Our Vacation Ends

We said goodbye to Lake Havasu and the London Bridge.  We made the 2 hour and 33 minute drive from Lake Havasu to Las Vegas in a record 2 hours and 33 minutes.  This means we didn't stop to take pictures.  We already had pictures of dirt.  We already had pictures of cactus.  We already had pictures of rocks.  As the road from Havasu to Vegas had nothing but dirt, cactus and rocks, we made the decision to just drive.

London Bridge at Lake Havasu

We arrived at the Hampton Inn around 1 p.m. and were able to get into our room.  We then turned in our rental car at the nearby car center and called for a Hampton Inn shuttle to take us back to the hotel.  The desk clerk recommended a place for lunch/dinner which we refer to as "linner".  It was a pub/casino.  Luckily it was a small place and not a big casino.  It seems they passed a no smoking law that applies to small operations with just video poker and the like but not, of course, big casinos.

Our waitress lamented the loss of so many jobs with the passage of that law as it forced this establishment to build a glass wall between the bar-casino operation and the pub-food part of their business.  She said that many businesses couldn't afford to comply and were forced to close.  Since our waitress talked to us in a rough raspy voice tone so typical of heavy smokers, I decided to not advance my preference for smoke free restaurants.

They had a nice Guiness-like stout on draught and Sue managed a chardonnay.  We finished our meal and walked back to our final resting place.  Final for this trip anyway.  For dinner we polished off crackers, chips, apples, water, wine and chocolates that were the final remnants of our "on-the-go" food for the car.

We watched television in the room and fell asleep around 8 p.m. or 11 p.m. Miami time.  At 4:20 a.m. the phone rang, a rooster crowed, a buzzer sounded and a chime bonged.  This was our wake-up call from the hotel, my smartphone crowing, Sue's smartphone bonging and the nightstand alarm clock all encouraging us to get our buts moving and back to Miami.

At 5:30 we boarded the Hampton shuttle to the airport along with 4 other early departure guests.  Since we would not be down for the free Hampton Inn breakfast we managed to pick up two "on-the-go" bags at the front desk.

In ten minutes we were in the fast lane for our security check in as two TSA Pre-checked passengers.  We really like this TSA special certification as we whisked through security with shoes, belts and watches on.  My small carry-on and camera bag didn't even raise an eyebrow.  In pre-TSA pre-check days, both of my carry-ons would have had me pulled aside.  These bags are filled with x-ray suspicious wires, electronics and chargers.  Now, nothing.  We were at the gate about an hour before boarding.  I ate my breakfast bag from the hotel which consisted of an apple, a muffin and a breakfast bar.  I'll call it a breakfast bar because that's what Kellogg's called it.  A more apt description would have been strawberry flavored cardboard.  It was a thin cookie-like substance that sandwiched a sweet strawberry paste.

We were about to leave Las Vegas without having gambled on anything more risky than breathing casino air.  On a trip to the men's room I passed a row of slot machines, some of which were marked $0.25.  On my way back to our waiting area I remembered I had two quarters still in my pocket.  I said, why not?  I walked over to a likely winning machine only to discover that they needed at least a single dollar bill.  I had already used all my singles with shuttle driver tips and sky cap tips.  I'm still even with Vegas.

We boarded a brand new American Airlines (Airbus) A321S.  Our pilot had just flown it in to Las Vegas for its maiden voyage.  I like "new" but, in airplanes, I would have preferred a few burn-in miles before I am a passenger.  The seats were new and the seat backs had the latest electronics package.  In addition to the now customary LCD screen, I found a 3-prong 110 volt AC outlet, a USB charging port and an array of touch-screen buttons.

Airbus 321

110 volt Outlet at Seat Back

This latter feature was going to test our flight attendants' patience as two tiny symbols were actually the attendant call-buttons.  In the picture below they are the two left dots under the screen picture.  Everyone was playing with all the "new stuff" and the flight attendants were responding to non-existant requests for assistance.

