was Pasquale’s chance to impress us with his cooking, and that he did – Pasta with Four Meat Meat Balls and a wonderful sauce. 

Friday morning we headed back out to Greenwater Valley Road and headed north towards Furnace Creek.  We took the side road to Dante’s View overlook with it’s superb overlook of the entire extent of Death Valley.  In Furnace Creek we again had the opportunity to buy some expensive gas.   With full tanks of gas we headed back to the dirt roads and headed east up Echo Canyon.   Echo Canyon took us up and over the Funeral Mountains and dropped us down to the settlement of Amargosa.  

From Amargosa we continued north to Beattie and then west into the Amargosa Range.  That evening we camped at Starzy Ranch.  A wonderful setting in a cattle corral beneath an overhanging cliff.  It was our turn to cook and, given the prior nights fine cuisine, we were feeling a little performance anxiety.  While we were not as organized as the others and while we didn’t have all the required equipment we did a pretty good job of delivering pork loin with fig sauce, potatoes and spinach.   When I say we, I really mean Nancy, I just followed her instructions.

Campsite at Starzy Ranch

Friday night was our last night on the trail and we headed out Saturday morning back home.  A long drive but we made it to Sacramento by 6:00 in the evening.   A wonderful week exploring one of the more interesting parts of California.

  

Aspens on Highway 395 on the way home

Here's a link to more photographs from the trip.

Dubai - June 2013

After being in retirement for 6 months the opportunity to do a little work came up whilst I was in England.   Nothing serious, just a week of work in Dubai holding the hand of a new Infostat customer as they rolled out our software.   Since I was over in England, it made sense to send me rather than have someone come all the way from California.

I flew out of Manchester to Zurich where I connected with the Swissair flight to Dubai.  A slight mishap at Manchester airport when I found my reservation had been cancelled and I had to scramble to buy a new ticket at an inflated price, but we survived.  

What a beautifully clean, tidy and modern airport Zurich is; just what you would expect from the Swiss.   Though neither my arriving or departing flight were on time, which somewhat spoiled the reputation for timeliness that the Swiss have.  Regardless, it was a real pleasure to stroll through the un-crowded airport.

In Dubai, the airport was also nice and clean and tidy, though on a whole grander scale than Zurich’s.  Then, of course, the big difference was when you walked outside and felt the onslaught of the heat and humidity.  

Dubai Metro

To get to my hotel the taxi ride was pretty much through the entire length of the city/state/emirate or whatever you call it.   I got a good feel for how modern and high rise the whole area was and how large it all was horizontally as well as vertically – all very impressive.

Dubai seems to be laid out in discrete pods of high rise buildings alongside a backbone of a major highway and metro system.   I was staying in a the Jumeirah Lakes Towers area.  The Bonnington Hotel – quite luxurious and just what I needed.

View from Burj Khalifa

The next morning was Saturday, not a work day in Dubai, their weekend is Friday and Saturday.  So I became a tourist for the day.  There is one of those hop on, hop off bus tours that takes you around the sights so I decided to do that.  That required a metro trip to the Mall of the Emirates.  The Metro itself was quite wonderful.   Air conditioned, clean, quite new and featuring the world’s fastest driverless trains.  It was a real wonder to experience it.   A long, long way from the Metropolitan Line in London.

I boarded the bus, a double-decker, with running commentary of the trip in a selection of languages and for a while I was brave enough to sit outside in the open air upper deck.   That lasted about 5 minutes.   It was hovering around 40 deg C and the humidity was high.  It was quite withering.

I don’t know what I was expecting but there doesn’t seem to be anything much older than say 10 years to see in Dubai.  Everything looks like it was just built yesterday.

Yes there is an older part of town around the Dubai Creek, but it is not that big and not that impressive.  It was nice to do a little boat trip down the Dubai Creek and observe the old dhows loading up with cargo, and the smaller abras carrying passengers across the creek.

Dubai Creek

Apart from that it was Malls, high-rise buildings, man-made islands, five star hotels and expensive shops.   I did the obligatory trip up the Burj Khalifa the world’s tallest building at 2700ft.   It is indeed an impressive structure and you can get to an observation platform about ¾ of the way up.  Then there is the indoor ski-slope in one of the malls, and the largest acrylic panel on the front of an aquarium in another mall, a huge waterfall in another mall.   Then there is the Palm Jumeira - the man made island in the shape of a palm tree, the Barj el Arab, the self designated 7 star hotel.  All impressive modern stuff but how can it be sustainable?  I want to see it in 50 years time.

