Day Four : Death Valley

Ready for Vegas Baby!!!

Looking back down over Death Valley

The cliffs - blue, white and red...

Crystalised salt - golf ball??

The salt incrusted pool at the Devil's Golf Course

Sand Dunes

Mt Whitney - highest peak in North America (excluding Alaska)

So right now Im writing this while we drive through death valley. We have such an awesome night planned in Vegas (well Mike has an awesome night planned, the rest of us are in for a surprise) that I decided to utalise the time we have in the van. I got up at 6am this morning, after a great night sleep, to have a shower (its amazing to feel clean!!!) before eating breakie and packing up our campsite. We headed out just before 8:30. The first part of our drive went through the Sierra Nevada’s on our right and another smaller mountain range to our left. It became desert land pretty quickly and honeslty it was nothing like what I expected. I guess in my naivity I had been thinking of a desert like Sahara Desert in Africa or the cracked mud like desert of Australia. This is soo different, like you come over and through mountain ranges of bear rock, some a golden colour, others your typical grey but also have reds in there to. Definitely lots to look at. We saw some Joshua Tree’s just before and then strait after entering Death Valley which I was stoked about, really want to get a good photo of one sometime  but havent seen any for a while. Mike’s promised that there will be another opportunity after leaving Vegas again so no worries. The closest thing that there has been to my imagined desert landscape was the sand-dunes, about 45mins into the park from the eastern side. We stopped there to use the rest-rooms and explore a bit. Got some great photos, even saw some scorpian and snake tracks which was a bit scary but didnt see either one of those desert dwellers. Can’t say that I was sad about that!! We dropped the trailor at the Death Valley Museum so that we could go off the beaten track a bit. FIrst off was the Death Vally Golf Course. Its really fascinating. When Mike drove up I was kind of like, all that is is a whole lot of grey jaggered rocks with white lines what on earth could be so interesting about that!! But its crystalised salt and even the jaggered rocks are fascinating. We all piled out and then followed our fearless leader across these rocks. It was soo windy!! A really hot wind, but strong as. There were a couple of times that I was almost blown right over, or at least right off the rock that I had been standing on. But it was all worth it. We came to a “pool” as such, I have no idea the geological name for it or how it was formed but it was amazing. Alot of death valley used to be a lake X number of years ago but still to see water there was quite surprising. It had crystalised salt encrusted around it and was salt water. From there it was on to another lookout point, this time over mountain walls that had minerals within the rocks giving some a white, pink or blue colour. There was a canyon of sorts between the lookout and the mountain which is used by snow run off come winter. Something else that surprises me about the desert is how not barren it is. Don’t get me wrong, I would hate to be stuck out here overnight (I think id die haha) but there is soo much life. And Im not just talking about cactuses (dont think ive seen a single one) or thorn bushes (seen plenty of those). But there are some really delicate, intracate bushes out here. One has a small, almost snow like flower, another is tiny but a purply wine colour, and then of course you have your grasses. Yeah it really surprised me at how much delicate beauty survives in this harsh environment. Its an oxymoron if there ever was one. We headed back to the Museum to pick up our trailor, have a quick lunch (sandwhiches again - which we ate under the only shade, sharing it with a road runner and chipmunks), use the restrooms and refill our water before carrying on our way. A little way later we once again ditched the trailor and drove to the top of a range for a lookout over the eastern death valley (where we had just come through). It was amazing!! So stoked we were able to get up there aye. Absolutely incredible. Had another group photo there which was sweet. Now its on to Vegas baby. So can not wait for tonight!! I cant wait to see Planet Hollywood, Ceaser Palace, Hard Rock Cafe and of course the Casinos!!!!