Hottest, Driest Place in North America

Jill's Journal: It was a huge treat to visit Death Valley National Park. Disclaimer: we probably feel that way because we visited in November and not a few months earlier. We enjoyed a gorgeous fall day with temperatures in the 70s, a little more than double what they were in Lone Pine at our campsite. But Death Valley is not known for its pleasant days. It is famous for the unmerciful five or so months of extreme summers with brutal, soaring temperatures.

Death Valley is the hottest and driest place in North America, but there are lots of deserts around. What makes this one so hot and so dry? It is a long, narrow basin dipping to 282 feet below sea level, but it is walled in by steep, high mountain ranges. Heat becomes trapped in the valley, only to rise and be recycled down to the valley floor, getting heated even more by the low elevation air pressure. This super-heated air reached a world record high of 134 degrees in 1913. In fact, for five consecutive days that year, it was 129 degrees or higher. (The current world record of 136 degrees occurred in Libya’s Sahara Desert in 1922.) It’s just about as hot these days. For example, in 1996, 40 days in Death Valley registered over 120 degrees (plus 105 days over 110 degrees). When it’s this hot, nights don’t cool down below 100 degrees.

The ground temperature here is even hotter (generally about 40% hotter) than the air. It’s not unusual for ground temperatures on the valley floor to reach a blistering 200 degrees.

As for the dryness, there are four major mountain ranges between the ocean and Death Valley. By the time any moisture might get as far as this particular desert, there’s very little left. A number of years have passed with no rainfall at all, although the average rainfall annually may get up to a whooping two inches. The driest stretch on record occurred in 1931-34, when it rained a grand total of .64 inches during a period of 40 months.

Where did Death Valley gets its morbid name? In 1849, a small group of pioneers heading to the Gold Rush looked for an alternate route to Sutter’s Fort. Winter was setting in and they knew they wouldn’t make it over the Sierra Nevadas. They trusted a crude, hand-sketched map and found themselves in an unforgiving desert. After losing one member of their party, their oxen, and their wagons, they assumed the desert would be their grave. Amazingly, they were eventually rescued by two members of their party who had gone on ahead. As they climbed the Panamint Mountains in their escape, one of these “Lost ‘49ers” looked back and said, “Goodbye, death valley.” As they told their tale of human suffering and near death, the name stuck.

Death Valley became a national monument in 1933 and a national park in 1994.

One of our first stops in Death Valley, coming in from the west, was Father Crowley Point. The girls weren’t too impressed yet…

…but their tune changed when we visited the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes. At 14 square miles across the widest part of Death Valley, the sand dunes are a realization of every child’s dream. A giant sandbox!

It got even better when they met two other little girls around their ages.

The five soon set off in search of adventure, leaving the four adults to chase after them.

We so enjoyed this lovely family, one of several we met in Death Valley. Moms don’t come more fun than Linda, who impressed me by getting down in the sand to capture images. She is clearly a more dedicated photographer than I am!

“Sand is everywhere in the desert, but sand dunes are not. For sand to gather into dunes, it takes three things: a supply of sand, a strong wind, and something to slow that wind. Sand erodes from the mountains around Death Valley. Winds from the north carry sand down the valley until they hit the bulk of Tucki Mountain…, causing the sand to collect at its foot. Southerly winds form a huge eddy in the leeward side of the same mountain, adding even more sand. The sands shift with every windstorm, but the dunes are trapped in place.” --National Park Service literature

An hour’s drive away from the sand dunes is Badwater Basin with its 200 square miles of salt flats. These are among the largest protected salt flats in the world. This is also the area resting 282 feet below sea level, the lowest in North America and second-lowest in the Western Hemisphere.

The area got the name from this pond. It was labeled as having “bad water” by a surveyor mapping the area when his mule refused to drink the salty water.

With water nearly four times saltier than the ocean, who could blame the poor beast? The name Badwater stuck.

Over 90% of the salt here is sodium chloride, which is regular table salt. The stark, flat white path has been trampled by lots of human feet. The “puffier” white and brown hasn’t had quite the amount of human traffic.

The girls badly wanted to taste the salt…so we all did! All five of us. A tiny drop is super salty. Erika, our little salt lover, thought it was wonderful.

The source of salt comes from Death Valley’s large drainage system of 9,000 square miles (an area bigger than the state of New Hampshire). The arid climate here causes evaporation to exceed precipitation, meaning just the salt mixed with fine silt is left behind.

We left the salt flats to take in Artist’s Drive and Palette, a scenic nine-mile route among the foothills of the Black Mountains. This area gets its name from the striking colors in the rocks.

