A trip to the mountains west of death Valley cont.

Americana, Cactus & Succulents, California, Camping, Death Valley, Photography, Travel, Uncategorized

After driving all day Thursday, we all slept in on Friday.

But it did not take very long before the sun got bright enough and hot enough to wake us. After a quickie breakfast, we packed up


and hurried over to the Eureka Sand Dunes.

The Eureka Dunes are not very large or famous but they are among the highest dunes in the United States at over 650 feet above the valley floor. They look smaller because they are framed by the striped limestone cliffs of the Last Chance Range that rise up 3000 to 4000 feet higher. Sand dunes are caused by wind blowing across the valley floor and picking up fine dust and sand; as the wind hits the higher mountains, it slows down, loses energy, and drops its heavy load. One thing that I find interesting is that the the individual grains of sand are constantly changing but the size and shape of the dunes do not.

As an aside, after getting home I realized that, with four people on our trip, I took alot less pictures than I usually do when I am only with Michele. Among things I didn’t take pictures of were the beauty of the sand dunes. Fortunately, Kirk Moore has some wonderful sand dune pictures over at his website. I highly recommend that you take a look. End aside.

By the time we got to the dunes, it was starting to warm up and the dunes were getting very bright. We hiked up about half way, maybe 350 to 400 feet, on sand that got looser and looser.

About the time that the day starting getting really hot,  heading towards triple digits. We got back in the truck and looked for shade. First it was back to the main road and then over the Last Chance Range into Death Valley itself. As we started over the last pass before Death Valley, we started seeing more plants in bloom. First the Beavertail Cactus, also known as the Pricklypear Cactus and probably known as some other names which is why people who like plants and go looking for them in the wild end up using the botanical name. In this case, Opuntia basilarus.  Just as we got to the pass overlooking upper Death Valley, we came across lots of clumps of Desert Aster, AKA Mojave Aster, or Aster mohavensis.

Then it was down into Death Valley, past Crankshaft Crossing, and on to Scotty’s Castle where we had lunch in the shade.

 

 

A trip to the mountains west of Death Valley

Americana, California, Camping, Death Valley, Travel

Last Thursday I, along with my wife Michele and our friends Howard Dunair and Basha Cohen, spent the day driving down Highway 395.  Highway 395 runs from Canada to somewhere in the Mojave Desert.  Between Reno, where we got on to Big Pine, where we got off, 395 runs just to the east of the Sierras. Reno is at about 4500 feet and Big Pine is at about 4100,m but, from Reno, the road climbs to a pass of over 8100 feet so Big pine seems much lower.

The Mojave desert is the the UFO desert, the wacko desert, and it seems to have seeped up the 395 corridor.  About an hour south of Reno, we ran into a guy who was pulling a cross from San Francisco to, I think, St. Louis. He had been saved by Jesus and wanted to save others. Like other people I have met who have been saved, he was sincere, open, passionate, and living so far from my reality as to be incomprehensible. I do admire his conviction, however.

 

Miles later, web got to an overlook and view spot with a guard rail. The guard rail has become a poster board for – for lack of a better word – travel stickers. I think that I first saw a bunch of travel stickers stuck on the windows of a a store – for foreigners – at the edge of the Sahara desert. Now I notice them anywhere tourists pass by, such as a guard rail at a view spot. Here – as Michele poinbted out – was an interesting group that showed one evolution of the Keep Tahoe Blue sticker.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As we moved south, after crossing the high point of Highway 395, we dropped from one basin to another, each one lower and warmer with the Sierras on our right getting higher and higher. Mile after mile.

 

Finally, at Big Pine, we turned left off of the highway and drove towards the deep desert.

And once we reached Eureka Valley, we stopped to drink a toast to the road.

To be continued….

The Wedding

Uncategorized

 

I am not much interested in the Wedding of the Decade. Watching somebody I don’t know get married on TV just does not seem that interesting. I did enjoy Robert Altman’s movie A Wedding, however.  On the other hand, I like to watch very specialized cars drive around and around a track to see who is faster so I am in no position to say say what people should or should not watch on TV, or what is serious and what is frivolous.

I consider myself a small “d” democrat and somewhat of an anti-monarchist. Actually, I have not been around enough monarchs to be an anti-monarchist in anything but theory although I did date, for a while, a Homecoming Queen from the University of Texas. Also, I have never been invited to any royal weddings – even the Texas girl’s. I did once photograph a very minor maharajah – known as a raja, I think – when we stayed at the  Bijaipur Castle and I was so nervous and sweating so much I thought my camera might squirt out of my hands. I did get alot of nice shots of commoners, though.

I am mildly interested in the ho haw surrounding the wedding. The professed claim that this is not a state occasion but a personal occasion as the reason the Obamas or the Blairs are not invited. Apparently just seventeen hundred of their closest friends was all there was room for, so no old friends of the boys’ mother were included. Fortunately, there was room for Shaikh Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, the “King” of Bahrain. I guess the fact that he recently killed some of his troublesome subjects was not a deal breaker – although it did get the Syrian ambassador’s invite rescinded.

Anyway, Happy Wedding Day to all.