A321 Entertainment Screen

I will say that our "main cabin extra" seats were not "as extra" as they were on the older planes we flew on our way out.  I guess all of this extra entertainment took up space on the plane.  I will also guess that American decided to cram in a few extra rows of seats to help pay the freight on these new planes.

We landed in Miami and our neighbor, Art, picked us up for our ride home.  Sue's first act upon arriving home was to put up her little 2' Christmas tree complete with lights and tiny ornaments.  We had missed out on Thanksgiving but she needed her Christmas fix.  Our kitchen remodeling will preclude an extensive holiday decoration project but the little tree will have to do.

Prescott, Arizona and Lake Havasu

We arrived in Prescott, as our next to last official stop before returning home.  We are here to visit Sue's brother and sister-in-law, Don and Karen.  Before I go much further I must correct your obvious mispronunciation of Prescott.  If you are a reporter at the White House and you go to a big meeting, you will probably be issued a press kit.  This item has the same pronunciation as Prescott.  The locals use the mispronunciation to identify suspicious out-of-towners.

Don and Karen were having their house remodeled so we felt right at home.  Their house painter pressure washed the outside the day of our arrival and created a mystery.  The guest bathroom plugs stopped working.  We searched high and low for a circuit breaker or the more likely, a popped GFCI outlet.  Their house is an electronics junkie's paradise in that there are electrical outlets in every conceivable location.  We searched everywhere only to find that one other bathroom and several outside outlets were also suffering a lack of energy.  I knew the feeling.

Prescott (presskit) is a beautiful small town of about 40,000 people.  Coming from a city with over 2.5 million people, 40,000 is small.  It was a delightful change of perspective.  Our hosts were more than hospitable and Karen is an excellent cook.  We watched Arizona's Wildcats get clobbered by Oregon ducks, 13 to 51.  It was like watching some Aesop fable where the duck beats up on the big wildcat.  Ouch!

The next day we were able to watch the Patriots beat the Chargers 23 to 14.  So this heavily influenced Bostonian crowd was happy again.  As a Dolphan, I was silently rooting for the Chargers.

Sue's Shetland Pony Parade Shot

We went downtown to watch the Christmas parade and saw small town USA in action.  They had war veterans, dog walkers, retirement home buses, local bands, kids, old cars, motorcycles, Shriners, Shetland ponies, cowboys, an entire section of just Scottish Terriers, police cars, and fire trucks.  In fact, half of the 40,000 population of Prescott (presskit--do you have the pronunciation yet?) was in the parade and the other half was lining the street to watch.  As my vantage point was on a street that was a loop around the courthouse, I think they just kept circling by.  I swear I saw the same people several times.

Sue Shot of the Scottie Parade Group

Star Parade Float

We moved our lawn-chairs to a place in front of the courthouse for the tree lighting ceremony later this day.  I had prepared for everything.  I had my camera, my GoPro and my tripod along with years of experience.  What I didn't prepare for was the fact that it would be several hours later when the lights went on, and it would be much colder and the nearest bathroom was at least two light years away through the amassed crowd.  By the time the carolers finished and they lit the trees, I was a Popsicle in a lawn chair with a full bladder.

Somehow I managed to get a few shots and a little video.  I had to use a high ISO to allow for a fast shutter speed.  Reason...., my hands were shaking.

Courthouse Tree Lighting Ceremony (109 TREES)

 We ate at a restaurant downtown and had a few cocktails to thaw out.

The next day we went to a gingerbread house display and a museum of old log buildings surrounding the original governor's mansion.

Governor's Mansion (Sue Shot)

Gingerbread Houses (Sue Shot)

The second night in Prescott, we saw Esteban, a guitar virtuoso along with his daughter on violin and a percussionist.  He studied under Andres Segovia and was mentored by Carlos Montoya.  He put on a great show with a mix of flamenco, classical, pop and holiday music.  The latter inclusion was given with a twist of uniqueness with, on one occasion, a middle eastern flair.  After the concert he stayed on in the lobby of the small theater to sign CD's, pictures and one guitar.