Death Valley is huge at 140 miles long along the valley floor. After a full day, we had time for just one last stop to witness the sunset: Zabriskie Point, which overlooks Death Valley's badlands.

We have so much more to see in Death Valley and we hope to do it from the eastern side in a few weeks. What a starkly beautiful place. We feel so fortunate to have gotten this little taste of it.

Pictures, cameras, travel, and family...

As you all know, we went to Death Valley yesterday. It was a long day, followed by an early day today -- moving day actually. We got a later start than expected, and were a little tired after the trips both Saturday and Sunday. Death Valley will be talked about by Jill (in detail) tomorrow night I'm sure.

For now, I downloaded my pictures and while I caught some good stuff - nothing, save one - aside from some family shots - stood out to me in my downloads...

For some reason I really liked this one, and I hope to get much more time, and more snapshots, in DV in the near future... Tuesday will tell. ;)

-282 Feet

Jill's Journal: It’s amazing to think that just a week or two ago, we were at the base of Mt. Whitney, the highest point in the contiguous U.S., and today, we were at Badwater, the lowest point in North America. Even more amazing, the two spots are approximately 85 miles apart as the crow flies.

Badwater, at 282 feet below sea level, is in Death Valley National Park. In spite of the grim and forbidding name, we enjoyed a fantastic (and full) day in Death Valley today.

More tomorrow; we're tuckered out!

New Camera

A few weeks ago I ran into a problem.  I was running around taking a ton of photos during my last day in Tahoe, and set the 'big camera', a Canon 10D, down in the seat - gently.  I heard what seemed like an explosion in it.  I got to my next spot, and tried to shoot some more pictures, but the shutter wouldn't click.  So, reluctantly I took off the lens and pieces of the mirror and shutter fell to the ground.  Clearly, this was a problem.

Now, we've gotten our use out of this camera.  I bought it for Jill the month before Erika was born.  This is the camera that transitioned us from print to digital. Anyone that knows Jill knows that she seriously takes some pictures.  You follow the blog, you've seen the shots.  Now multiply that by about 150 and you can see how many pictures she takes.  We figure the 10D shot tens of thousands of photographs, maybe even 6 figures - in fact, I figure that in developing costs alone it paid for itself 6 or 10 times over...  After she moved on to a smaller camera - for portability - I inherited the 10D, and I've run a bunch through it.

Well,  I like to take pictures too -- a lot.  After the 10D broke, I thought - a new camera costs a lot - I can live through it and use a little Sony point and shoot that Jill has moved on from.  I lasted ONE day, in Yosemite, and it was clear that I needed a new 'big' camera.  I just enjoy photography too much, and this trip is too cool not to document it well from both our perspectives.  Plus, the Sony's autofocus decided to fail during the trip to Yosemite - and I can only ask Jill for her camera so many times... Clearly time for a new camera.

First, let me mention this.  When we set off on our trip we went to the camera store in Lexington that we trust and wanted to clean and refurbish the 10D - big trip, a newish camera would be a good thing.  They said pretty plainly that it would cost more to send the camera to Canon to clean and fix than it was worth.  "Put that money toward a new one, and you'll be happier".  Now, we made a choice and limped it along for 18 months, got our use out of it, and the technology was so old that it was time not for a fix, but a whole new setup. 

So, after a little research, I bought probably the third best SLR camera Canon offers.  I didn't want to spend what #1 and #2 cost, nor does my ability require that level of camera.  There were less expensive cameras, but I wanted something with features and quality that was a step above that.  The 7D is fantastic.  I'm happy to have it, use it, and will strive to learn how to make it do its best.  We love Canons, have a few good lenses, and have had good experiences for, well, better than 18 years.  This will be our 4th SLR from Canon (Rebel II(print), EOS3(print), EOS10D, EOS7D).  I expect this one to last me for another 18 years - or until I find THE picture that I can sell for 5 figures - then I might move up.

Anyway, Jill said - for your F-O-R-T-I-E-T-H birthday, you should treat yourself -- so I did.  (Thanks dear!)  I also bought another lens that I've wanted this entire trip, and since I was already making a new setup work well, I added a few other accessories to make the camera everything I want.  Have I mentioned that it is fantastic?

The new lens is a 10-20 Sigma (a secondary lens manufacturer - I couldn't justify spending what Canon wants for that type of lens) and has opened an entirely new world of photography to me.  You'll see in the pictures below what the camera can now do.  The pic on the left is our really good Canon 28-105 L lens, which I love, but sometimes it doesn't let me get the landscape shot I want without taking multiple pictures and stitching them together.  The one on the right highlights the 10, and shows what the 28 did  from the same spot - whee!

