I started my day, after getting our coffees from the cafe, with a walk around the property ( a great display of old mining equipment) and a swim in the World's Greatest Swimming Pool. Nobody there, 86 degree water! Beautiful desert sunshine! It will be interesting to see what gets built here! We're told the small buildings are to be "cottages".
Our adventure today was a trip down to the China Date Ranch. We have been there before and its worth another visit. It about 1.5 hours south, down across the desert, near Shoshone and Tecopa Hot Springs. (For future reference, Shoshone has a cute little cafe which seems to be very popular among bikers). At the bottom of a dusty canyon you come to a real oasis. The name "China" derives from a Chinaman names Ah Foo who attempted a ranching operation to support local mining camps back in the 1890s. The date orchard began in the 1990. Today there are 50 varieties of dates grown here on 1500 trees!
After our picnic lunch we explored the gift shop crammed with more stuff than you can imagine, a bake shop, lots of stuff made from dates and, of course, their famous "Date Shakes". The place is hot and dusty but very interesting! They say there is lots of wildlife here in the oasis, but the only things we saw were a coyote and hummingbirds.
We got back to Furnace Creek and enjoyed a relaxing swim in the World's Greatest Swimming Pool. For dinner we drove up to Stovepipe Wells and the Badwater Saloon. They had only just re-opened last week and the covid protocols were pretty strict.
Tomorrow we head for home. Sorry to leave Death Valley, one of our all time favorite places!
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