Sue With Esteban

We crossed the street to a restaurant after the concert to eat dinner.  Half way through our meal, Esteban, his daughter and two members of his road crew came in and sat at a nearby table.

Using the tried and true rule that both fish and house-guests begin to smell after three days, we packed for our planned departure.  On our final room check I decided to again look for the errant GFCI outlet.  Karen had departed for work and Don was out in front of the house with his kitchen granite and tile guy.  I eventually found, in the master bathroom across the house, a wall plug with a giant night light...., that wasn't working.  A quick removal of the night light found our hidden popped breaker.  Voila, Don could give up on his search for his electrician's phone number.

Just before we left our gracious hosts, Sue's phone rang.  It was our neighbor Patty who told us the window installers had showed up at our house to deliver our new windows.  This was all fine except for the fact that we were in Arizona and it would be difficult to let them in.  They were not supposed to make this delivery until December 16th.  Patty let me talk to the delivery guy and I told him to speak to Chris and to take the windows back to their office warehouse.

Our next scheduled stop was Lake Havasu City.  I wasn't sure why we were going to a place called Havasu as everyone knows, I already "have-a-Sue".  I only need the one and couldn't handle another.  It seems that this town is around the halfway point between Prescott and Las Vegas.  It also has a singular premiere attraction, the 1831 London Bridge.  Yes, leave it to a rich Missourian to buy a patch of desert to test his Evenrude outboard motors on the shores of a lake created by damming the Colorado river.  Mr. McCulloch, of the chainsaws which bear his name, purchased the city acreage for $75 an acre.  He originally made his fortune the old fashioned way, he inherited it.  Then he married a woman named Briggs, of Briggs and Stratton small engine fame.  To promote his newly purchased city, he built his Evenrude plant here and then bought the London Bridge from the City of London.

Original London Bridge

New London Bridge at Sunset

The bridge was built over dry desert land.  It is of reinforced concrete but they used the facade of the original London Bridge in its construction.  The stones of the failing London Bridge were shipped to this location and added to the new desert bridge over, well, dirt.  After the bridge was built, they dredged a canal under the bridge which diverted water from the reservoir Lake Havasu.  This also created an island on one end of the bridge.  Now the bridge had a purpose.  That purpose is to convince travelers from Miami that they had better stay here.  At least for two days.  We complied.

Sunset Lake Havasu (Sue Shot)

Last Day in Grand Canyon

As mentioned in our previous post, we awoke to cold rainy drizzle.  The canyon had disappeared behind a wall of white clouds..

There is a canyon out there somewhere

 It looked like a day by the fireplace at the El Tovar.  There are certainly worse places to be.  I made several ventures out to the rim only to be met by white clouds and disappointed strangers.

One in particular frightened me.  She stood out from the other rim walkers in her pink Duck Dynasty flannel pants.  In tow, she had a little boy about six or seven in his Superman outfit.  The little boy kept wanting to try out his super powers by running past the rim trail borders toward the clouded rim.  She would yell at him to get back to which he would stop for two seconds and then proceed as if nothing had happened.

We spoke briefly.  I should say I spoke briefly.  She on the other hand related her story that she was on her way back to Kentucky after swapping her new truck with an older one owned by her uncle in San Diego.  She couldn't keep up with the payments so the uncle would take them over.  The problem was that the tire needed fixing and she was down to $300.  She didn't have a spare but hoped she could find a Walmart where she could pick up a cheap replacement.  We parted ways just as her little boy disappeared into a cloud bank in the distance.  This exchange lasted at least a minute and a half.

I headed back inside the El Tovar to await the sounds of sirens that would signal the Superboy had flow his last.  I met Sue in the lounge for a large glass of stout.  Sue had a chardonnay.  The waitress brought out two identical orders, the second destined for another couple across the room.  I had to introduce myself to the two strangers with such good taste in alcoholic refreshment.

We met Tim and Sharon from Wisconsin.  Tim was a retired cop who had taken up woodworking and cabinet making as a second career.  They had wisely left northern Wisconsin for warmer weather.  That would be warmer by Wisconsin standards, certainly not by Miami temps.