I've only shot a few shots that I consider 'good' since I've started using the new setup.  I'm looking forward to getting some really fantastic shots in the coming months, but thought I'd share the ones that I thought were good here.  I hope you enjoy them too.

The stickers on the rig...

So, somewhere last night I said - I'll blog tonight...  I thought I said - I Could, apparently that meant - "I Would..." here it is... :)

I've left some people hanging on explaining what some stickers mean, and added a couple since the last time I posted them to the blog.  The goal of these, again, is to represent the areas we've been to and significantly explored.  Many are just pieces.  Many are just pieces of bigger stickers or bumper stickers.  I'm cutting them down both for the space a whole sticker would take up and to make them more 'ours'.  There are several missing from earlier in the trip, but we'll catch up on those in the coming weeks.

1 - Columbia River Gourge, OR
2 - Pendleton, OR (Let 'er Buck)
3 - Carousel Horse Museum, CT
4 - Mystery Spot, Santa Cruz, CA
5 - Wildlife Safari, OR
6 - Assateague Island, VA
7 - Fleichman Planaterium, Reno,  NV
8 - Multnomah Falls, OR
9 - Mammoth Lakes, CA
10 - Laguna Seca, CA (zoom zoom)
11 - Harrah's Auto Museum, Reno, NV
12 - Santa Cruz, CA
13 - Good Sam (we belong)
14 - Warning (inset 2)
15 - Yosemite, Valley View
16 - Gone Richter (inset 1)
17 - Oregon Trail
18 -  Mono Lake, CA
X - Reflectives


There were some question about the maps and how they were done.   I made a map of the US and Canada with photoshop, and had the local sign shop make 6 cutouts of it, five colors plus black.  Then, I took the outline of the black and placed it, and then placed the states in the outline as needed.  It took a bit of planning, and if we ever get out of places we've already visited, we'll get the chance to fill up the map.

The vinyl should work well, and last forever  - I drew up an outline on paper so that I could make sure two areas don't touch with the same color.  I'd swear we've filled more of the states up -  it looks a little empty for 18 months.  However, with the criteria we've come up with (see the previous post for more info) , we know that when we fill in a state, that means we've really seen that state.

Inset 1 -- GoneRichter.  Gone, sadly, but not forgotten.  For me, this was the impetus for our trip.  A high-school classmate decided to take a trip.  They bought a huge RV, loaded up an amazing amount of toys, and proceeded to try to travel the country.  This idea, having come to fruition soon after I got on Facebook, made me bring up the idea to Jill and think it was a possibility.  I absolutely had to pay tribute to them directly on the rig.  Unfortunately, their trip did not work out as well as ours has, but they did set our wheels in motion, pun intended, and I will always appreciate that.

Inset 2 -- Mess with my rig and I beat someone. I found this sticker kinda fun, so I put it on the rig. Nothing more, nothing less. I know most would have trouble IDing it without a closeup.

Don't mess with my house. :)

Museum of Lone Pine Film History

Jill's Journal: The tiny town of Lone Pine has surprised us with all there is to do and see in the area. Today we visited the Beverly and Jim Rogers Museum of Lone Pine Film History. That’s a mouthful. Folks around here call it the “Film Museum.”

Compared to big-city museums, this place leaves a bit to be desired, but for a town of 2,000 people, it’s pretty spectacular. It focuses entirely on memorabilia from the hundreds of movies and t.v. shows made in the area. The girls loved the introductory film on the history of westerns made in the nearby Alabama Hills.

Roy Rogers and Dale Evans did a tremendous amount of filming here in Lone Pine. This is one of Evans’ outfits. Incidentally, although the benefactors behind the museum share the same last name as Rogers, it doesn’t appear they’re related to the western star.

A dazzling display of cowboy hats belonging to almost every famous film cowboy imaginable is on exhibit.

There’s plenty of saddles, this one from Gunsmoke…

…and lots of movie costumes, this one from Gunga Din…

…and plenty of other memorabilia, like this giant worm or otherworldly creature used in the Kevin Bacon movie “Tremors.” They had a trailer playing from this movie, which both scared and fascinated our girls. They were completely obsessed and Victoria couldn’t understand this was just a puppet, even though the stuff shown on screen looked pretty convincing. If they have nightmares tonight, this miserable creature and Kevin Bacon are to blame.

The girls checking out some Lone Ranger memorabilia…much more wholesome!

Erika absolutely loved this Lone Ranger soap from decades ago. She thought it was hilarious the soap could make a person "as bright as Silver."

Hopalong Cassidy did more filming here than anyone else.

This is the same car…

…shown in this scene from “The Trail to San Antone." Gene Autry’s stunt double jumped Autry’s horse, Champion, over the car with Peggy Stewart sitting in the back seat. Eighteen of Autry’s movies were filmed here in Lone Pine.

