Road trip, day 3

Okay, first I must apologize to the palm trees that I called “mutants” yesterday. I also apologize to anyone who has tender feelings towards them. I found out today that they are actually tree-sized yucca plants. Their true name - Joshua trees. :)

We had breakfast [not as good as yesterday’s] in a casino, of course. Then we headed for Death Valley.



Here is an indication of what Death Valley is like - the Visitor’s Center is called “Furnace Creek”. Here are some pictures of the drive into our first destination:

Here we are at Sea Level:

We arrived at our first destination, Golden Canyon Trail, around 9:00 a.m. and it was 95º. It was a 2-mile round trip walk up a canyon. It pretty much all looked like this:

This is one of 2 green plants that we saw - it is called Desert Holly:

It was so hot, we turned around and came back without even getting to the end!

Our next stop was Badwater Basin. This is the lowest point in North America - 282 feet below Sea Level. We actually walked out onto the salt flats a bit. Here are some pictures:

This place is called the Devil’s Golf Course because “only the devil could play golf on such rough links.”

Our last walk of the day - 107º! We walked around this boardwalk. It is called Salt Creek and in the winter it has water and fish in it.

The fish are called Pup fish and they are about ½” in size. I’m not sure where they go in the summer! The plant around me is called “Pickle Weed”. I thought that was appropriate for the briny surface it lives in!

We spent the night in Mammoth Lakes, CA. It was a beautiful forest and the temp was in the 70s! We went for a nice walk, bought ice cream for dinner and watched for bears. We didn’t see any, of course. [I have a history of not seeing the mammals in any park we've been to - no matter how many signs claim they are around! ;)]