Sunday, August 8, 2010

Day 34 Summer 2010 Park to Park Road Trip

We part ways with our friend Patty today, she is heading off to visit a relative and Karen and I are going to visit Death Valley National Park. We will meet back up with Patty on Monday afternoon.

As we left Visalia heading towards Death Valley, we passed, what I would estimate to be 1000 or more wind turbines. They stretched to the horizon and beyond.

2615 Wind Turbines near Mojave CA2616 Wind Turbines near Mojave CA2619 Wind Turbines near Mojave CA

Between the town of Mojave California and Death Valley National Park, the drive was fantastic, the scenery beautiful. It reminded me of the Loneliest Road in America that we drove on last summer, not a car to be seen in either direction.

2644 Between Mojave & Death Valley National Park CA2646 Between Mojave & Death Valley National Park CA

Death Valley turned out to be nothing at all like what I was expecting. I was expecting a desert like scene, flat, never ending, mile after mile of nothing but pavement and sand. It turned out to be the most wonderful and colourful scenery that we have seen since we were in the Painted Desert & Petrified Forest National Park 2 summers ago.

Even the welcome sign to Death Valley National Park is the most colourful National Park sign that we have seen so far.

2650 Death Valley National Park CA

2654 Death Valley National Park CA2655 Death Valley National Park CA

You enter Death Valley at an altitude of about 3000 feet and drop down to the valley floor. We wondered where all the cars had suddenly come from, because for the last 40 miles we barely saw a car and suddenly as we dropped down to the floor of the valley, there were more cars than we had seen all day.

2669 Death Valley National Park CA2672 Death Valley National Park CA2681 Death Valley National Park CA

Death Valley National Park is the hottest and driest of all the National Parks. The highest ever recorded temperature in the park was back on July 10 1913. It was 134 F that day.

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This is a pretty neat sign. We have been at “sea level” several times on our vacations, standing on the ocean beaches in California, Texas, Alaska and Florida, but never had we been below sea level.. Unless you include the semi-submersible excursion we went on..below the surface of the ocean. So lets just say that we have never walked or driven below sea level before.

2692 Stove Pipe Wells Death Valley National Park CA

The lowest reading we saw on our GPS was 277 feet Below Sea Level. There is one spot in the park that is 282 below sea level. That spot is the lowest point in the USA. To think that a few days ago we were in Sequoia National Park and saw Mount Whitney which is the highest summit in the contiguous United States and now we are at the lowest point in the USA. How cool is that ? Speaking of cool… it is not very cool according to this thermometer. This is the thermometer at Stovepipe Wells in Death Valley. That is the temperature in the shade, step out into the sun and it is hot hot hot. Not a sweltering humid hot heat like back home, but a dry heat with a gentle breeze, actually it wasn’t too bad to be out of the air conditioning of the car for short periods of time. We bought some souvenirs and checked in with the Park Ranger and showed him our park pass, got our National Park Passport Book stamped and were on our way again.

2697 Stove Pipe Wells Death Valley National Park CA2696 Stove Pipe Wells Death Valley National Park CA

After leaving Stovepipe Wells, we drove across the valley floor, saw some sand dunes in the distance.

2700 Olancha Sand Dunes Death Valley National Park CA2701 Olancha Sand Dunes Death Valley National Park CA

Miles of straight pavement heading eastward. This is what we were expecting the whole of Death Valley to be like, road and desert.

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With the occasional bend in the road.

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But then we pulled into Furnace Creek Visitor Center and things started getting really interesting. The landscape was changing dramatically.

2723 Furnace Creek Visitor Center Death Valley National Park CA2728 Furnace Creek Visitor Center Death Valley National Park CA2729 Furnace Creek Visitor Center Death Valley National Park CA

This is the part of Death Valley that reminded us of the Painted Desert in Arizona. The colours in the land and rocks were amazing to see for a place with the name of Death Valley. The colours seem to add life to this place, it doesn’t look at all dead.

2736 Death Valley National Park CA2738 Death Valley National Park CA2740 Death Valley National Park CA

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It is interesting how the road just follows the contours of the land, no effort was made to make it a completely flat smooth road surface.

2753 Death Valley National Park CA

More colourful and oddly shaped landscape.

2760 Zabriskie Point Death Valley National Park CA2766 Death Valley National Park CA2769 Death Valley National Park CA

2770 Death Valley National Park CA2774 Death Valley National Park CA2779 Death Valley National Park CA

We and the car made it through Death Valley and came out the other side alive and well. As we say goodbye to Death Valley National Park, we know that we will return some year in the not too distant future. This is a National Park that we would like to visit again and explore in more detail. The whole purpose of this vacation is to give us a taste of as many of the National Parks as we can, and then we can decide which ones we would like to come back to revisit and spend more time at.

From DVNP we head to our hotel in Barstow CA, but first we have to make one stop. To see the “World’s Tallest Thermometer”. The thermometer is located in Baker CA. It stands at 134 feet tall, a reference to the hottest temperature ever recorded in nearby Death Valley.

2788 Worlds Tallest Thermometer Baker CA2790 Worlds Tallest Thermometer Baker CA

It could very well be the world’s tallest, but I also rank it as the world’s most inaccurate… Although the neon/electronic style digital readout does not show up in the photos… it is saying that it is 70 degrees. Not likely. It should be reading higher than that. They better get a technician out here and get this thing fixed.

2792 Worlds Tallest Thermometer Baker CA2793 Worlds Tallest Thermometer Baker CA

Tomorrow we are going to visit the Route 66 “Mother Road” Museum in Barstow CA. Then we are heading to Joshua Tree National Park for the afternoon.

To see all of our photos from today, you can see them on my FLICKR site.

1 comment:

  1. Wow....when you click on each of these it's like being right there.
    Paul Mac

    ReplyDelete