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Death Valley - 282 feet below sea level

USA | Sunday, 20 May 2012 | Views [655]

After leaving the bright lights of Las Vegas behind we headed for Death Valley, Diana with some trepidation and Malc with great excitement and anticipation; he was keen to know how the GPS  would display minus sea level if at all and he wanted it to get really hot. - that’s the engineer in him coming out and delight at leaving Las Vegas I suspect.

It was an amazing journey on long straight roads, crossing dry lake beds and gradually getting hotter and hotter.  The monitor in the car started to read 89 degrees F and then 95 - Malc was urging it towards 100 when it suddenly read 115 degrees F ie 46 degrees C. 

The elevation indicator on the GPS initially showed 0 and then -1 and then Malc became really animated as it started to go further down until we eventually recorded – 82 meters below sea level.

We arrived at Badwater Basin at 85.5 meters below sea level, that’s 282 feet to us!  We were able to walk out onto the frozen salt water and look up at the rock face to determine where sea level actually was.  What a strange experience.

Andi responded to an email pointing out that Diana’s emails were about experiences, people and places and Dad’s were about technology.  Yes, that’s about right!  Great combination though.

We took a road off the main road called Artist’s Drive and what a great drive it was twisting around bends and up and down hill with hills all colours of an artist’s palette.  In the afternoon sun it was spectacular.  Walking out in that heat was like walking into a tumble dryer and have the heat blast at you all the time; it was utterly exhausting, even when the temperature plummeted to 86 degrees F at night!

Staying at Furnace Creek Ranch was interesting and Diana was quite happy to leave to go to Yosemite, especially after hearing that the Tioga Pass, which is normally closed until late May, had opened up to traffic and we were able to take the scenic route into Yosemite National Park.

It was another strange experience leaving a very hot Death Valley and arriving in Yosemite to frozen lakes and snow on the mountains and by the road.  We went from 100 degrees F to 46 degree F in just a few hours.  In the morning we were climbing sand dunes in Death Valley and in the afternoon we were sitting beside a frozen lake and dashing back into the car to keep warm.

 
 

 

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