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.
