Death Valley has the distinction of being the hottest, driest and lowest place on earth. Our first day of exploring the park promised great weather topping out at 80 degrees.
We had breakfast at the 1849 Restaurant that serves three buffets each day. At 9am when we got there, it was empty, so the tour buses that stayed in the park must have already left for the day. The gentleman who manned the cash register was hilarious, as he told Michele that this morning five tour groups came in all at the same time for breakfast. He said, "It was like a psychotic horse running through a burning barn."
We decided to trek out to the Ubehebe Crater, the furthest sightseeing locale in the park that is paved and can be accessed with a regular car. Michele saw a post on Instagram before the trip and wanted to check it out.
The scenery for the 1-hour drive each way was incredible. The vast majority of this park is wilderness. There are just a few planned hiking trails.
We spent 90 minutes there. At the end, a nice woman and her husband were setting up lunch for themselves in the parking lot. The lady told Michele that she took pictures and we were in two of them, just tiny specs in the distance. She shared the pictures. Can you see us? Her name was Rhona from San Diego and said her daughter works in DC.
It was Noon, so we drove back the hour to our hotel and got lunch at the buffet. It was delicious again.
After lunch we walked the short distance to the Visitor's Center. Michele wanted to learn about the geological formation of the mountains. We looked at exhibits and watched the movie that explained how about 3 million years ago, Death Valley proper began to form. The earth's crust pulled part and tectonic forces slowly formed the mountain ranges and valley. The valley was also once home to a large lake.
We learned that wildlife do live here, although we haven't seen any of these yet: coyotes, road runners, bighorn sheep, lizards, the kangaroo rat, desert tortoise, and a rare fish called the pupfish.
Thirty minutes before sunset, we opted to head over to the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes to catch sunset photos. On our last visit here in 2017 on the motorcycle Rob planned a sunrise visit to the same location and it did not disappoint.
We possibly saw our first Death Valley inhabitant, the pallid bat, as it swooped past us. The temperatures dropped to a comfortable 70 degrees with the slightest breeze. We set up our camp chairs and Rob prepped his camera's night photography settings. The moon was very bright, so it somewhat hindered Rob's plans for dark sky photography. Michele used her binoculars to see the craters and detail of the half of the moon that was glowing. She also used the Night Sky app to check out the constellations and planets. We had so much fun pointing out constellations, planets, and satellites. We stayed there until 7pm and were the last people on the sand for the night. Back to the hotel area, we grabbed a late dinner at the buffet.
This is our cottage neighborhood.
Tomorrow we'll explore other highlights of the park.
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