At some point in our conversation I looked out the window to see that the sun had just broken through in a sliver of light across the canyon and you could actually see distant shapes.  I ran upstairs to our room and grabbed my camera and left Sue to entertain our new acquaintances.

After The Fog

I blasted away at what would probably be my last images of the Grand Canyon.  I moved up and down the rim for different vantages knowing that this light sliver certainly wouldn't last.  After shooting with my DSLR, GoPro and cellphone, I decided that I could use another cold beer.

Tomorrow, on to Prescott, AZ.

Trees, Finally Some Trees

We just saw our first tree in a week and a half.  You never know how much you might miss trees until you visit Nevada and eastern California.  They both have very small struggling shrubs, but no trees.  You can literally see over the top of every growing thing.  Lots of dirt, rocks and small shrubs.  We crossed the state line into Arizona and saw our first green things taller than 3 feet.  The only green thing of any stature or prominence up to this point was me after my questionable dinner choice.

Grand Canyon

Sue drove most of the way.  Don't tell Thrifty Car Rental as she is not a "designated driver".  It was a long, mostly straight roadway.  Her only hazards were tumbleweeds that appeared out of nowhere and ignored all traffic laws.  The small ones weren't a problem.  It was the 4 foot balls of brown brush crossing the roadway at 30 mph that caused Sue to issue her, "*#b#%w2r#**g>*6%#**" outburst.  I don't know what she said either.

By desert standards, Arizona is lush with vegetation.  Green trees, brown hay-like grass and green shrubs. We hit Williams, AZ, about an hour before sunset.  Sue drove for the first 4 hours so it was time for some relief.  Jack to the rescue to "bring it on home" for the last hour.

The GPS got us to the front door of the Grand Canyon's El Tovar hotel.  I got lucky and found one of the rare parking spots nearby.  A quick check in and we dropped our bags in our room and headed for the lounge.  We had the beef tenderloin chili and crab cake sliders.  Yum.  Washed down with a bit of alcoholic refreshment and dinner was served.

El Tovar Hotel

Internet access is weak and TV channels are limited.  All of this is blamed on the remoteness of the park. 

It was dark when we arrived so, imagine our surprise when we woke up the next morning and stepped outside to be greeted by 20 degree air and to find a very large hole next to our hotel.  I now know where all of the sand and rock came from that we saw in Death Valley and Valley of Fire.  It came from this hole in Arizona that they call the Grand Canyon.  It must have taken a team of backhoes weeks to dig this thing.

Major Excavation Site

Since we left Death Valley at minus 287 feet and now are staying at a positive 7,000+ feet, it is lucky we came up slowly so as not to get the bends.

An Indian Pointed Here Once

We are regulars now at the El Tovar dining room.  The food is good by National Park standards and most meals we have had have been good to very good.  One night I had the boneless duck.  I never feel guilty eating boneless duck as I think that, any duck without bones, couldn't have had much of a life anyway.

Our weather has been heading south lately with rain scheduled for our last day.  It was sunny the first day and overcast the second.  We woke up our third day to fog and wet pavement.  We'll have to wait to see how the weather progresses.

El Tovar Lobby Decorated for the Holiday

We may end up spending our last day in or near our 109 year old hotel.  The picture above shows that even the buffalo head in the foreground has gotten into the spirit of the holiday.

Valley of Fire

Welcome to the land of beautiful dirt.  We arrived at our new digs in the town of Overton, NV, in the guise of the North Shore Inn (NSI).  Hosted by Deborah and Chris.  The NSI is located "just outside the Valley of Fire (VOF).  Various estimates give it at 7, 8, 9 or 10 miles from the east entrance.  Close enough for government work.

Overton's main business model is tourism.  Most of it rolls with the punches with the highs and lows of Lake Meade.  Water politics being what they are, the water commodity is sold to the highest bidder.  Recreational use on the lake is low on the bidders list.  Recently the water has been sold to Mexico.  The NSI saw that the Lake Meade model was not a good one so they switched their marketing to the VOF crowd.  They (NSI) heavily advertise in the European markets.  The results of that advertising can be seen in the largely Asian clientele here.  I guess the Asian clientele read the trades from western Europe.

