Following our day in Yosemite park we spent a second night in the
town of Mammoth. The next morning we started early on our way south.
It was going to be a long day with a lot of different landscapes, first
bringing us to the deserts of Death Valley and finally to reach Las
Vegas in Nevada.
The mountains along the road that we follow from
Mammoth towards Death valley. This is a combination of three photographs
to give an impression of the landscape.
Beautiful landscapes along the road south of Mammoth.
The trees stand out because of their bright yellow autumn colors.
While we travel more to the south, the mountains
get lower. Here and there we see colorful trees.
Death Valley National Park.
Desert plants waiting for rain.
There are few plants surviving in this dry area,
but these Yoshua trees seem to like it here.
From here the road takes us down down down to Death
Valley.
In a small oasis we found this restaurant where we
stopped for lunch. This is the only road runner we saw.
Desert landscape in Death Valley. We stopped many
times to look at nothing and to hear nothing.
Death valley. In the desert there is nothing, but
even nothing can be very beautiful.
The road goes on and on. Maybe one or two curves
should have been considered.
Just sand and stones, but with a bit of color it
becomes a piece of art.
This part of the desert is covered with small stones.
Some plants survive here but we see no animals. It is so silent that
you can hear yourself think: "wow, this is silent".
A raven and some palm trees live in this small oasis.
Just dry sand everywhere, but even in these sand
dunes there are some plants that managed to survive.
After going down hill for many kilometers we suddenly
reach sea level.
And the road continues to go down. Here we have reached
61 meter below sea level.
In the middle of the desert we find these white areas
which appear to be made up of salt.
Crusts of salt cover the ground.
After crossing the death valley we found these eroded
hills.
Nature can be very creative. Different colors and
shapes are the result of many years of erosion.
We left the death valley behind us hoping to see
some wildlife on the road. But we didn't find any wild life until we
reached Las Vegas (in Nevada).
We arrived in Las Vegas where we had booked a hotel
for the night. A lot of lights, a lot of casinos. Hmmmmmm... better
sleep early and leave again early tomorrow morning.
Tomorrow we will travel further east towards the north rim of the
Grand Canyon. Goto Day 11.
