23-FEB-2008
I have somehow managed to find beauty in this landscape.
It's desolate.
It's dry.
It's foreboding and not welcoming in the least.
But the tenacity of life is evident every where you look.
You just have to look.
23-FEB-2008
The delicacy of the flowers in Death Valley is amazing.
One would have thought that only the most thorny, tough skinned plants could survive.
Then you stop and look a little closer and you find delicately colored petals that are soft and beautiful.
23-FEB-2008
The gold rush brought settlers to the areas around Death Valley, and even some to Death Valley itself.
Today "desert gold" thrives in the lower elevations.
Down on the desert floor where it gets hottest in the summer, you find these beautiful daisy-like flowers that cling to life and brighten any landscape.
23-FEB-2008
Even where very little else can survive, desert gold thrives.
23-FEB-2008
The one thing you should consider when going to Death Valley, aside from having plenty of water, is that the roads are long. It can take 2 hours to drive from one side of the park to the other. This is the kind of place that deserves a week to explore. We still had fun with one weekend.
23-FEB-2008
We drove to Bad Water where you can see the large salt flats and where it is the lowest point in North America. -282 feet below sea level. As you walk further from the parking area (and all the other people) the salt gets whiter and whiter.
23-FEB-2008
The landscape also gets very rough for a while.
23-FEB-2008
So many years of salt evaporation!
23-FEB-2008
This is just a detail of the ground in this area of the flats.
23-FEB-2008
The salt crystals look remarkably like fur on the earth.
It's so delicate and small. Amazing what beauty there is in such an inanimate object.
I felt kind of bad walking on the salt knowing that I was squishing down these beautiful crystal structures.
