Saturday, January 20th 2007

The drive to Death Valley last night was really annoying. It was dark and the road was loooooooong. Driving that long with no visual stimulation has a tendency to really screw with my head. Naturally, everything had closed and we had to have canned tuna for dinner. The hotel room had no phone, no internet and no TV. And there was a typed sign on the sink telling us not to drink the water. Scott informed me after I threw a minor fit that the sign at the registration desk had said it was OK to drink the water. I was a bit weary about the whole thing and drank my green tea that I had in the truck. Did I mention that the price for the hotel was twice as much as our trusty Super 8? This did not sit well with me, but Scott promised that come morning I would be really happy that we were here because not only is the land spectacular, but the nearest motel was about 40 minutes away.

He was right, it was awesome. The roads seemed to go on to eternity and the valley was beautiful. The valley is home to the lowest point in the US at 238 ft below sea level and it is in the Badwater Basin, a salt lake bed, now dry, that constantly fills and dries with the varying rains of the season. We hiked around a bit and took some really cool shots of the lengthy road.

The drive out of here was mostly up hills and down them. It was not only hard on Milo, but I was beginning to get sick of it as well. Going through Carson City and Reno almost did me in. The speed limit fluctuated from 65 to 35 to 25 to 45 back to 25 and then back to 65. I absolutely hate going 25 mph and to have to do it over and over again with the addition of traffic lights was about enough to send me over the edge. However, the promise of reaching San Fransisco tonight was enough to keep me sane and strong. We arrived at 10. I was so done and Milo was begging for a rest. I love this city and am so happy to be here. Total mileage: 4312.

This entry was posted by Johnny on Saturday, January 20th, 2007 at 11:23 PM and is filed under Photos, Planes, Trains & Automobiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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