On the first full day of our road trip, Friday 2nd July, we left Las Vegas around 4pm and set off on the 3 hour drive through the desert to our next destination:
Death Valley National Park, California.
Here are some of the sights along the way...
Here we are stopped at the unmanned information centre in DVNP, trying to figure out how to get a $20 national park pass from the machine. (We ended up upgrading it the next day to an $80 annual pass to all US national parks - since it was going to add up to $90 for single-entry admission to the four national parks in our itinerary!)
We had timed our drive though Death Valley to coincide with sunset, around 8pm. In addition to the photo opportunities afforded by the setting sun, this plan was very sensible due to Death Valley being North America's hottest and driest national park. It was 44 degrees after 7pm on the day we were there! This is because - in addition to being in the middle of a desert - the lowest part of the valley is 86m below sea level, so the heat just gets trapped in there.
So when you go to Death Valley, you really don't want to make a day of it - aim to arrive just before sunset when the shadows look really awesome on the huge sand dunes, and you'll be very happy to get back into your air-conditioned car after an hour or so!!
Speaking of awesome shadows and huge sand dunes...
So as you can see, Death Valley was
extremely awesome!!
Reaching sea level after driving up out of the valley...
That night we stayed at the Dow Villa Motel in Lone Pine, California.
Lone Pine is a pleasant little desert town about 2 hours west of Death Valley. We enjoyed a delicious dinner on the verandah of a diner on the main street (Delle raved about her BBQ ribs for days!), surrounded by fairy lights, candles, and soft country music radio. It was a great introduction to California!
The town's main claim to fame is that its surroundings feature in many old Westerns - it is definitely John Wayne country. More about that in the next blog entry!
(As always, you can use the links in the sidebar (above right) to see more photos!)
6 comments:
I never really had a great desire to head to the US, and now I can't wait to go! Your photos look amazing!
I'm STILL RAVING about the RIBS!!!! SOOOOOOOOO amazingly awesomely delicious....I think everyone that I've talked to about my whole trip has heard about the ribs :D Yes they were THAT good :D
You guys took some really awesome photos!!
Really impressed with your photography in this post! (I always am actually, but some of these are really awesome!) The NP looks amazing - wouldn't want to break down out there hey?! Or even just the air-con!! :-)
TFS as always,
Sonya.
Donna says: some beautiful portraits in this post :) I enjoyed it very much!
Awesome photos! You have some amazing scenery ones and some really fantastic portraits. :-)
Oh, and lucky for some having air conditioning. Well technically we did have air conditioning, but it didn't mean much while we were driving around with the heater blasting at 47 degrees to try to stop our poor little van from overheating too drastically! It was so worth it though, Death Valley is awesome! :-)
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