Road Trip Pt.1
In 2016 my daughter turned 16. She was in love with the outdoors, National Parks and photography. I really wanted to do something special, just her and I. Something that would bring fond memories long after I was gone. A road trip!
My mother was still alive at the time and living about an hour north of San Francisco so I thought a visit along the way would be nice. Little did I know at the time that it would be the last time my daughter and I would see her alive. So I opened up the maps to see what was on our way.
We would start in Death Valley National Park. Death Valley lies in South Eastern California, USA, in the northern part of the Mojave Desert. It is one of the hottest places on earth. It is also the lowest elevation in North America being 282 feet BELOW sea level! On July 10th, 1913 at Furnace Creek the U.S. Weather Bureau recorded a record temperature of 134 degrees Fahrenheit or 56.7 degrees Celsius!
We arrived at the park just as the sun started to peak over the eastern mountains. My daughter was ecstatic and immediately grabbed her camera. As we drove through this desolate, alien landscape, she would direct me where she wanted to pull over to take pictures.
I spent most of my time taking pictures of her taking pictures!
Though it IS a barren wasteland, it does have a strange almost hypnotic beauty all it's own. It is unlike anywhere else on earth.
The Sonoran Desert of Arizona seems almost a lush paradise compared to the lifelessness that surrounds you here.
All in all it took us 6 hours to drive through with all the photo stops. It was just past noon when we ascended into the western mountains and made our to highway 395 north. With a brief stop for lunch we would be at Yosemite National Park by about 3-3:30. But I'll tell you all about that in Pt.2
If you would like more information on visiting Death Valley National Park you can click on the link below to go to the National Parks services website.
Death Valley National Park CA, NV
If you would just like to learn more about Death Valley itself and its ecosystem you can visit the Wikipedia page listed below.
Again I hope you all enjoyed this post and my photographs. I refrained from over editing most of these pictures so you could get a good feel for how harsh the environment is there. We were lucky, the day we visited the high temp was a meager 85 degrees Fahrenheit, it was so cold the lizards were wearing jackets!!!