Into The Desert

This morning we managed to get a tiny bit lost in Bakersfield looking for breakfast cereal. Apparently our grasp of American grocery nomenclature is still a bit shaky, because our online search for a supermarket led us to Pepe's Mexican Meat Mart and Hair Extenstion Emporium, which we suspected might be lacking in the wholesome grains department. So we fell back on searching for the supermarket Emma uses and ended up in an area of Bakersfield that Google refused to believe existed. 

Once back on the road, we headed towards the desert. We elected to take the slightly longer but more interesting route through the southern Sierra Nevada mountains. Having driven through the northern parts of the moutains, we were expecting something vaguely Alpine, and were surprised to find rocky canyons interspersed with lush irrigated valleys. Eventually, one of the valleys suddenly ceased to be lush, the crops stopped and we got our first look at the beautifully alien Joshua Trees. 

We drove through a high pass and out on to the desert plain of the Inyo valley, which runns to the east of the Sierra Nevada range. The desert changed with each turn of the road. First pale and dusty, then drak red and stony, then dotted with small green shrubs and wildflowers, then sandy and barren. Frustratingly, very few of our photos could catch the subtle colours and shadows. 

We drove into Death Valley through a pass nearly 5,000ft above sea level, then down to Stovepipe Wells, at 5 ft above sea level on a road Thomas described as his second roller coaster ride of the trip. Stovepipe Wells is a motel, RV park and shop, which counts as a major population centre in the Valley. We stopped for icecream before pushing on to our accommodation at Furnace Creek Ranch, which is a much larger settlement consisting of a motel, an RV park, two restaurants, one bar and bizzarely, a large pool and golf course which was somewhat surreal.

We booked into our cabin, had a hasty dinner and then headed to the lookout on Zabriski Point to watch the sunset and enjoy the cool of the night. We lay on our backs and watchedthe first stars appear, before heading back for a drink on the porch and bed.