Ranch House Inn is a bed and breakfast just south of Death Valley that I discovered a couple of years ago. I designed and maintain a web site for the inn, and in exchange get to visit once or twice a year with my friends, so we made it our base for a weekend of Death Valley exploration.

The Inn is on the China Ranch date farm, and by amazing good luck our visit coincided with owner Brian Brown's guided nature walk, which we happily joined on Saturday. We learned so much about the area, it's flora and fauna, history and prehistory. In the photo below, we are looking at "sleeping circles" thought to be an artifact of nomadic hunting people who camped here 6000 years ago as they hunted big game (like mammoths and mastadons) in the valley below.

Later, as I uploaded these pix to my laptop, my #%$#%$!$$ digital camera broke down for the second time in three months! Luckily, Gayle and Maureen had cameras, because there was sure a bunch of scenery to come.

More photos from Maureen - including Death Valley
(click here)