We woke up early this morning. We had a long drive ahead of us, because we were traveling all the way to Utah now. That's a long way! We had stocked up on food and made sandwiches for the road and were ready to go. Back on the 395 we drove down Owens Valley, past that bizarre, pink, dried up Owens Lake. (Since the 40s, its water sources have been funnelled to provide Los Angeles with water. There's still an ongoing debate about it ...)
We were going to cut through Death Valley on our way to Utah. From Owens Lake, we thus started climbing towards the Inyo Mountains. The landscapes changed pretty soon. We did a little stop at a red lava canyon that reminded me of home. A Bonnie-and-Clyde looking couple that had pulled up their car there made me a little eerie. From their appearance I could have believed they had just finished dumping a body when we drove in.
Death Valley contains some of the hottest, lowest and driest locations on earth. In fact, the second hottest temperature ever recorded in the world was 134 °F (56.7 °C) in Death Valley, in 1913. Death Valley also contains the lowest point in the western hemisphere, at 282 feet (86 m) below sea level near Badwater. This was a good day to try the air conditioning system in the car.
We hadn't planned to make a halt anywhere on the way, but just before Stovepipe Wells we pulled our car up and went for a little walk in Mosaic Canyon, a canyon with some narrow polished walls made of marble and limestone mixed with colorful mosaic patches of agglomerated fragments. It pretty soon became pretty unbearable except in the shade. Still, this was not a particularily hot autumn day. Just past Stovepipe Wells we drove past the sand dunes, then through the oasis of Furnace Creek (the site of some luxury hotels) and before Badwater we started climbing up from the valley again.
Just above Badwater there is a fantastic viewpoint to admire the badlands. It was crowded with French tourists though, three busloads. Kind of strange to come upon so many people all of a sudden in the "desert". For pictures from Zabriskie point, click
here. We will have to make another visit to Death Valley to properly get to know it. We definitely will.
As we came out of Death Valley we were only short ways from the Nevada border. We had originally planned to spend a couple of nights in Las Vegas or in the vicinity to see Red Rocks, but we were not gonna have the time to do that so we would just drive through. Otherwise, we had now business in Nevada, and as we entered Nevada it pretty soon became clear to me why. Very soon we were just driving through the ugliest piece of country that I had ever seen since I entered the United States.
I am sorry, but I just couldn't find anything good to say about the land we drove through. Just to give you an idea, one of the towns we drove past was named Phrump! The highway took us basically right through Vegas, where we were stuck in heavy traffic for a couple of hours. Not the most pleasant part of our drive, certainly! As we approached Arizona, things started getting a little better though. We cut actually through the North-Western corner of Arizona's pretty, red desert lands.
Then we entered Utah, drove past the booming town of Saint George with its impressive backdrops, and finally came to our destination of Zion National Park, and guess what, got one of the three remaining camping spots at the park´s campground, just before they ran out of space. The setting was fantastic, red peaks all around us, as we were basically at the entrance of the canyon that the national park covers. So, we got a little taste of the landscapes awaiting us before the sun went down on us ...
We woke up early this morning. We had a long drive ahead of us, because we were traveling all the way to Utah now. That's a long way! We had stocked up on food and made sandwiches for the road and were ready to go. Back on the 395 we drove down Owens Valley, past that bizarre, pink, dried up Owens Lake. (Since the 40s, its water sources have been funnelled to provide Los Angeles with water. There's still an ongoing debate about it ...)
We were going to cut through Death Valley on our way to Utah. From Owens Lake, we thus started climbing towards the Inyo Mountains. The landscapes changed pretty soon. We did a little stop at a red lava canyon that reminded me of home. A Bonnie-and-Clyde looking couple that had pulled up their car there made me a little eerie. From their appearance I could have believed they had just finished dumping a body when we drove in.
Death Valley contains some of the hottest, lowest and driest locations on earth. In fact, the second hottest temperature ever recorded in the world was 134 °F (56.7 °C) in Death Valley, in 1913. Death Valley also contains the lowest point in the western hemisphere, at 282 feet (86 m) below sea level near Badwater. This was a good day to try the air conditioning system in the car.
We hadn't planned to make a halt anywhere on the way, but just before Stovepipe Wells we pulled our car up and went for a little walk in Mosaic Canyon, a canyon with some narrow polished walls made of marble and limestone mixed with colorful mosaic patches of agglomerated fragments. It pretty soon became pretty unbearable except in the shade. Still, this was not a particularily hot autumn day. Just past Stovepipe Wells we drove past the sand dunes, then through the oasis of Furnace Creek (the site of some luxury hotels) and before Badwater we started climbing up from the valley again.
Just above Badwater there is a fantastic viewpoint to admire the badlands. It was crowded with French tourists though, three busloads. Kind of strange to come upon so many people all of a sudden in the "desert". For pictures from Zabriskie point, click here. We will have to make another visit to Death Valley to properly get to know it. We definitely will.
As we came out of Death Valley we were only short ways from the Nevada border. We had originally planned to spend a couple of nights in Las Vegas or in the vicinity to see Red Rocks, but we were not gonna have the time to do that so we would just drive through. Otherwise, we had now business in Nevada, and as we entered Nevada it pretty soon became clear to me why. Very soon we were just driving through the ugliest piece of country that I had ever seen since I entered the United States. 
I am sorry, but I just couldn't find anything good to say about the land we drove through. Just to give you an idea, one of the towns we drove past was named Phrump! The highway took us basically right through Vegas, where we were stuck in heavy traffic for a couple of hours. Not the most pleasant part of our drive, certainly! As we approached Arizona, things started getting a little better though. We cut actually through the North-Western corner of Arizona's pretty, red desert lands. 
Then we entered Utah, drove past the booming town of Saint George with its impressive backdrops, and finally came to our destination of Zion National Park, and guess what, got one of the three remaining camping spots at the park´s campground, just before they ran out of space. The setting was fantastic, red peaks all around us, as we were basically at the entrance of the canyon that the national park covers. So, we got a little taste of the landscapes awaiting us before the sun went down on us ...
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