Healthy Living on a Budget Tip #2

Meal plan (and snack plan), yes even on vacation! Don’t waste money at the expensive camp store or on snacks along the way. Just bring your own. And if you are anything life my family, snacks are a camping staple.

My family and I took a quick trip to Death Valley. We've heard great things about Death Valley and with the added rumors about the super bloom, we decided it was the perfect opportunity to go. Turns out we missed the super bloom... but I'm glad we finally made it out there.

Here’s the second half of our Death Valley trip. In this part you will see our quick trip to Darwin Falls, Beatty Cutoff to see the last of the wildflowers, and the Salt Creek Interpretive Trail where we saw lots of tiny pupfish.

To get to Darwin Falls, we took a long drive towards the western side of the park. It was a beautiful change in scenery and my favorite part was the multicolored mountains. We took a long dirt road to get to the trailhead, which didn’t look promising. It was just a dry creek bed with a little vegetation… maybe Darwin falls is a dried up waterfall we thought. We trekked through the rocky creek bed and started to see more signs of life. We heard birds chirping, saw green trees, and then found a good twenty frogs in the beginning of a creek. The path became increasingly lush and cool… and sure enough, it led to a waterfall!

Next we headed back to our campsite and made two stops along the way. We wandered along the Salt Creek Interpretive Trail where we saw hundreds of tiny pupfish swimming in the low creek. Then we turned on the Beatty Cutoff road, where a ranger mentioned we could get the best look at the remaining wildflowers. There we saw a few varieties of wildflowers and the caterpillars eating them!

Overall we thoroughly enjoyed our trip to Death Valley and it was certainly a good vacation on a budget (campsites were only $12 a night). Looking back, I think we missed a few key points of interest. If we decide to visit again we will definitely drive my husband’s truck so we can make use of the 4-wheel drive to get us to more remote destinations.

Sincerely,

Emily

Music: RetroFuture Clean Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License