Death Valley

In 2005 during a Las Vegas visit we made an excursion to Death Valley. It's over 100 miles away from the city and all we basically knew it from were the land speed records that were set there on the Salt Flats -oh, and the fact that the highest temperatures in the USA are usually recorded there and the lowest point in the continental USA lives there too.

100 mile drives are what Drivin' Adair lives for!

At the airport on arrival I did my usual Hertz routine. I am a Gold Club member so my car is always waiting with the keys in it. We always go to the car and see what we have awaiting. Then I walk around the lot to see if there is anything I would prefer. Corvette convertible? Looks sexy and fast (which it is) but too low and no room for luggage. Oh!- here's a little gem....an Audi S4 convertible.

So I go to the Hertz office and change the paperwork from a Jaguar to an Audi.

With this car in mind a quick zip up to Death Valley seemed inevitable.

Smooth roads, a pleasure to drive on

This is the outer edge of the park

I'm shooting video at this point

There aren't many people out here...

Beautiful soft colors in the rocks

These are the natural colors!

We're not even in a valley yet

As you can see we are still close to the road and haven't had to go far to take these photos.

We have climbed (walked more like) to a high overlook. You might be able to see the red car way down below at center.

Ah, now we can see the valley beyond 

Back in the car for a drive along the edge of the valley

The park averages 3,000 visitors a day (A million a year). Where are they? The answer lies in the fact that it covers 5,400 square miles....

This is a vast salt flat

 crunchy underfoot

The Sea Level sign on the cliff

Wide open spaces

With a long drive ahead of us and not wanting to be in the park when it got dark-even though it is one of the best places to view the night sky- we drove on. We had the smooth winding valley road to ourselves and I had fun driving at speed on this desert road that was new to me. We could have retraced our tracks and returned via the highway but this was more of an adventure. We left the park at Shoshone and took a country road to Pahrump and from there the city was only 20 miles or so fast drive away.

Back to the Bellagio!