Mr.& Mrs. Cooper visited Death Valley in California in April 2010.
Although, like you, I've crossed California's Mojave Desert, we've never visited our other great desert, Death Valley. This year Connie and I will finally do that. We go at the end of April.
This is a very good year for the trip - we had unusually heavy rains in January, so expect the desert flowers will be in full bloom. We are lucky - at this time of year the hotels are booked full, so we had to make our reservations last year, gambling this would be a wet year.
I'll take pictures; I hope you'll be interested in seeing them.
I finally got around to processing the pictures I took during our short stay in Death Valley. It did not disappoint! I'm quite familiar with several of our deserts here in CA, but Death Valley is truly unique. Not only a desert, but one with spectacular views and an unequalled atmosphere. It's a favorite with Hollywood and, after visiting, we understand why [Star Wars was filmed there with many others]. Surprisingly it's also a very spiritual place which leaves one very thoughtful, even among crowds of fellow tourists.
Unlike most deserts, it also has a stream flowing down the northern part. Fed, not by rainfall, but through an underground aquifer from the very dry state of Nevada to the east. As a result the stream does not quite dry up in summer time even though temperatures reach more than 50 degrees C. The water is very salty, but does support very specialized fish and other organisms which can exist nowhere else. All-in-all we were very glad to have finally visited such a place so near to us , but unvisited in our almost 40 years living here.
At this time of year it's much cooler - we varied from a little below 10 and just over 20 C - very pleasant. It's impossible to do justice to the views in photos, but I'm attaching a few of the 130+ I took there, to give you a small idea.
Ron at the famous Zabriskie Point. [Zabriskie was the general manager of the company which owned the valley and set it up to become public property].
Zabriskie Point
This gives you some idea of how vast and forbidding the place is;
The Desert
Following picture is the stream I described above - called "Salt Creek". You can see some of the small fish at the bottom of the picture.
Salt Creek
small fish
We were there when the desert flowers bloom as you can see in the following picture.
the desert flowers bloom
Next picture shows my wife, Connie, at the lowest point in N. America - "Badwater", so named because pack mules would not drink the saturated salt water there. Most of what you see there is a dry salt bed;
Badwater Basin
finally, in the last picture, there is the "opera house" dating from the 19th century - in the small town of Death Valley Junction.
opera house
I'm sorry you missed Death Valley on your grand tour on Route 66. If you can ever make it back to this part of the world you should be sure to visit there.
With best regards,
Ron
April 30, 2010