Day 515: Death Valley Visit 2, Day 6

On Shabbos, we visited the rest of the group in their hotel.  The adults and Leisl’s oldest played Dominion.  Saturday night we went back and played Dominion and Pandemic, coming home quite late.

This morning, we sadly said goodbye to the rest of the group.  We then drove out to visit the aptly named Mustard Canyon:

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We next drove out to Salt Creek and walked the boardwalk.  We didn’t see any of the endemic Death Valley Pupfish, but it was a nice walk nonetheless:

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We were treated to an amazing sunset tonight:

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Tomorrow I hope to get some PPG flights in, stay tuned!

Day 513: Death Valley Visit 2, Day 4

This morning we drove north to the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes and walked out to the tallest dune:

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My father built a “sand anchor” and attached a rope to it so the kids could pull themselves back up the hill after sliding down on snow sleds:

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I did a number of free flights, running down the dune until I lifted off:

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M was able to really get moving on the sled:

This afternoon I rode towards Dante’s View, and turned around at the 1500 foot level to be sure to get home well before Shabbos:

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A view of Manly’s Beacon and the Red Cathedral:

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Good Shabbos from Death Valley!

Day 512: Death Valley Visit 2, Day 3

Today was a Jewish fast day, the Tenth of Teves, so we didn’t do much. I took care of a few issues in the RV that needed attention. Trish and the kids went horseback riding with my brother, Leisl, and their two kids each:

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Tonight we went to an entertaining Ranger presentation that intermingled facts about the park with photographs of locations in the park where scenes from the original Star Wars movies were shot.

Day 511: Death Valley Visit 2, Day 2

Another sunny day here in Death Valley:

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We started to walk over to the borax museum so we could practice our macro photography:

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Along the way, we passed a fire truck with its hose coiled up:

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Once we arrived at the borax museum, I asked the kids to try to create interesting photographs by carefully selecting what is and isn’t in the frame:

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These three were photographed by M:

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These five were photographed by B:

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Towards evening, my parents arrived with my brother and his two daughters and Leisl and her two daughters.  We spent some time chatting in their hotel rooms before calling it a night.

Day 510: Death Valley Visit 2, Day 1

After a refreshingly comfortable overnight low of 50 degrees, we were treated to a beautiful sunrise:

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We briefly toured the visitor center and watched the orientation film, as we already visited Death Valley on this trip:

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We drove out to Devil’s Golf Course, where the landscape is a seemingly endless expanse of boulder-sized salt structures formed by evaporation:

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Looking east, the salt structures are not as high:

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M practiced the techniques covered in our photography class to create this set of photographs.  He’s shooting in Manual mode, manipulating ISO, aperture, and shutter speed to control exposure level:

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Next we hiked up the trail to Natural Bridge:

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Continuing past the natural bridge, we encountered a side trail that led to a dry waterfall:

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A bit of climbing was required to continue on.  Here B and I make the ascent:

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On the way down, M was asked to photograph this group:

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We drove Artist’s Drive on the way back to the RV.  everyone was pretty hungry, so we only got a couple quick photographs:

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A great start to our Death Valley visit!