Monday 19th May
And off we headed South, past a couple of smaller towns, Little Pine and Lone Pine. Just before we started the turning into Death Valley itself, I decided to stop at a nearby garage/mall. The thing is, our car has been warning of oil change required for a day now - each time I turn on the engine. So to be safe, I decided to check the oil. Good job I did as there appeared to be no oil left in the engine. The dip-stick was dry. Fortunately the shop stocked a small bottle of the oil I needed so I ended up pouring the whole thing into the engine and even then it only registered half way up the dip-stick.
So on we ploughed. Into Death Valley. As it is an actual valley, this meant we had to go down the steep sided descent to the valley floor. We'd started at about 4000 feet above sea level. We slowly descended down some tricks slopes - maybe not as bad as the Tioga Pass in Yosemite - but pretty iffy.
Finally we hit the bottom - or so we thought, because no sooner had we hit the floor than we started rising again back up to 3000 feet.
The lower we got in altitude, the hotter it became. Finally, we really reached the bottom.
I stopped at a rest point to buy my ticket (access to the National Park is $20 per week) from a nearby machine.
We dropped down again and soon, on our left, we say sand dunes - our first taster of 'proper' desert.
We stopped there for a short while - it was getting really hot outside - at one point we measured the air temperature at 91'F
By the time the song had finished, it had risen to 96'F
We reached Furnace Creek and stopped at an oasis of sorts (it's irrigated by sprinklers) for a bite to eat.
We were heading for a place called Badwater - which is essentially a dried up lake, (although there was some water there) but it's mainly salt flats. It's also the lowest natural place in the US.
Here the temperature tipped 104'F. It wasn't possible to stay out there for too long as it was like standing in a giant hair dryer. It even blew my hat onto the salt flats itself - forcing me to go retrieve it out on the 'no walking' bit!
Damn it was hot there!
On the way back to the car, we noticed a 'Sea Level' sign up on the cliff under where we'd parked. It's halfway up the photo below, in the centre.
Here's how we saw it.
Can you spot the sign now?
Back in the air-cooled car, we headed back the way we'd came and made a slight detour around a place called Artist Drive. This was supposed to represent the multiple colour of an artists palette as there are multitudes of colours in the rocks around this little drive.
We finally rejoined the main route out of Death Valley. It was a long two hour drive. Through miles and miles of this sort of terrain.
Finally though, a glimmer of hope as we spot the Stratosphere in the distance.
Then it was just a case of getting into the City itself.
Finally, after checking it we were in our room!
This photo was taken at 19:02 and the first (car wash) photo above was taken at 9:38 - that's 9 hours and 24 minutes since we started out.
Still, the suite we have looks pretty nice - check it out below (in 1080P if you wish!)
We didn't do much in the evening - we were both too knackered. But here's a photo of our view.
Photo slideshow below - as always, you can click on the slideshow to view the full album.