Cucumber mentioned we need to fill in some holes in the plot, so I guess I’ll cover Death Valley.
Day 4 of VO: V. Lemon left MGM before anyone else woke up to grab the official Veggies mobile at McCarren. The rest of us eventually got up and everyone was ready by 9am. After two days of Vegas, we decided to take a day trip to Death Valley National Park. Cucumber, PP and M&M’s opted to remain in Vegas to do some shopping.
Death Valley has always been near the top of my list of must-visit National Parks. The Veggies were good sport when I suggested spending a precious day from the trip visiting this park - an act of kindness for which I will be forever grateful. I was a wee bit worried that Death Valley was going to SUCK, especially this being a repeat visit for some. I didn’t want to waste everyone’s day, especially when it takes 2 hours to drive one-way!
Our first stop was a food stop at In-N-Out for some early brunch. Waited outside for 5 minutes, placed 5 orders, found 5 stools and one fooding photo. We continued on towards Death Valley. Catnip spotted a decoy tree along the way. After some driving on some super flat roads, we eventually got to the sign that marked the entrance of DV.
Of course, we needed to stop and grab a group photo with the entrance sign. Made an off-hand comment about climbing on top of the sign, I didn’t expect everyone to take it seriously!! Ironically, this turned out to be the easiest climb of the day. Tomato and Lemon performed in a duet entitled a-catch-that-was-not-a-catch when disembarking from the sign.
We stopped into the visitor centre in Furnace Creek. Catnip found a little stuffed spider, while the store keeper with a funky moustache presented a bigger one! We got some directions on places to visit from the rangers.
First stop was Badwater, a basin in Death Valley that happens to be the lowest point in North America at –282ft. It was interesting, because we saw out in the far distance (there was a sign on the road) pointing to Mt Whitney @ 14,496ft. Mt Whitney is the highest point in continental US, and it’s only 8 miles crow distance from Badwater.
There was a long path out to the salt crust fields, where we took an awesome single file photo. We tossed around a couple chunks of salt thingies, and tasted some of this really salty flakes. I recalibrated my GPSr at this location, because it initially reported that I was at –310ft instead.
We headed up to artist’s drive, a one-way windy road that takes us through some interesting rock formations and giant DIPs in the road. Yam tried to break apart some rocks looking for magical swords that give +5 power and hidden crystals. The low hanging sun casted some super long shadows on us, so we played some shadow YMCA… only we needed a 5 letter word. Settled on SPACE… can’t remember why. Catnip also tried to trix0r us with red/green rocks.
Next stop was Golden Canyon. We took the main trail in; near the trailhead we found a section of washed out asphalt from years past. Further along, we spotted this side trail that had the resemblance of a stairway. Tomato and Yam decided to climb up to get to the rock above, while the rest of us waited below. I had my camera ready to capture their heads sticking out from above the rock, but after a few minutes, they still hadn’t showed up! No replies from our shouts to them either. We had no option but to pursue. The chase was on!
The climb started off not too bad, but the trail deteriorated quite quickly. It was apparent that this trail hasn’t been maintained in a long time, probably due to rock slides in recent years. Soon, we were scampering up some pretty big steps and clinging on any handholds we could find. The last part was particularly tough with loose gravel and very few handholds. Despite the cuts and bruises and teetering on the brink of life and death, we didn’t need too much motivation to continue the climb. The view of the valley was just breathtaking and the vista just got better and better the higher we climbed!
The sun was setting soon; light was fading. We were forced to climb down, which was mainly sliding on my butt for me. It is times like this when I get into the photographer’s age-old delimma. I’m glad I brought my tripod and TochiCam, but they were unprotected (I hadn’t expected a climb like this) and exposed to all that dirt and sand. I also could have really used both my hands being free. :|
The sun was setting by the time we got back to our car. We had to make one last stop at the sand dunes for Yam to collect his bottle of sand. Along the way, we saw some SUV driving on a dirt road leaving a looooooong dust trail. So cool. It was quite dark by the time we got to the sand dunes. Needed some super long exposures and high ISO to get any decent photos. The sand itself was amazing. Never felt sand this fine, it was almost like velvet/water flowing between your fingers.
Afterwards, we made the mad rush back to Vegas. Tomato and I had O to catch tonight. Stopped at a Shell station for potty break, where Catnip found 5 dispensers, while we found 8.
Went to Fremont Street in Old Vegas to check out the super TV roof thingy, and had some cheap buffet at Plaza Hotel and Casino. While eating, we managed to miss the uber light show that came on once an hour, but C’s M filled us in on the details afterwards.
Lemon dropped Tomato and I at Bellagio for O. We caught the fountain showing of Time to Say Goodbye. Can never get tired of watching this fountain. O was quite awesome, but that’s probably the subject of another post (if it ever happens).
DV and that Golden Canyon climb was definitely a highlight for me on this trip. Thanks again to all the Veggies for such a fun outing.