I've always been a book reader, just about anything. When I was around 12 I got a book for Christmas, Arthur C Clarke's Mysterious World. It had information on all sorts of things around the world, including a mysterious place in far off Death Valley, a place where rocks moved by themselves. The story fascinated me, and yesterday, on my 4th visit to Death Valley I decided to drive the 54 mile round trip on what is called an unpaved road and is better described as a collection of rocks and holes designed to smash out your fillings. The destination was The Racetrack, the site of the rocks that move by themselves.
The drive took about 2 hours for each of the 27 miles and my poor car, with it's 8" inches of ground clearance took a knock or two grounding itself. Other than 1 other Honda, everything else we saw was a "proper" 4wd with larger tires and higher ground clearance.
We got out to the Playa, where the temperature was just above freezing (hottest place on earth you say....). Shot a few pictures for maybe 20 minutes, climbed back in the car and bounced our way back to civilization, just making it back to paved roads as darkness fell.
I was accompanied on this 5 hour jaunt by my Wife, who never discourages me from doing stupid stuff! We should have started earlier, and done it on a day where we weren't driving over 400 miles home. By the time we were back on paved roads it was dark, and we had just over 400 miles left to get home through twisty mountains (I could have gone the longer but easier way but where's the fun in that!) Eventually got home a little before 1 AM, just enough time for a few hours sleep before we had to be up for work the next day.
This is destination two crossed off my childhood bucket list, the first was Monument Valley.
Canon 5DIII, ISO 100, F/6.3, 1/800's, 56mm
Canon 5DIII, ISO 100, F/6.3, 1/1250's, 42mm
While we were there we saw the remnants of some vandalism where some idiots drove over an earth berm, and out onto the playa after a rainstorm, their tire tracks marred the lake bed and with the little rain they receive there, will likely take years to be eroded.
The rocks in the middle ground are known as The Grandstand.
Canon 5DIII, 1/200s, F/11, ISO 100, 70mm.
