Super Bowl Sunday we picked up our neighbor Jan and headed out to Death Valley on a road trip. During the last month, Death Valley has received more rain than usual and the desert flowers are putting on a spectacular show. They call it a super bloom. The bright yellow flowers in most of the photos are called Desert Gold.
(My favorite flower picture today.)
We came upon some cars stopped in the middle of the road, spellbound by two coyotes! (I think they were looking for food. Highly illegal to feed them leading to a $500 fine if you are caught. But these two showed no fear of the cars or drivers. They looked pretty well fed for this climate and the time of the year.)
We went down the road and had some lunch. On our way back we saw this guy again. Very close to the road.
A bit of welcome snow on the California mountains across the valley. Snowfall is above normal this year!
It was 70 degrees when we had our standing picnic from the back of our Subaru.
On our way back we decided to take a side trip on Artist Drive, a one way 3.5 mile loop. So glad we did! Just amazing.
Vermont friends: Several of the corners here reminded us of Smuggler's Notch!
There were dramatic dips and tricky turns!
The rear view was pretty amazing as well.
A little side road brought us to this sign.
The colors in the photos below are naturally occurring! Pinks and blues and greens.
We think you could come here at different times in the day and see the colors change before your eyes. (It was about 1:00 pm this time.)
And golds and browns and rusts.
Another tricky turn.
Fantastic shapes.
Rose and ivory.
Finally back to civilization. We would like to stay at this hotel in the valley, The Furnace Creek Inn. There is very little artificial light in Death Valley so we hear it is an amazing destination for star gazing. I want to go there in late spring when it is fairly warm at night to enjoy the night sky.
We made a quick pit stop in Furnace Creek. Happy to see it is finally warming up again!
And now for a couple of other sights we saw along the way. We drove through a dust storm. This mountain was to our left. Sand ... not snow!
We looked for these guys last weekend when we had some visitors from Vermont. But they weren't to be found.
One final shot from the day. A group selfie on the Artist Drive. Thanks Jan for coming with!
I have been remiss in my blogging lately but am back on track. I've got two more entries almost ready to go so check back later this week!. (a recap of Erin's and Jordan's visit and one about a really interesting hike.)
It's all about the journey!
Nancy and Dan
No comments:
Post a Comment