The NSI has also been the benefactor of errant bird flight patterns.  Chris told me that they recently sold out when there were reports of an odd crane that landed and was co-cohabiting with some sand-hill cranes.  Birders cancelled reservations elsewhere and flocked, if that is the right word for birders, to the NSI.

Overton's second commercial product is dirt.  They mine the dirt which seems to be in abundance around here.  They wash it and sort it and what do you know, clean dirt, aka, sand.  Silica sand is used in glass and optics.  I just know I dumped enough high grade sand from my sneakers to build another Hubble Telescope.

The Valley of Fire is basically a scam being run by the Nevada State Parks Department.  They pay creative types to look real hard at the rock formations and make up names.  Animals seem to be popular as they have elephant rock, poodle rock and duck rock.  They also have a piano rock that looks like it was stolen from the Flintstones' living room.  I have looked around and found an entire menagerie of animals.  We lost count of the elephants and we have seen many apes, gorillas, lions and tigers and bears, oh my.

Tell Me You Don't See An Elephant Here

The least imaginative among these naming assignments seems to be Lone Rock.  It would appear that a large rock fell from a nearby rock face and landed all by itself.  Some enterprising employee put up a sign stating that this was, "Lone Rock".  They then built a pit toilet and a picnic table.  Nothing says I would like to eat a nice picnic lunch like a nearby pit toilet.  It is a mixed blessing.  Eating a non-refrigerated lunch in a normally hot park and, a pit toilet may be your best friend.  Other times it is going to have you contemplating a drive back to  Overton for lunch at Sugars.

Lone Rock with Picnic Table, Pit Toilet Not Pictured on Right

Sugars was our stop for dinner on our first night.  A typical small town restaurant with booths from an episode of Mel's Diner.  Our waitress, Flo, served us with typical small town flair.  She appeared to be the "town ???", you know, the one everyone talks about and silently envies.  She wore make-up, and a sports tee shirt and had her nails professionally done.  I suspect that she drove to Vegas for that last addition.  The loud conversation from the kitchen and serving area would rival a skit from the TV series Two Broke Girls.

I had a chicken fried steak with mashed potatoes and chicken gravy with corn.  It came with a bowl of New England clam chowder.  An hour later and the "most popular item on the menu", chicken fried steak, caused me gastric discomfort, the likes of which I hadn't suffered since the "questionable tamale" I ate in Tijuana in 1964.  Luckily Sue had several third world folk remedies.  These consisted of liquorice root extract and Tums.

A twelve hour nap later and all was right with the world.  All is right with the world is a relative term as it relates body readiness.  I felt like I had been run over by a Mac truck and dumped in a park pit toilet.  Our unassuming "elephant walk" down the elephant walk trail was to have been a mere 1.2 miles.  Now I do 2.25 miles every day without incident as part of my morning routine.  This of course is on level Miami ground.  This was on soft sand littered with rocks on a grade that went up and down by something they refer to as 9.6% grade change.  I have no idea what that means other than I felt like I had completed the Bataan Death March in record time.  No offense to the people on that WWII ordeal, but I have to let you know I had visions from an old war movie while on that trail.

We later climbed a metal stairway (84 steps) to see the petroglyphs.  This is 4,000 year old graffiti made by a renegade ancient Indian gang known as the Atali.  They recorded their exploits in the black patina of the local rock, much like the punks of today.

A close up of the graffiti shows that these Indians had no respect for their elders.  Note the raised middle finger.

The best way to "do" elephant trail is to ignore the signs and just walk up the road near the entrance pay station and take your pictures from the road.  The trail loop is just an ordeal you should avoid.

Elephant Rock as seen from the road

Our second day at VOF had us in recuperating mode.  A late breakfast and a late start had us retracing our previous day to catch what we had missed.

