26 JANUARY 2020 UPDATE

25 January 2020:  Did a town sortie yesterday and picked up a few things at the grocery store, filled the jeep with gas, and mailed some cards.  The rest of the day was spent doing a better job of organizing my things.  Just never seem to get that done right when we are packing up to leave.  Today, the 25^th we did a drive out to the east trying to get to the Valley of Fire road which was suppose to be 20 some miles from this one intersection.   Well we were probably 6 or 8 miles short of that as the road got way to rough.  In fact, the only tracks further up the wash we were following were motorcycle ones.  All the other vehicles turned around.  Some further back but it was just to gnarly to go any further for other vehicles.  We had a good time though.  Explored a couple of old mine shafts along the way and other areas of interest.  

Road up the wash looked pretty good at the start.

Stopped and explored a few places along the way.

These rocks are like cement with all the little rocks stuck in place.

Here is the sign we came upon while driving from the north shore road.  We decided to try and get to the Valley of Fire Road and then just drive it through the park to the highway by where we were camped.  Didn't work out that way!

 

This is Connie's stick snake.  She was sure it was a snake on the road!

Still a good road.  I can't believe I did not take any pictures when the road turned bad.  Was just to busy trying to find a way around some of the wash outs.

On our way back we stopped at some old mines and checked them out.

Found these by one of the mines.  Pretty sure they are not dynamite, but did not touch them.

Love how the red rocks just poke up once in awhile.