With names like Dante's view, Badwater
and Devil's Golf Course, Death Valley doesn't sound like a place you
would want to visit. That was probably true when settlers first traveled across this hot wasteland of a dessert with
no real source of water or food. Today however Death Valley is a
national park and with the addition of some roads and other modern conveniences it's now a place you can explore and not die. Death
Valley is a strange almost alien place. The landscape changes
dramatically from flat dessert to folding hills then to a moon like
barren crater and then back to large salt flats.
It took two days to explore the entire
park as we drove over 300 miles exploring all the different areas.
The park was a lot bigger than I thought it was but I'm glad we took
the time to see all its features. Most people know Death
Valley is a the lowest point in the US as well as one of the hottest
and driest.The pictures you see of Death Valley are usually of the
vast salt flats on the valley floor. But what you don't see are the
cool folded hills like Zabriskie Point
Or the Ubehebe crater created by a steam explosion
or the most bizarre geological
formation I have ever seen the Devil's Golf course. This is a a place
on the floor of the valley where the occasional water has created
channels through the dried earth and then deposited salt that crystallizes and end up looking a little like coral. It goes on for miles
and must be experienced to full understand how strange it really is.
Also not to be missed is the Artist
drive. This is a 20 mile loop through the hills near the salt flats.
These hills are piles of eroding sand that are different colors and
shapes. The color changes as the sun rises and it is a mesmerizing
view.
There is some life in Death Valley.
There are some little fish that manage to live in the very salty
water of the few streams that exist for a couple months of the year.
When the water dries up the fish can survive until it rains again.
We also saw millions of butterflies as
they were migrating across the dessert. Sadly not all of them made
it as a least a few thousand ran into our windshield at 70 MPH. It
got so thick at one point it was hard to see. Our black Cherokee was
covered with yellow sploshes before the first day was over.
I got the required picture of me at the
lowest point and will add this to the list of highest/lowest points
that I have visited (even though I wasn't on a bike this time)
One of the other reasons that I came to
Death Valley was to see the night sky as there is no light pollution
here. I got really lucky because the Las Vegas astronomy club was
here and invited all the hotel guess to look through there
telescopes. I'm talking 20 inch diameter tubes that were so big you
had to climb a latter to see through the eye piece. Several of them
gave talks and pointed out the different sights to see. Half the astronomers there had cameras hooked up to their telescopes so they
could instantly take a picture and show it on a monitor next to the
telescope. It was not only interesting to see the nebula and
galaxies but technology itself was cool.
After a couple of days in the dessert
that is Death Valley we headed for another dessert (there seems to be
a lot of them out here in southern California). This time we spend
the afternoon riding through Joshua Tree National Park. This is a
place were two desserts meet (Colorado and Mojave) and it is a
strange and unique place. Of course the place is filled with the
Joshua tree cactus but it also has these rock piles that just seem to
spring up in the middle of the dessert and really look like some
giant just tossed a bunch of rocks on the ground.
There is even a rock that looks like a
skull.
This area has actually gotten some rain
over the last few months and because of the rain the wildflowers were
in bloom. The park was crowded because the flowers hadn't bloomed
in the last few years because of the drought so everybody was out
looking at the super bloom. There were a lot of yellow and purple
flowers and it smelled like lavender. We were really luck to see this
as it only lasts a few weeks and doesn't happen every year.
One of the coolest things a Joshua Tree
was the Cholla (Choy-ya) cactus. This one requires medical
attention if touched but it is really beautiful in a strange way.
What made it really interesting is that it looked like some one
planted a garden of these and it was just amazing to see this many
cactus arranged into neat little rows.
Between the flowers cactus and dessert
hills it was another scenic day of driving.
At the end of our visit to Joshua Tree
we headed to Palm Spring for a two night stay in a boutique hotel.
Palm Springs use to be the vacation spot for Hollywood stars as it is
only a few hours from LA. The place has a lot or resorts and spas and
lots of places for good food. It is sort of an oasis in the dessert.
We booked a place called Little Paradise and it was one of the best
places we ever stayed. Its located in a residential neighborhood and
was a little hard to find as it looked liked the other Spanish style
houses on the street. It's basically a compound of 10 rooms surrounded
by a low wall. In the middle of the compound is a pool. All the rooms
surround the pool and have views of the mountains. Each room has a
bedroom, kitchen and bathroom. Outside the back of the room is a
private patio and outside the front of the room is a curtained
sitting area to relax.
The rooms were comfortable and it was
nice to relax after being in car for the last few days. We did take
in one attraction in Palm Springs that was the aerial tramway that
went to the top of the San Jacinto mountain above Palm Springs. At 8500 feet
is quite a view. They also had a good restaurant on top so we had a
good meal while enjoying the view.
After Palm Springs we headed to San
Diego. We took the scenic route to see some more dessert sights. The
first sight on the way was the Salton Sea. This is a large lake that
was created by accident and is now slowly drying up. You can read thefull story here. This use to be a resort area but because the lake
has gotten more salty almost nothing can live here and it smells a
little like dead fish. We stopped on the hard crusted salt beach for
a few picture before heading to Borrego Springs.
Borrego Springs is a nothing little
town surrounded by Anza- Borrego Dessert state park. There was some more cactus and dessert landscape that made the drive interesting but what really
made it worth the trip was the sculptures. Scattered around the dessert are these large metal sculptures of prehistoric and imaginary
animals and some other strange figures. These things are hugh and
really well done and just so strange sitting out in the middle of
nowhere. My favorites were the dragon and the scorpion. This was
definitely worth the side trip and the death defying canyon roads we
had to deal with to get there and to San Diego.
In San Diego we met up with my wife's
niece and husband and took in a ballgame at Petco Park. Even though
there are a lot of things to do in San Diego we had been here before
and didn't really have to time to stay any longer.
It was a quick week long trip through
most of the desserts in southern California with a lot of driving but
there were a lot of amazing sites along the way. Its a strange and
beautiful area and I have a new appreciation for the variety of sites
that can be seen in a dessert landscape. And of course I have a lot of new
pictures and stories to tell
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