Our goal was to save our energy for The Fire Wave.  This formation is of recent "discovery' and is now featured on their brochures for the park.  The Wave is still of little notoriety in the Information Center as we asked the Information Specialist behind the counter and she didn't really have good information, as we would find out.  We asked about the best time of day to shoot the wave and were informed that sunset is the best time.  Not exactly true.  Both a.m. and p.m have their followers.

Sue and I followed two "professional photographers" down the p.m. trail.  You can tell a professional photographer from the other variety as they have tripods, backpacks, cameras, square over sized filters and various other paraphernalia that mere mortals would never pack into a sandy wilderness.  Both Asian professionals seemed to walk with authority.  They knew where they were going.  A brief conversation found out that they were much like us being led astray by a wayward Information Specialist.

We arrived at the Wave at the wrong time.  At least as it might pertain to the most photographed icon of The Wave which was now in the shadow of the setting sun.  I managed to scout a new location to save our efforts since we were not likely to repeat this hike in our lifetimes.

New Iconic View of the Wave

 We made the .6 mile hike in soft sand in a record 45 minutes.  Back to our car a good 30 minutes before the sun set at 4:30 p.m.

Tomorrow, we drive to the Grand Canyon.

Starry Starry Night

We planned an easy day northbound from Furnace Creek for our third day at Death Valley.  We scouted the 20 Mule Team Borax Mine exhibit while on our way to the dunes.  There, behind a wood rail fence, is a large wagon rig with a towed water tank.  This sits next to a building ruin from the old mine.  Our plan was to use this area later at night for some Milky Way photographs.  That's the sky type Milky Way and not the candy bar.

Borax Wagon

I used my celestial information app, Stellarium, to predict the location of the Milky Way Galaxy (MWG) at 9:00 p.m.  It told me that the Milky Way would be, in technical astronomical jargon, UP.  Yes, it would be UP, not angled UP, but Way UP.  Like almost straight overhead.  It is a good thing the MWG is huge.

Stellarium App Shows Location of Stars

We missed the hidden dirt road leaving the mine exhibit that would have taken us to Mustard Canyon.  This is a yellow mustard canyon and not the spicy brown variety we had been seeing.  We would have to save it for tomorrow.  On our way to Mesquite Flat Dunes.

The Dunes are just sand with a good collective bargaining agreement.  They do what they want, move when it pleases them and are responsible to no one.  We walked out on the dunes and I spent the next 24 hours trying get sand out of my socks and sneakers.  This is no ordinary sand but a nasty invasive variety.  Fun stuff.

Mesquite Flat Dunes

We went back to our room and had dinner at the Saloon.  I knew now to order the beer and not anything as complicated and technical as a scotch and soda.  Their Porter is actually good and now accompanies all meals except breakfast for me.  If Sue weren't here it might also work for breakfast.

Speaking of drinking, one of our best purchases was oddly a box wine.  It was wholly drinkable and, best of all, it fit our small portable cooler.  The Chardonnay also fit in the room refrigerator. The box holds the equivalent of 4 bottles of wine and has a spigot.  You are never sure how much you have had and, on vacation, that is a good thing.  No need for stoppers or corkscrews either.

Winner of 40 awards

We got our gear together for our night star shoot.  Tripods, cable releases, fresh batteries, flashlights and warm coats.  Back to the Borax exhibit.  We set up and found that a 30 sec. exposure at ISO 1600 worked well with a wide angle lens wide open.

Borax Wagon and Starry Night (click to enlarge)

I used our flashlight bounced off a nearby gray dirt mound to light paint the wagon in the foreground.  Sometimes I used the palm of my hand to reflect and bounce a bit of light.  It took some experimentation but just a few seconds of bounce during the 30 second exposure seemed to work best.  We folded our tripods at around 9 p.m.

The next morning we started late.  We drove out to the Rhyolite ghost town for a change of pace.  We stopped in the bustling town of Beatty where we topped up on some cheap Nevada gas.  Beatty has a small casino, a Subway and a 4-way stop sign.  With the exception of a few buildings downtown, most of the dwellings were trailers.  I think we spotted the mayor's double-wide on the top of a hill.

