All of the reports we had read online about leaving Death Valley detailed construction that created enormous backups, often referencing lines lasting two hours or more. Sure enough, as we started our 6 am driver out of the park, we saw road side signs stating "expect two hour delays." The national parks website read that construction began at 7, so we hoped to be able to get through before the backups began.
Just to the right of our site was a nice long sandy beach, so we took advantage and went for a long walk. Remy spent the entire walk, almost two hours, detailing the modifications that he had made to his fictional police vehicle. These included living quarters, dogs, cats, ice cream, robots, and just about any other thing that a four year old might be interested in. Mom and Dad tended to lose the thread that he had going, but he kept going. Once his brain gets on a roll it is hard to slow it down.
The road out of Death Valley was a gradual climb, starting at a hundred feet or so below sea level, and eventually rising to 5,000 feet. Just as soon as we had reached the top of the pass through the mountain range that encircled the park we again began to descend. Sometimes we wished they would have just blown a straight path through the mountains for the sake of our gas mileage. Remy wished for tunnels.
Just outside the park, or maybe right on the border, we met a pack of wild donkeys. Our death valley book had explained that when people had first entered the valley, they often had to turn their donkeys lose for lack of food and water. Those hearty pack animals have rise to today's population. We stopped to take a few photos, and the donkeys immediately approached us. All bets were on them being friendly, but we weren't sure how friendly. No one ventured to find out or give them a pet. We were hours from any signs of civilization, so it seemed safest to keep a distance. Our first aid kit doesn't have anything for donkey bites.
We drove for most of the day without incident, eventually arriving in Ventura. We parked in a beach side spot in the State Beaches area. Parked is not the best word to describe the process, as it involved pulling in and out of the rather cramped spot multiple times, and some highly technical block stacking in order to get the trailer level. The views were worth it.
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