Death Valley: a land of extremes!

From when I saw a sign that said: "Stop, extreme heat danger, walking after 10:00 am not recommended" I said to myself, ohhh hell naahhh! I immediately thought that there was no way that could be fun, because let me tell ya! It was after 10:00 am! And man, I don't even like the Caribbean heat...

But any way, my dear Death Valley! It was my first desert experience... not bad I must say! If you're running away from the cold though, this is clearly the place to go. That's the tip of the day! oh and bring more water than you can think of!

Death Valley, one of the lowest and hottest places on earth, is the largest U.S. National Park outside Alaska at 3.4 million acres. It is nearly 1,000 miles of paved and dirt roads, and I thought this was all there was to it. However, to my surprise there were actually different 'points' with different attractions including low valley floors crusted with barren salt flats, rugged mountains rising as much as 11,000 feet, deep and winding canyons, rolling sand dunes, and spring-fed oases. Oh joy! Ain't that the definition of diversity? Well, I was lucky to make it to three different points.

On October 1, 2018, I visited the "Zabriskie Point" first. This is an elevated overlook of an undulating landscape of gullies and mud hills at the edge of the Black Mountains, just a few miles east of Death Valley. So basically you just walk to this point until you cannot walk anymore because you would just pretty much fall off a cliff. I was here after dropping my phone in the river, and I remember jumping to take a picture while having my phone in my back pocket and it dropped so close to the edge! That could have been it... again! Everyone around me was just shocked that I clearly wanted to lose my phone in that trip.

Secondly, I visited the "Badwater Basin". This is where I saw the scary sign, and no wonder because it is 282 feet below sea level, making it not only the lowest place in the park but the lowest in North America. This site consists of a small spring fed pool of "bad water" next to the road in a sink, with accumulated salts of the surrounding basin that make it undrinkable, thus giving it the name. Here you just walk on the hard sandy looking road, as far as you wish I guess, because it's not that you can see where this road ends. I personally didn't walk far but I did get to sit on this road and get myself all white dirty, just for the sake of a picture.

After this, I honestly didn't wanna see any more of the desert, neither did I think that there was more to see, but again, I was wrong! Now I'm at the "Sand Dunes" and this is actually what looked like a desert to me based on what I have seen on TV and such before. This is what I was expecting to see all along, a place covered in sand. There were some dry looking tree branches as well though. Today I found out that I'm not the only one who thinks this way. Apparently many first time visitors to Death Valley are surprised it is not covered with a sea of sand. Less than one percent of the desert is covered with dunes, yet the shadowed ripples and stark, graceful curves define "desert" in our imaginations.

After wandering around a little, I left. You definitely have to be drinking water continuously and it's so hot that you don't really wanna stay around for more than a few minutes. After this point, I was so ready to get out of the desert!

Well folks, that's all about my time there! I wish I had seen a snake or something to make this story more interesting, but this was still a cool, somewhat enjoyable experience for me, just not the most adventurous! Plus, this place makes up the 101 places to see before you die. And if you didn't find it an exciting read, I'm sure you at least learned a thing or two! Either way, still recommended so go see for yourself!

With that said, I'm also going to leave you with a desert joke I like:

Why can’t you starve in the desert? – Because of all the sand which is there.