After reaching Lee Vining, we headed south and drove the length of Owen’s Valley. We then turned east and headed over the Panamint mountain range to see Death Valley. Climbing the Panamint range is an arduous travail for most cars. The grade is very steep and it is very hot. There are many stopping points each with extra water for your car’s radiator (which will be boiling over). There are plenty of signs telling you to turn off your A/C, open your windows and turn on your heater to increase cooling for your car. With the Lincoln, we ignored all of that and tooled up the road with the A/C running full blast. However, the dual carburetor, fuel injected, 5 litre V8 engine really had to work on this climb. The view into Death Valley from the range is shown below. Once we got down into the valley was talked to some folks who pulled a trailer over the range and asked they how they did it. The said that they stayed on the western edge of the range overnight and pulled the trailer over in the first light of day before it got too hot. As to why they were camping in Death Valley of all places, apparently the satellite TV reception was superb!

We did not stay in Death Valley, but kept on trucking until we got to Las Vegas. We stayed for a couple of nights in Vegas. We stayed at the new Excalibur Hotel and did the lost wages things.