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.