Death Valley National Park to GA and places in between

We left Quartzsite AZ on the 12th of Feb after the rally and headed out on a 385 mile trek to our reservations at Furnace Creek campground in Death Valley National Park. February is an ideal time to visit Death Valley (unlike the time in June when we drove across the desert). 12-17 Feb: We joined John and Kathy Roeder here for the week, and took day trips from here to visit the park extremities (Scotty's castle is still closed due to last year's flooding). Furnace Creek allows reservations and it was full so it was good we got them. They also have two other campgrounds just across the highway, one of which was mostly empty (no shade) and the other, Texas Springs, is first come first served but is a pretty campground if you enjoy rock formations as a backdrop. We might try for Texas Springs next time. There are several great hiking trails and driving trails within Death Valley. Being an aviation buff, I really enjoyed looking down as the F-18's flew through the valley under us at Father Crowley overlook near Panamint Springs. We also enjoyed watching dogfights and air to air refueling when we visited Ubehebe crater at the Northern end. It was dry, since they only get about 2" of rain per year (I think we got that much the day we left though) 17- 20 Feb: We stayed at Desert Eagle FAMCAMP in Las Vegas. Not big fans of Las Vegas, although we did join up with John and Kathy to take a night tour of the strip and see the lights. We prefer the nearby attractions, like Hoover Dam, Valley of Fire state park, and Red Rock Canyon scenic drive. The FAMCAMP is nice, they are friendly there, and if you get lucky you get to see the Thunderbirds in the traffic pattern. 20 Feb: Our need to get back for scheduled doctor appointments required me to break the last 2,000 miles into long driving chunks that we don't usually like to do, but we did it. Looking at the map, Holbrook AZ looked to be a good stopping point, and a check at campendium.com revealed a free campground at the South entrance to the Petrified Forest National Park! Crystal Forest free CG south of Petrified Forest entrance was actually a pretty nice place to spend a night, with a covered picnic table. No hookups, but another campground across the street has hookups for a small fee. The campground is right at the southern entrance gate, so you can watch as they come in and unlock the gate in the morning. We figured it would only take about an hour or two to go through the park (after all, how many petrified trees can you look at). This turned out to be much more interesting than we expected, so we spent most of the day taking small hikes around the petrified trees and geological formations. This is a beautiful park! We even crossed paths with another Scamp from GA, Linda Fisher Crowley! 21 Feb: This was a late drive to Kirtland AFB NM FAMCAMP. It was getting dark as we arrived due to our long stay at the Petrified Forest, so we just picked a spot and left in the morning. No reservations, but they had plenty of room. 22 Feb: Another long drive brought us to Caprock Canyons state park, TX. We arrived late in the afternoon, but early enough to hit a trail and get some good sunset pictures over the canyon. 23 Feb: We stopped to visit our adopted family June and Pat in Rockwall TX and parked the Scamp in their driveway overnight. Nice being able to visit once in awhile! 24 Feb: Twiltley Branch COE MS. Nice place to kayak. Unfortunately, due to our fast moving schedule we didn't stay long, but this is a pretty campground and we had a long pull through site. We actually thought we were on one of the campground roads, but it was just a really long site! 25 Feb: Arrived home in time for Saturday church.