Day 3 - Las Vegas & Death Valley

Blimey.. it's 8:50am and we're IN THE POOL! ..those who know my early rising abilities will be as astounded by this information as I am.. anyways, it was gorgeous down there, the pseudo lagoon was looking fantastic, only about 10 other people had made the early start and we had one end of the pool complex to ourselves, The Mirage pool is a series of pools connected with walkways and surrounded by palm trees & gazebos.. when you're in there you have no clue that you are surrounded by hotels in the centre of a modern city, it's really quite idyllic.. we swam for a while then layed on the sunbeds to dry off before heading back to the room to pack and check out...

After leaving the Mirage at about 10:30 we drove down to "New York New York" for a spot of breakfast and another abortive atempt to win dinner on the slots.. we ate in "America" a small chain restaurant within the NYNY casino. One last stop was made before we left Vegas, a quick run across the road to "The World of Coca-Cola", last time we were here we'd discovered the delights of "Lychee-Mello" a coke corp. owned brand of coke only sold in Thailand and wanted another taste.. they have a "Cokes from around the world" exhibit which lets you sample as many of the unique diverse drinks sold by Coke all over the world as you want. The UK is represented by "Lilt"... Italy by "Beverly" a foul tasting concoction made I swear from old lady arm-pit scrapings. We were going to smuggle a giant bottle in to steal a large quantity of Lychee Mello but chickened out.. how frustrating then to find a guide who would have turned his back had we tried.. next time... next time..

World of Coca Cola

The tasting station

Back to the car and into the desert proper.. it was a 115 mile drive to Death Valley National park. We had decided to go to a Ghost town called "Rhyolite" first, this was a community set up in 1905 to mine gold from the surrounding hills. By 1909 10,000 people lived there, by 1911 the boom was over and they'd all moved out, leaving the Jail, General Store, a large casino, and sundry buildings to fend for themselves.. time & vandals have done their work & what's left isn't pretty, but it is interesting.. there is a house made from bottles, the owner couldn't afford bricks and the local miners left enough empties laying around to make his task a simple one..

The mine entrance is still on the side of the hill, you can get about 6 feet inside, but further exploration is barred by a heavy gate. There are other small wooden shacks still standing and the casino looks like it could open tomorrow (after a coat of paint..) but we didn't get to look inside as it was fenced off.

Rhyolite, Casino in the distance, Town population in 1906? .. 10,000.

House made of bottles

Town Jail

Have I mentioned it was hot outside? at Rhyolite the temperature was about 105.. little did we know what nature had in store for us as we entered Death Valley itself.. the time had moved on to about 5pm so we decided to visit one or two beauty spots then find somewhere to stay, "Stovepipe Wells" was our first point of call, the Ranger Station was closed so we couldn't get our park pass, we'll do that tomorrow.. there wasn't much to see there so we drove further into the Valley..

Originally we had decided to stay outside the Park and drive in to explore properly tomorrow, but realising that this would be a 250 mile round trip & waste of time to boot we elected to stay at "Furnace Creek" a museum/restaurant/motel complex which was 17 miles further into the park. I've actually visited briefly once before and was happy to return as it's a nicely run place,. after checking into our cabin & finding out that today's temperature here is 120 degrees (!!) we had dinner in the restaurant which turned out to be quite the revelation, by American standards it was expensive, but very very good.. the salad bar alone was a feast, add that to the entree and you've got two happy campers on your hands..

Our cabin

The dryness that is Furnace Creek

Then the wind came up...

We decided to skip a swim as the sun was going down (gonna go in the morning tho..) and decided to drive up the road to Zabriskie Point, a famous viewing area named after a manager at the local Borax mine who was quite the character evidently (I nearly read all of the info board .. honest..) by now the wind was up to about 30 - 40 mph.. and here's the scary bit, it was HOT... damn hot! I've only felt heat like this before coming out of open oven doors.. the wind was picking sand up & using it to erode your face off & the hot air was drying out the inside of one's lungs like they were tea-bags in a toaster.. why is this place called "Death Valley" again?? the Point itself is on a small hill, the exposed top of which contains a viewing area, there were about 20 people up there watching the gorgeous sunset and struggling to remain standing.. and still the heat came..

Zabriskie Point.. awesome..

One woman was reduced to tears as she was hit full in the face by a blast of hot sand.. she stood in the middle of the viewing area holding her head crying, (I took a photo.. quite the photojournalist I am..) The wind was unrelenting, a constant blast of boiling air with no shelter as we were on top of a rise..

Cry baby. (She had a point!)

The heat was unbareable.. it was so hot that as you sweated the sweat would instantly vaporise.. quite the strangest feeling.. did I mention that this is the hottest place on earth? ..well that's what I was told.. I'd assume it would be hotter closer to the equator so maybe this is just the hottest place in America, but it was hot enough for me! the air temperature is quite amazing, even as I write this at midnight it's still 93 degrees outside and tonight we'll be sleeping accompanied by the sounds of full on aircon & the ceiling fan's annoying click click click... turn it off? never.

Tomorrow we do Death Valley proper..

-S.