A backtrack of a few miles from town and we were on the main street of Rhyolite.  The town sprang up in 1905 and died in 1911.  Gold was discovered in 1905, 5,000 people flocked to the town, Charles Schwab invested heavily in the town's infrastructure, the Cook Bank was built, the HD & LD Porter General Store was built (1906), gold ran out, end of story.

Cook Bank Building

The new proprietor of the bank looks like most bank executives I have met over the years.  A bit of a low-life and a drab dresser.  He epitomizes bank executives everywhere.  I captured a brief portrait of him as he arrived for work at the Cook Bank.  His picture is below.  BTW, the Cook Bank is a wholly owned subsidiary of Bank of America.

Cook Bank Executive

 
The bank executive, Mr. Rattler, slithered into his office, which was basically a bush at the edge of the building.  As I headed back to his office (bush) with my GoPro for some video, a truck pulled up and a woman prepared to exit right at the bush.  Luckily, her husband saw me waving in his mirror and delayed her departure.   I let him know that he should move his truck ahead a few feet as there was a rattlesnake just outside his wife's door.  He contemplated his options for a moment, then two, and then finally decided to pull ahead.  Good choice.  Way too many people saw me warn him.

Tomorrow, off to the Valley of Fire and Overton, Nevada.

Death Valley Days

Our second day began with a rooster crowing.  It was my chosen alarm and, at 5:00 a.m., neither the rooster nor the early wake up were appreciated by Sue.  We quickly dressed and headed out our door where the smell from the nearby horse stables reminded us that we weren't in Miami.  We drove in the dark back to Zabriskie Point to catch the sunrise.  You may, in my earlier writings, have seen Zabriskie spelled every way but this, the right way.

Zabriskie Point at Sunrise

We climbed the short hill to the overlook and used our previous day's scouting to jump the side rail and head down below to a better vantage point.  We were the first to arrive.  The sun broke the horizon and I quickly started shooting.  After about 15 minutes I looked to my left and right to see that I had been joined by a half dozen other photographers.  We spent about an hour and a half there and headed for breakfast.  On the walk down the hill we told the other late arriving photo bugs that there were no pictures left as we had taken them all.

We went back for breakfast and started the rest of our day down the southwestern leg of he main highway in the park.  We hiked Golden Canyon, drove through Artist's Drive and stopped at Artist's Palette.  It is an amazingly diverse landscape.

Artist's Palette

Our sometime companion, Mr. Shutterbug, popped up on occasion, to point out interesting sights.  He walked in front of us, behind us and hopped along side of us.  He set his own pace.  His enlarged feet felt like my own after a long day.  As they said on ABC's Wide World of Sports, "The thrill of victory and the agony of da feet".

Mr. Shutterbug in Golden Canyon

With particularly low elevations and incredible heat most of the year, references to the devil are a natural.  Devils Cornfield and Devil's Golf Course come to mind.  This latter reference looks like a par 2,384.  There are no greens, no flags, no fairways, no tees, only roughs.  Picture playing 18 holes on a huge field of broken glass, razor blades and fish hooks with large cracks in the ground.  The picture below shows the green on the 13th hole.

Devil's Golf Course 13th Green

The Devils Golf Course is made up of rock hard salt crystals honed to razor sharpness surrounded by hardened mud.  The average height from crevice bottom to pointy crystal top is about 18 inches.

Late that afternoon we ended our day at Badwater, the lowest point in the western hemisphere at -282 feet (below sea level).  At least it was the lowest point until they found a spot at -344 feet in Argentina.  Records made to be broken and all that.

Sue at Badwater Basin

 We then drove back to Furnace Creek for dinner.  We stopped at the Saloon for drinks and I ordered a scotch and soda.  The waitress asked what kind of soda I would like.  My blank look told her I too was confused.  I told her that club soda was the norm.  She then replied that, "We don't normally get these technical drinks."  Ah, to have lived such a sheltered life.  Pizza was our dinner selection and that proved to be a good non-technical choice.