Day 98 - Las Vegas - Death Valley, California, USA

Day 98 – 14th September 2005 -8:00 GMT

Today I spent the day in a Sauna, well actually in Death Valley which is practically a Sauna. It is known as the hottest place on earth and reaches temperatures of up to 57 C/ 135 F. So we checked out of the Imperial Palace at 10:30am.


My Las Vegas Casino Chips

We drove North on highway 95 to Death Valley National Park. We stopped at the Entrance to the National Park and had a photo with the sign and paid our $10 park entry fee.


Welcome to Death Valley

We then stopped at Furnace Creek Ranch and looked around the museum and visitor centre. We saw a 12 minute film on the national park and the amazing sites. We also got warned not to touch Rattlesnakes, Scorpions or Black Widow spiders. (Shame as we had every intention on grabbing some of those) It is so hot due to it being 200ft below sea level. The area is also covered in salt as the water contains over 6% salt and when it flows from the mountains it has nowhere to drain so it evaporates and the salt is left. Over millions of years it has created salt beds. We had lunch at the Furnace Creek Ranch then drove onto Salt Creek Trail where we walked over to the dried out lake bed along a wooden boardwalk.





We then drove to Stovepipe Wells which has huge sand dunes around it.



Then we went a bit off road and took the Wild Rose Road which is a slow windy road through the mountains then the pave road ends and we have a gravel track.





We left the national park around 5pm and drove south to Ridgecrest. Where we checked into a motel and proceeded to do out laundry. We spent the rest of the night watching TV.