Burj Khalifa

At the end of the day I was exhausted from the heat and humidity but I think that I had seen nearly everything that Dubai had to offer.  

Sunday was the start of the work week.  Nothing challenging - they just wanted someone to be there to answer questions as they got ready to roll out our software to Egypt and Indonesia.   A couple of things I noticed - there are an awful number of Brits working in Dubai, there are also an awful number of Indians too.  Some of these folks smoke - in particular the two that I was working with.  Since the trip for a smoke involved a trip from the 31st floor to the ground floor and out the door, these smoke breaks, of which there were many, were a serious drag on time.  It has been a long time since I had been around smokers.

Talking of expats, the Emiratis are a minority in their own country.  I believe in 2012 the Emiratis were just 9% of the population with a whopping 91% being expatriates.  A significant number of those are Indian, Bangladeshis, Pakistanis that do all the work.  I didn’t see where they all lived but by the time that I went to work, they were there laboring on the many construction sites, cleaning the offices and homes.  I think if you look closely there are some pretty unsavoury things going on with these folks and their working conditions.

Barj El Arab Hotel

After work, we went out on a couple of nights for a drink.  We went to the Marina area which is just another collection of high rises towers next to a marina with a lot of very large, very expensive looking boats.   The wealth is in your face wherever you look here.  Lots of bars too and alcohol though somewhat expensive is readily available for the expats.

Dubai at night

Nothing too spectacular happened for the rest of the week.  I returned back to the UK, again via Zurich overnight Thursday evening/Friday morning.   An interesting trip for sure, but Dubai is not a place I would not put high on my list of places to revisit.

Here is a link to all the photos from this trip on my Smugmug site.

Continental Europe - May, June2013

After we had finished our Dales Way walk in May, Nancy and I stayed with my mother for a few days and then headed to Germany where we had scheduled to pick up my new car from the Audi factory – a Q5 – very nice.  We flew from Manchester to Munich where we were whisked off by an Audi chauffeur to Ingolstadt, 50 miles north of Munich and the location of the Audi factory.

The European Purchase option for an Audi is quite a nice deal.  You get 5% off the sticker price of the car and of course you get to order it exactly as you want – nothing extra and nothing left off.   You get picked up from Munich airport and put up in a hotel in Ingolstadt and then delivered to the factory the next day.

At the AUDI Factory with the new car

We had a great time at the Audi factory – we were given free access to the bar and restaurant, a factory tour and a visit to the Audi museum.   The factory tour was quite amazing – such a clean place, such a quiet place, and it was amazing how much was done by robots – very impressive indeed.  Of course at the end of the day we got to drive away in this wonderful new vehicle.

Augsberg

Mid afternoon, we headed off to Augsberg, our resting place for the night.  We didn’t know where to stay, but somehow we found a nice little hotel near the center of town.  f course, the hotel was down a very narrow street and the basement parking was an even narrower subterranean entrance.  Not the place to take your new car on its first day out.  Still, we escaped unscathed.

The next day we headed out of Augsberg, itself a pretty town, to a couple of even prettier towns on the so-called RomantischeStrasse.  The first town was Dinkelsbuehl – very picturesque, very cute, but quite touristy.  The perfectly preserved buildings in the town center (some dating back to the 15^th century) were just a little bit too perfect well manicured.  As is usually the case, the large number of tourists wandering around did not add to our appreciation of the place.

Dinkelsbuehl

We moved on to one of the other towns on the Romantic Road - Rothenburg ob der Tauber.  This again was another perfectly preserved town laden with tourists.  We walked around, grabbed a bite to eat and decided we had seen enough of the Romantische Strasse.   We decided to head south (we had been heading north today) and make for the Bavarian Alps and Berchtesgarden (Hitler’s summer retreat).

As we drove southeast, the rain started and by the time we reached Berchtesgarden it was pouring down.  It was dark when we rolled into town and we were not in the mood for being selective in our lodging so we found a room in the quite adequate but unexceptional Hotel Grunberger.

