11th September

We have arrived in Death Valley. The drive was quite interesting, and the range of colours in the rock varies all the time. The photos do not do it justice.

We dropped down 6,000 feet from the start of the national park, and drove across the white plain you can see in the background. Then we went up again to around 4,000 feet and dropped finally to nearly 200 feet below sea level. It’s currently 104 degrees, and even with the aircon on in the car, it’s hot! In fact there are notices around saying to turn off the air conditioning while you are climbing, to try and prevent the engine from overheating.

The hotel is a bit of a curiosity with mock gold digging saloons and gift shops (we haven’t found anything at all we want to bring back as gifts yet unfortunately) and there is actually a golf course here, though quite why anybody would even consider playing in this heat is quite beyond me. We have seen roadrunner but will try and get some photos later.

We are only here one night, and are off to the sequoia national park tomorrow, so may well get going at first light to travel in relative cool temperatures. Not sure whether we will venture out to see too much this afternoon!

Update :

We decided to have a couple of cheeky beers and an early supper before attempting to leave by 7 in the morning, so we went into the saloon bar, then trotted off for pork chops in the 49ers cafe! Stan The Man behind the bar was very obliging with the vino,so we went back into the bar after our early supper. I had bought a map,as Bitching Betty the satnav proposed taking us about 200 miles south before rerouting us up the other side of the Sierra Nevada. Typically, I disagreed, but StanThe Man introduced us to Wayne, who agreed with my route, so tomorrow we are going up over the Sierra Nevada through forests and lakes to get to Sequoia National Park.

It was a good evening,and we learned that Gerard Depardieu is actually on site at this resort filming a new movie “Love .. Somethingorother” – read all about it in a years time! The movie trailers are all parked up at the side of the bar area.

The evening temperature is about 90 degrees, ands my laundry dried in no time outside. The sunset was very pretty