Death Valley Tour...

Hi everyone......Caroline here...

Today we started our travels from Lone Pine to Death Valley. We left the most comfy beds ever of Lone Pine at 11 am and a temperature of 84f (sorry, America work on fahrenheit). We entered Death Valley after about an hour, stopping at various tourist spots to take photos. During the course of our journey the temperature gradually increased as we drove deeper into the valley, by as much as 5 degrees per 1000 feet!

At a place called 'Stovepipe' where we saw some sand dunes, we had dropped from 4,000 feet and 84f to sea level and 110f! By the time we reached an area called Badwater we were 282 ft BELOW sea level at a temperature of 114f. We could only stand being out of the car for 15 minutes at a time. Badwater is the lowest point in North America and is a landscape of vast salt flats - quite a sight.

So the whole day was spent in the car visiting tourist spots with amazing views - the contrast of the green pine trees of Yosemite to the dark volcanic rocks of Death Valley was very marked. Finally at 5.15pm we arrived at our accommodation for the night 'Furnace Creek Ranch', which is very nice. Even at 8pm it is still 35c but the boys cooled down in the pool before going for dinner.

Tomorrow morning Chris and I are going to get up at 5.30am to go to Zabriskie Point about 7 minutes drive away to witness the most spectacular sunrise (so it says in the books!) - let's hope it's worth it! Then we are heading to Vegas which the boys are really looking forward to. They have a really big outlet shopping area there, so I think I may have some fun too, but maybe I should win some money on the slots first...ha ha!