Day 14 (July 17): The Second Hottest Place on Earth

Total Traveling Distance: 381 miles (trip total: 4,089.3 miles)

States Traveled To: Nevada, California

Main Activity: Death Valley National Park

We woke up at nine to get ready for our 11am checkout at the Stratosphere. Since Liz packed everything the night before, I loaded the car and checked out. On our way out to the car, we stopped at the Stratosphere gift shop and picked up a few more souvenirs. We then bought coffee at a nearby McDonald's and were on our way out of Vegas and into the desert!

It took us three hours to get to Death Valley.

a Google Earth image of the road we drove through Death Valley. (see the road in the bottom left corner)

Death Valley is the hottest, driest, and lowest place in North America. It is the second hottest place on Earth, reaching 134 degrees in 1913, only 2 degrees cooler than the hottest recorded temperature ever (Libya). It is the hottest place in the Western Hemisphere.

A little history: The first known non-Native Americans to enter Death Valley did so in the winter of 1849, thinking they would save time by taking a shortcut to the gold fields of California. They were stuck for weeks and in the process gave the Valley its name, even though only one of their group died there. (Wikipedia)

160 years later, we arrived in Death Valley. The temperature at the Visitor's Center said about 120 degrees in the shade. It was about 125 degrees in the open desert, with the ground at boiling point!

On the way to the Visitor's Center, we stopped at a scenic viewpoint, Zabriskie Point. The instant we stepped out of the car, we felt like we couldnt breathe. The air was so dry and so hot that it almost hurt to move. So of course I made Liz walk up the hill to see the viewpoint. The walk couldnt have been more than 500 meters and didnt take longer than 10 minutes, but we both drank a liter of water on the way there and probably sweat it all out on the way back.

By the time we reached the Visitor's Center 20 minutes later, Liz was ready to leave Death Valley. We spent as much time as we could in the air-conditioned Center (which was still hot), buying a couple postcards and watching a slideshow about the history of the Park. There was also a cool museum about the pioneer and mining days of Death Valley.

Death Valley is the largest National Park in the continental US, something I didnt know before we arrived there. With the amount of gas we had (the gas stations in Death Valley had equipment failures- plus it was over $4 a gallon), the time and the heat, we decided to just drive through the Park, stopping at only one site: the Sand Dunes.

Driving to the Sand Dunes took about a half an hour. I dragged Liz onto the hot sand (boiling point, remember) and we immediately regretted wearing flip-flops. We hopped to the top of a dune, finished half of our CamelBak, snapped a few pictures, then ran back to car, our feet burning the entire way. I grabbed some sand and put it in a Ziploc bag (my souvenir) and we were on our way out of the Park, which would turn out to be easier said than done.

An eerie, foreboding sign marked the start of our long journey out of Death Valley:

WARNING: AVOID CAR OVERHEATING. TURN OFF AIR-CONDITIONING. NEXT 55 MILES.

the long road to come:

Not one to challenge Death Valley warning signs, I turned off our AC immediately and rolled down the windows. Death Valley was about to get a lot more enjoyable.

Liz somehow managed to sleep in the 120 degree weather. The drive was long and slow due to the rolling hills and rough terrain. For most of the drive, we were going slower than 45 mph.

We had enough gas and water in the car to keep me from worrying. The only thing that did get me a little nervous was how few other people there were in the Park. There were times when we wouldnt see another car on the road for 30 minutes. All I could think was, if something happens to the car, this day could get a lot longer. Oh yeah, and there was no cell phone service.

I kept a close eye on the engine temperature. It slowly crept towards that red hot H and when it got as close as I would let it to overheating, I decided to pull over and let it cool off. Liz didnt want to get out of the car, but I decided to walk around the area near the car, looking for wildlife and photographing the beautiful Death Valley terrain.

After 20 minutes, the car was cooled off enough for us to get out of there. We exited the National Park, only to find that it was another 40 miles to the nearest desert town. We stopped at a small lodging area for people visiting the park and went inside the strange convenience store (which had jars of onions and sodas....that was pretty much it). After using the boiling-hot bathrooms, we left.

On our way out of the desert, we saw a sign for a ghost town, 3 miles down a gravel road. Since we had yet to see a ghost town during our road trip, we decided to go check it out. On our way out to the ghost town, we saw a brand new pick up truck abandoned in the middle of the desert, about a half mile from the road, with no tracks or sign of people near it. It was a very strange site and evoked images of something from a Cormac McCarthy novel, particularly this face:

When we reached the ghost-town, what we saw made us immediately want to leave. A sketchy looking cop standing outside of his cop car, talking to what looked like a teenager wearing no shirt. The ghost-town turned out to be a couple of broken down old mining houses, but nothing spectacular. I stepped out of the car to snap a few pictures, and then we got the hell out of there.

Our next stop was in Ridgecrest, the nearest town outside of Death Valley. We were starving, so we stopped to grab a bite to eat at John's Pizza. We ordered a large pizza, ate about half of it, then threw the second half in our already-horrible-smelling cooler. On the way out of town, we saw a pretty sweet sunset.

We then had to decide where we going to stay that night. I had originally planned to only drive an hour to the nearest KOA, but when I looked at the catalog of KOAs that we had, I saw that the nearest KOA to Los Angeles was only two hours away. So we drove to the outskirts of LA that night.