Post by helens on May 7, 2013 13:03:50 GMT -5
Had a great trip to Vegas for 2 weeks, here's some pix:).
Link to my Vegas Album (not real interesting if you've been there):
s1339.photobucket.com/user/hystark/slideshow/2013-LasVegas
Bus tour to Grand Canyon West (Hualapai Nation):
Grand Canyon Slideshow:
s1339.photobucket.com/user/hystark/slideshow/2013-LasVegas/GrandCanyon
I think the single most interesting thing about the Grand Canyon is that there are NO guardrails at the edges... you can just walk to 1" from the sloping edges of all the parts... and slip right off the pebbles... !!!
Death Valley- Wow. Just wow. Spent 2 days there, when I intended to spend only 1. It was just incredible!! Every single spot was almost completely different terrain.
Highlights:
Dante's Point
- can see the highest point in the USA and the lowest (282 feet below sea level) from this one vantage:
Flowers!
Zabrieski's Point
- looks just like the sign... but incredible. We had to hump up a 1/4 mile hill to get up there, but wow:
- looking back down at the parking lot from the curvy path:
Looks like Mars or something:
Borax Mining
Moonscape!
Artists Drive
This pix doesn't remotely show the colors we saw... it was like mounds of ice cream, chocolate, vanilla, strawberry and pistachio. The entire drive looked like it was surrounded by mixed scoops of ice cream!
Furnace Creek Visitors Center- 112 degrees at roughly 5:30 pm:
We saw that the low point looked like a river... but this was Death Valley?? So we drove down there. Right up to 20' from it, it looked like sparkly water! Not water, it's SALT:
Can you imagine being a miner trying to get to water... seeing this and using the last bit of strength you had to get there... to find salt?
This is the 'Badlands'... or 'BadWater Basin'. It's the lowest point on earth (282 feet below Sea Level). We watched the sunset from the lowest point on earth, and it was 112 degrees at Furnace Creek Visitor's center. The temp felt way hotter on the salt here, which is much lower than Furnace Creek.
We were the ONLY tourists for miles and miles and miles... absolutely no one from any direction as far as the eye could see (and you could see far given how flat the fake water was). It was sooo hot there at sunset:
Right after the sun dipped below the mountains, we drove to Devil's Golf Course trying to beat the last of the light:
Sun almost gone (see how the salt reflection looks like WATER?):
It was dark by the time we made it to Natural Bridge Canyon:
Decided hiking in pitch black was probably not a good idea... even with very low light sensors, my camera would not shoot anything here:(.
Drove all the way up to StovePipe to get a room for 2 hours of sleep, so we could catch the dawn at the Dunes. Around 1 am, we drove out to Mosaic Dunes to see stars... omg... you could see galaxies from Death Valley. More stars than I knew could possibly be seen with the naked eye. It's like being in a cave out there.
Moon before dawn around 5:30 am at Stovepipe from the hotel:
Dawn beginning at the Devil's Cornfield:
Sun starting to come up over the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes
Really interesting looking furry bush:
Sun almost up:
Tourists and photographers starting to show up...
Drove towards Beatty on the way back:
Went to Ryolite... the 'ghost town':
Not sure what this IS, it's stuck on the top of a telephone pole 30' up in the air... creepy looking:
Lunch at Nevada's only winery at Pahrump Valley - highly recommend the 2011 Symphony and Desert Blush wines, friend had them ship a few cases home:
360 degree shots from my cellphone:
The whole album in slideshow
s1339.photobucket.com/user/hystark/slideshow/2013-LasVegas/Death%20Valley
Hope the pix show up!!
Link to my Vegas Album (not real interesting if you've been there):
s1339.photobucket.com/user/hystark/slideshow/2013-LasVegas
Bus tour to Grand Canyon West (Hualapai Nation):
Grand Canyon Slideshow:
s1339.photobucket.com/user/hystark/slideshow/2013-LasVegas/GrandCanyon
I think the single most interesting thing about the Grand Canyon is that there are NO guardrails at the edges... you can just walk to 1" from the sloping edges of all the parts... and slip right off the pebbles... !!!
Death Valley- Wow. Just wow. Spent 2 days there, when I intended to spend only 1. It was just incredible!! Every single spot was almost completely different terrain.
Highlights:
Dante's Point
- can see the highest point in the USA and the lowest (282 feet below sea level) from this one vantage:
Flowers!
Zabrieski's Point
- looks just like the sign... but incredible. We had to hump up a 1/4 mile hill to get up there, but wow:
- looking back down at the parking lot from the curvy path:
Looks like Mars or something:
Borax Mining
Moonscape!
Artists Drive
This pix doesn't remotely show the colors we saw... it was like mounds of ice cream, chocolate, vanilla, strawberry and pistachio. The entire drive looked like it was surrounded by mixed scoops of ice cream!
Furnace Creek Visitors Center- 112 degrees at roughly 5:30 pm:
We saw that the low point looked like a river... but this was Death Valley?? So we drove down there. Right up to 20' from it, it looked like sparkly water! Not water, it's SALT:
Can you imagine being a miner trying to get to water... seeing this and using the last bit of strength you had to get there... to find salt?
This is the 'Badlands'... or 'BadWater Basin'. It's the lowest point on earth (282 feet below Sea Level). We watched the sunset from the lowest point on earth, and it was 112 degrees at Furnace Creek Visitor's center. The temp felt way hotter on the salt here, which is much lower than Furnace Creek.
We were the ONLY tourists for miles and miles and miles... absolutely no one from any direction as far as the eye could see (and you could see far given how flat the fake water was). It was sooo hot there at sunset:
Right after the sun dipped below the mountains, we drove to Devil's Golf Course trying to beat the last of the light:
Sun almost gone (see how the salt reflection looks like WATER?):
It was dark by the time we made it to Natural Bridge Canyon:
Decided hiking in pitch black was probably not a good idea... even with very low light sensors, my camera would not shoot anything here:(.
Drove all the way up to StovePipe to get a room for 2 hours of sleep, so we could catch the dawn at the Dunes. Around 1 am, we drove out to Mosaic Dunes to see stars... omg... you could see galaxies from Death Valley. More stars than I knew could possibly be seen with the naked eye. It's like being in a cave out there.
Moon before dawn around 5:30 am at Stovepipe from the hotel:
Dawn beginning at the Devil's Cornfield:
Sun starting to come up over the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes
Really interesting looking furry bush:
Sun almost up:
Tourists and photographers starting to show up...
Drove towards Beatty on the way back:
Went to Ryolite... the 'ghost town':
Not sure what this IS, it's stuck on the top of a telephone pole 30' up in the air... creepy looking:
Lunch at Nevada's only winery at Pahrump Valley - highly recommend the 2011 Symphony and Desert Blush wines, friend had them ship a few cases home:
360 degree shots from my cellphone:
The whole album in slideshow
s1339.photobucket.com/user/hystark/slideshow/2013-LasVegas/Death%20Valley
Hope the pix show up!!