The next morning we had thought we would go up to Hitler’s retreat, Kehlsteinhaus above Berchtesgarden (nicknamed the Eagle’s Nest and built as a 50^th birthday present for the man).  Alas this was not to be, the weather was not good (rain and snow at higher altitudes) and the road to the top of the mountain was closed.  We settled instead for a visit to the museum.  It was an interesting museum dealing with the rise of Hitler, his association with the Obersaltzburg area and the Second World War.  It has to be a difficult subject for the Germans to address, but I felt they did a good job here in Berchtesgarden.

In the afternoon we continued southeast and crossed into Austria and made our way to Salzburg.  We splurged on a room at the Hotel Bristol, one of the nicer hotels in town.  It was still raining pretty heavily and the Danube looked like it was in flood.  The old part of town is quite nice (it’s a UNESCO World Heritage site) but on this wet day it was hard to fully appreciate.   You would think that on a wet day like this the tourists would be few and far between.  That was not the case; they were all there with their umbrellas, which made it all the worse.

Danube at Salzburg

The next morning, it was damp but not so heavy rain.   We walked up to the fortress on top of the hill overlooking the town – the Hohensalzburg Fortress - quite impressive with nice views of the city.   In between rain showers we again wandered around the old part of town.

In the afternoon, we left Salzburg for the Czech Republic.   We were not sure where we would end up but we knew we ultimately wanted to get to Prague.  We sped east on the autobahn past Traun and Linz to tbe border with the CR.  The weather started getting worse as we drove north into the CR.  The rain was pouring down.   We stopped in Ceske Budejovice, the birthplace of Budweiser beer, but were unable to find a hotel that looked appealing so we headed further north.   We finally stopped in Tabor, a nice little town, the birthplace of the Hussites, and we found a nice little hotel in the main town square, the Hotel Nautilus.   I liked Tabor very much - at least the old town part where we were staying.  It was a shame about the weather however, but we were getting used to that.

Tabor

The next morning we continued on towards Prague.  Another damp day but things started to clear as we got into Prague.  We resolved to find a hotel on the outskirts of the old city where we would park the car and take the tram into town.   That plan did not work very well and soon we found ourselves in the middle of the old town and however hard we tried to get out we kept getting deeper and deeper into narrower and narrower streets. Since the Vitava River, a tributary of the Danube that flows through the city, was approaching flood stage we were concerned about the old town flooding so we finally extricated ourselves from the downtown area and found a place on the east side of the river between the Castle and the Loreta.  That was a good move, the area by the castle is quieter and less traveled by tourists - our hotel, the Domus Henrici was small, tasteful and great value.

Prague

Whilst we were seeing Prague in imperfect conditions - it was grey, it was wet, flood barriers were being erected, the Charles Bridge was closed for most of the time - nevertheless it is a wonderful city.  Everywhere you look in the old city there is something wonderful to behold, whether it is an elaborate astronomical clock on the old town hall, a cathedral, an elegant old hotel, a plaque to commemorate a notable resident like Kafka, Einstein, Chopin, or just some simple adornment on a building.   The place is magnificent.  Yes it is full of tourists, perhaps not so many in these wet times, but that is the price you pay in such a wonderful city.

The Astronomical Clock, Prague

We walked a lot, we rode the excellent tram system, we dined reasonably well (however food would not be high on my list for reasons to return), we went to a classical music concert in an incredible hall.   It is an impressive city and we had a great time.

We stayed an extra day longer than we anticipated and then headed out of town to the west en route for Berlin.   On the way we stopped in Pilzen for lunch and then got sidetracked into the Pilsener Urqueil brewery.   Since we were at the source of the pilsener brewing method it was only right that we do the brewery tour.  Well worth it, particularly the underground tunnels where they cold-fermented the beer in the old days.

