road trip 2009: day 4
i dunno why i wanted to go to death valley, i suppose its not a normal route people take and it was a pretty big loop to take from bakersfield to las vegas (unfortunately the tioga pass on the east side of yosemite was closed still and that would have cut out a lot). something about it just intrigued me. we decided to head out early thursday morning so that we could get into the park as early as possible.
heading out for a trip through death valley. lots of driving ahead of us! thankfully the high will only be 100 degrees today :).
for some reason we had a bit of trouble getting out of bakersfield, stupid morning traffic. but once we hit the interstate, it was a smooth, but rather boring, driving. lots of brown hills quickly turning into desert.
somewhere in the middle of nowhere.
i saw some signs for “good jerky” so i figured we would stop to try it out. i thought it was pretty special stuff that was only found out on the edge of death valley, but actually i saw the exact same store in arizona so i was kind of annoyed. the jerky was decent though.
heading in to death valley.
things kept getting more and more desolate heading into the park. it wasn’t extremely hot and we were fine driving with our windows down. once we got over the mountain ridge, the downhill into the valley was pretty fun to drive. basically a straight downhill shot for a long long way. i got up to 65 mph without hitting the gas.
here is a view of some of the sand dunes that first come into view going into the valley. but that was just the beginning of the desert.
the picture doesn’t quite do justice to the scene. the road was on a long downhill still and the valley floor seemed far below the sign.
apparently death valley was a major source of borax back in the day, and the 20 mule brand comes from the 20 mule wagons that would take the mined borax out of the valley and to the closest railroad station. i can’t believe what it would be like to be standing out on that valley floor scraping rock from the surface.
at the furnace creek visitors center. about 90 degrees out, slightly overcast. some pretty amazing scenery.
one thing that is kind of jolting is furnace creek. its a little patch of green in the middle of the desert surrounding a spring. the visitors center was there and so is a little ranch/hotel. the place was packed with germans. actually, the entire trip was full of run ins with germans. must have been a german holiday that week?? after a quick lunch stop at furnace creek, we decided to head down to badwater, the lowest place in the western hemisphere. it got hotter and the air heavier the further down we drove.
this picture is pretty awesome it think. slightly right of the center about 1/3 of the way down on the picture is a small sign on the side of the rock. that’s showing were sea level is.
this is me hanging out at badwater. amazingly there was a small brine pond filled with some small animals and bugs beneath my feet. it was hot and i felt like i was being pushed down on my shoulders from the air pressure.
on our way back from badwater we drove up through the artist’s canyon. some really pretty vistas and mineral formations. once we were done there, we just felt hot and tired, so we decided to get out of the valley.
this is the last view we had of some of the amazing scenery in death valley.
valley got quite hot esp. at badwater. now on towards vegas.
the drive to las vegas was without incident.
anyone have a recommendation for a cheap but decent place to eat in vegas?
adam’s friend’s family let us borrow a room for the night, so stopped there to drop off all of our stuff. we then decided to go check out the strip to see what it was all about. let’s just say, i wasn’t impressed.
vegas: full of glitz, absolutely no substance. lots of lights, lots of glamour, but just all fake and tacky.
we walked around inside the bellagio a bit then wandered up and down the strip. apparently we missed some of the more exciting things, but i didn’t care. compared to the amazing places we had seen over the past two days, none of the fake glitz could impress me. the packed sidewalks lined by dudes slapping their prostitute flyers together and then shoving them in our faces got pretty old quick. we did want some food though, but we decided that the dinner buffets were too expensive. instead we found a sandwich shop inside one of the casinos. we were sitting next to some slots so i figured it would have been a waste to not at least tried it out once.
gave myself $1 on the quarter slots. all gone in 5 spins. sigh, guess I’m just not cut out to be a high roller.
so yeah, lost pretty quick. i actually wish i would have printed out the ticket when i had a quarter left and taken it up to the booth to cash it. too bad.