This 1930s-era Columbia Pictures film case was found in the Alabama Hills in 1983.

What more could horse-loving girls want than a couple of saddles to sit in? Actually, I won’t answer that, because they’d all like the ponies that might go under those saddles for Christmas. Madelyn would also like a kitten and Erika wants to raise quails right here on the RV. (She spotted a quail-hatching and -raising kit in a catalogue). We may have to revise those Christmas lists with a "no live animals" clause. Visiting the Film Museum with its focus on cowboys and their horses did nothing to quell the fire, but it did make for an enjoyable afternoon.

Manzanar War Relocation Center

Jill's Journal: One square mile, enclosed with barbed wire. Remote, barren location under military guard. Brutal living conditions. Ten thousand people imprisoned for no crime. Some called it the “Jap Camp.” The politically correct of the time called it a “War Relocation Center.” President Franklin D. Roosevelt and other officials called it a “concentration camp.” And yet, inexplicably, it wasn’t in Germany or Poland or anywhere else. It was right here in America, right here in California. More than 65 years after it has closed, its footprint and its searing memory remain. It is Manzanar.

Words cannot express how powerful, how piercing, how incredibly moving it is to visit Manzanar National Historic Site near Independence, California. Our girls are far too young to fully grasp what happened there, but Rob was profoundly affected by our time at Manzanar and I was moved to tears.

We all know about the racism that gets headlines practically every day, but much more poignant is the quiet and forgotten racism directed toward Japanese-Americans right here in the United States during World War II.

In early 1942, two months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, prevalent racism combined with fear of where loyalties might lay compelled President Roosevelt to sign Executive Order 9066. That meant 120,313 Japanese-Americans, mostly on the West Coast, were given just days to leave their homes, close their businesses, and disperse all their personal belongings. Their weapons, short-wave radios, and cameras were confiscated. They were allowed to take only what they could carry and, unless they had kind Euro-American friends willing to help them out, lost everything else, things like houses they’d worked a lifetime to earn.

It occurred to me during our time at Manzanar that German-Americans, Italian-Americans, etc. suffered no such forcible upheaval during the same war.

Many of these incarcerated Japanese-Americans – two-thirds of them, to be exact – were second or third generation Americans, born here in the U.S. They spoke English. They had no foreign accent. They worked hard. They paid their taxes. They saluted the American flag. They were American through and through. Their only crime was a Japanese ancestry.

(Most of the others were aliens, legal aliens, who had been in the United States for decades but were prohibited by law from obtaining citizenship. They too paid their taxes and were American with the exception of their birthplace and the country on their passport.)

As a rule, the Japanese-Americans were stoic and went willingly, for the good of the country. Not a single one of them was convicted of espionage, sabotage, or any other sort of war crime. Some had sons, brothers, or cousins fighting in the war as part of the American troops. Some of the Manzanar detained lost their own sons in the war – fighting for America – and yet we kept them locked up as prisoners in these camps.

These people were not allowed to leave. They were under military guard. They were told the guard towers, the guns, and the bayonets were there to protect them. Yet, the guards and the guns weren’t watching the grounds outside the camp…they were guarding the borders of the camp to ensure no one left.

And life wasn’t easy inside Manzanar. The barracks were crude, tar-paper structures with eight people assigned to each 20x25 space, no matter if they were family or not. The constant wind blew sand in through the holes. There was no heat in the freezing winters other than meager oil stoves. Temperatures in summers reached 110 degrees. But worse, there was no privacy, there were no walls. There were not even partitions between the toilets or the showers. The people were forced to eat in mess halls. Family meals were a thing of the past.

“Children have not seen a kitchen stove, a bath tub, a family dinner table, or the privacy of a backyard for two years… Their poems, stories, and pictures reflect a barren world of watch towers, barbed wire fence, tar-papered barracks, desert flora, and high mountains capped with snow.”
--Dr. Genevieve W. Carter, superintendent of education

Of the 800 buildings once here, only three original structures remain today. One is the auditorium (shown here), a hub of community life. In it is now housed the Interpretive Center. This is an absolute must during any visit to Manzanar, as is the auto tour which directs one around the property and shows exactly how every bit of the "camp" was laid out.

Manzanar was one of 10 such “War Relocation Centers” in the United States. It officially opened (as it was being built) in March, 1942, and closed in November, 1945. A total of 11,070 Japanese-Americans – men, women, children, and the elderly – were incarcerated at Manzanar during those 3 1/2 years. When released after the war, they were given a one-way bus ticket, a meager $25 to rebuild their lives, and an expectation not to be a burden on society.