Pilsener Urqueil Brewery, Pilzen

From Pilzen we went further west to Marienbad.   Marienbad is a strange place.  Basically a park in the middle of town surrounded by lots of very large, very ornate, Victorian era hotels.  It came to prominence in the late 1800’s early 1900’s as a spa resort where the rich would take the waters and various other treatments.  It is still clinging to this client base, though these days they are not so rich and some of the hotels show only a glimmer of their past grandeur.   Since it caters to residents who stay for a week or more and take the waters, it was not that easy to find a hotel for the night.   It’s just not something they do.  We did eventually get a room at the Danube Health Spa Resort Centralni Lazne.  A nice enough place but the residents all looked infirm in some way and we may have brought the average age down, which is hard for us to do these days.  This hotel was also remarkable in that it had the longest check-in procedure one could ever experience.  I don’t know what the lady was doing, but she was messing about with some ridiculous bureaucratic process for 20 minutes.

Marienbad

Breakfast the next morning was weird - the food was bad, the clientele didn’t look happy, there was something just too strange about the place.  We did however want to make the best of our stay so we donned our dressing gowns and slippers and padded the halls like the rest of the guests.   We went to the swimming pool and spa area, everyone else was going to various treatment rooms where all manner of baths, irrigations and potions were deployed.  The swimming bath, indoor, was one of the most ornate pools I had been in.  There were pictures of Edward VI on the walls of the hotel - I wonder if he swam in this same pool - it was certainly from that era, with elaborate tiling, stained glass roof, brass rails around the pool.

Swimming Pool, Marienbad

We then walked around the park and took the waters.   There was a pavilion with 5 or 6 different spring water outlets - one was sulphurous, one was metallic, all tasted nasty.  I guess you figure out which water is best for you condition and you sip away from these elaborate porcelain tea pot vessels.  We took the cheap option and shared a plastic cup (which you had to pay for). As the water tastes so bad they sell these wafer biscuits that you can munch on to make the whole process a little more agreeable.   Like giant sugary communion wafers.

After Marienbad we headed for Berlin arriving there in the mid-afternoon.  Here we were in another major city with the new car.  A car is not exactly what you need in a big city.  In some respects we would be better off without it.  However, we were lucky enough to find a nice hotel in the Mitte district, the Hotel Honig, with parking not too far away.   That evening we walked the local streets and found a nice Italian place to eat.  This neighbourhood looked very hip and trendy - a nice place to live I would imagine.

The Reichstag

The next day we did a bit of a walking tour of the more significant sites - Unter den Linden, the Brandenburg Gate, the Reichstag.   Outside the new parliament building there was something going off and we stood and observed a military band lining up and a motorcade coming down the street, then Angela Merkel herself came out to greet who we later found out to be the Turkish President.  All at a distance of course, behind a fence, but you could tell it was Angela.

A brief visit in the afternoon to the Bauhaus museum and some more wandering around. I was getting a cold (which lasted for the next 3 months....) and wasn't feeling good.

Berlin Cathedral

The next morning we visited a nearby section of the Berlin Wall. They have preserved it in various places around town and there appears to be a brass rail embedded into the pavement along it's path through the city. The other interesting thing embedded into the pavement are these small brass plates commemorating Jews that once lived in the adjacent housing and were presumably sent to the concentration camps.  

One of the last remnants of the Wall

Plaques memorializing Jewish homes in Berlin

We then went to the Checkpoint Charlie area and toured the museum there. It is a bit cheesy and touristy but quite interesting.

Checkpoint Charlie

We then drove out of town to the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp. It is the nearest camp to Berlin and was used as some sort of model for the other camps. Quite disturbing really. The camp is situated in a neighborhood where people carry on apparently normal lives - shops, schools, businesses, children playing in the parks and then this place where terrible things took place. Again rather tastefully preserved and displayed if anything like that can be tasteful.

Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp

The next day we drove to Amsterdam. This would be the last stop on our trip and again another place where you don't need a car. Amsterdam is even worse for parking. After we found a hotel (a nice place with a room overlooking a canal) we sent our car to a Car Hotel. Someone comes along and drives your car out of town to a parking lot somewhere and then you call up the next day and they deliver it back to you. Kind of long distance valet parking. Not cheap either.

Amsterdam

Amsterdam is a nice city to wander around in and lots of interesting stuff going on in the canals and lots of interesting and varied bicycles with all manner of attachments going by. We managed an early morning visit to the recently restored Van Gogh Museum (before the lines got outrageously long) and then I left to deliver the car to the port from where it would be shipped back to the USA.

A Van Gogh favorite

Amsterdam Canal

The next morning we got a cab to the airport and flew back to Heathrow.