We Are Alive, Here In Death Valley

Jason decided that we were going to detour and take a little drive through Death Valley on our way into California from Nevada. It was only going to set us back a few hours and since I had never been, we shuffled it into our travel plans.

I'm the kind of girl who is always up for an adventure, so I didn't question going in the middle of July. But, after spending a few minutes in the scorching summer sun, it didn't seem like the brightest of ideas to go to freakin' Death Valley smack dab in the hottest month of the year. When we stopped at the guest center at about 10am, it was already hitting 112 degrees. Talk about a scorcher of a day! But, we had a case of water in the trunk and forged ahead. Since we were only wanting to detour off of our itinerary a little bit, we knew we were only going to be able to explore about 1/4 of the national park. We grabbed a map from the guest center and plotted out the points that most piqued our interest. Badwater Basin was going to be our first stop.

Badwater Basin is the lowest point in North America, with a depth of 282 ft below sea level. A springfed pool of water surrounded by salt flats make the water too saline to drink. An early traveler coming through the area on his horse took a sip from one of the pools of water here and declared it "bad water" and that's how the name came to be.

Living in the Midwest, we have nothing but flat land, so we were quite captivated by the valleys in the mountains.

My favorite stop was the Artist's Palette. Here you'll find gorgeous multi-colored claystones from ancient ashfalls of the Artist's Drive Formation.

As fascinating as the trip was at first, after about 2 hours I was ready to go. I mean, there's only so many mountains you can look at before you feel like it's all running together. I started getting paranoid that we were going to be stuck in the middle of the desert forever, but Mariah was hoping to visit one of the ghost towns before we left. So, I sucked it up another hour so we could hit up the Ballarat Ghost Town.

While it used to house close to 500 people, it's now deserted with the exception of  a full time employee that runs the little general store on the grounds. We ventured into a little two room shack on the property that served as both a hotel and a jail. The general store clerk told us that Charles Manson was a frequent visitor to grounds and even left some graffiti on the walls inside.

It is rumored that this old rust bucket also belonged to Charles Manson and his murderous family.

There's even little cemetery where you can find the original proprietor buried.

  
All in all, I am glad we made the Death Valley detour, but I am glad that we only decided to do a small portion of the park. The mountains and scenery are truly breathtaking, but in small doses. No matter what time of year you visit, make sure you are stocked with plenty of water and packed to survive the elements. We received no cell phone service once inside, so if you happen to get stranded, it could be some time before help arrives. Better safe than sorry.

Would you make a trip through Death Valley?