Tag Archives: wildflowers

Wednesday, Death Valley Trip

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Well gee, let’s wake up even 15 minutes earlier, shall we? Yep … 4:15. Painful for this girl, but so it goes.

We got ready, packed up, and Dan loaded the car. Then off we went. Bye bye Beatty.

First stop: Mesquite Dunes. I was surprised to see tons of brown eyed primrose, and another flower I think is another sort of primrose. It’s always amazing to see what can grow in the dunes. I took some shots of the big picture but even more of flowers with my macro lens.

I tend to run out of steam before Dan, and today was no exception: I headed back to the car long before he did. I got a good amount of reading done.

Once Dan returned we went up a gravel road and set up breakfast. Fighter jets roared above us … so much for a quiet breakfast! I shot a few more photos because why not?!

We went to Stovepipe Wells to see if they had a DEVA wildflower book but found nothing. Books must not be popular for tourists.

Then it was goodbye Death Valley.

We decided to go out a different way. The brittlebush was plentiful.

We made our way to Father Crowley Point, where fighter jets practice above what is called Star Wars Canyon.

I walked around to see if I could find flowers. A higher elevation meant fewer flowers, but I did find some. When I went back to Dan he was chatting with a guy. As we stood the younger man pointed … a jet. It flew right past us! The noise was deafening. Dan may have gotten some good shots. Sadly I was just frozen due to the surprise … really shock! … of it all.

We stuck around a good long time but didn’t get another low flying jet.

Driving on Dan opted to take a dirt road detour on the way to Saline Valley.

There were a lot of Joshua trees, and this one was the first we saw.

More dirt road, another tree, among many …

Back to the main road, highway 190. Soon the Sierra Nevada came in to view.

We drove past Owen’s Lake a the tiny town of Olanche, and started looking for a spot to set up lunch. it wasn’t a tremendously scenic spot, and we opted not to get out our chairs and table, but food was eaten.

Next up was a rather ho-hum under one hour drive to our lodging for the night. Hello Ridgecrest.

But OH! A king-size bed is quite welcome, as was a hot shower and change of clothes. I’m a clean machine.

Then it was feet up (clean feet!) and get this blog entry going.

Finally, it was time for dinner. We had a couple of ideas in mind. The first place we were planning on checking out was a French restaurant called Mon Reve. We got there, walked in to see if there was a menu posted, and … well … never mind! We were seated and that was that. Forget the other choice! The server was also, I’m sure, the owner. He did the serving, and his wife, I believe did the cooking. It was just a lovely spot and we really enjoyed a relaxing, end-of-trip meal. (My meal is pictured: salmon and scalloped potatoes.)

Back to our hotel we went, for some reading and rest.

Tomorrow we are homeward bound, although you never know how many detours we might take.

Goodnight!

Tuesday, Death Valley Trip

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Today began even earlier. Our alarm went off at 4:30 AM. Too early, but up we rose and we were on the road by about 5 o’clock, this time with cups of bad hotel coffee for our enjoyment.

As we were driving, we were talking about staying in Beatty. There’s the advantage of saving quite a bit of money. I think it was nearly $1000 less, which is nuts. But the added drive almost makes that savings not worth it. Plus sometimes I’ve been able to get better deals at places in Death Valley.

Our first destination was Lake Manly. Dan had some ideas of where he wanted to shoot for the sunrise, so we pulled over, he got out his equipment, and I got out my phone and did a bit of walking while he shot. Sometimes I’m just not in the mood to pull out the camera. Besides, lots of the flowers were not quite open yet… I think they slept in more than we were allowed.

Of course, eventually I did have to get out of the car. I just can’t resist the flowers, even if they are looking sleepy. And then I found some that I hadn’t seen yesterday so that required the camera for sure!

After shooting those, I wandered a bit more and found other flowers— things I’d already shot yesterday, but why not try some more? I primarily use the macro lens, but did remember to snap a few on the iPhone. Including one that showed the terrain. If one was to look from the road, you might not even notice the flowers.

Later I walked to where Dan was shooting , warning him to watch for sneaker waves. (Yes, I’m really good with jokes. Or not.)

Then we drove a bit to find a nice breakfast spot.

From there we went to Devils Golf Course. (They leave the apostrophe off, so I will too.) Last time we were there I neglected to take a photo, so that was remedied.

Artist Drive & Artist’s Palette was next on the agenda.

We had seen a large bike group heading up the grueling climb. They cheered when all had reached what seemed like the top — Artist’s Palette (I wonder if they knew there would be more climbing, though not nearly what they’d done.

Natural Bridge was a surprise … tons of desert five-spot flowers. I took a lot of photos of those and other flowers with my macro lens.

We didn’t do the entire walk, but we did go past the natural bridge.

Lunch was at Texas Spring, on a rather astounding table and benches.

After checking messages where we had a signal Dan drove toward Ubehebe crater. We stopped briefly at a place prior to that.

Then the crater. I walked as closely to the edge as this wimpy girl could, but had to back away. I did manage a few iPhone photos of the crater and other views, though.

Another drive and it was dinner at Stovepipe Wells. (No photos.) Finally it was the final drive back to Beatty: tomorrow we are elsewhere.

Stay tuned!

Monday, Death Valley Trip

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Today began at 4:45 AM. Too early! But so it goes. It also began with putting air in a tire that appeared to be low. Maybe.

Then to Death Valley Dan drove. Without even getting coffee. Horrors!

We first went back to Salt Creek, hoping for a good sunrise. I noticed there were almost no pupfish to be seen. Hmmm do the hide in the mud at night? Guess I’ll have to research. I did a small amount of photography. Dan did more.

Back to the car. Driving and stopping on occasion. I can’t name all the spots where we stopped, but breakfast was enjoyed at Ashford Mill Ruins.

While there I finally found the desert five-spot flower. I had to make a number of photos. It was my brother-in-law’s favorite desert flower. I do get teary-eyed, thinking of him, as well as my dear sister-in-law who has suffered such a deep loss.

We drove on, finding a lot more desert gold, sand verbena, phacelia, brown-eyed primrose, and evening primrose. Plus fields of flowers.

And a bit of fun.

Lunch was at a pull at some pass. Yes, I’ve forgotten the name. Dan said he’d have just one cookie. (Look closely!)

We headed back down and eventually parked so we could read and nap.

Eventually I got tired of sitting, so I went out to shoot somewhere more flowers right by the car. Dan soon joined in the fun. At one point, while Dan was a distance away, I managed to lose my balance fall over, roll around a bit, and actually have absolutely no injuries. My watch however did ask if I had taken a fall and if it should send out an SOS. No thanks! I must have looked hysterically funny. And yes, my camera was fine!

Then back to field of flowers.

The sun was rapidly setting, so we packed up and headed to dinner.

But wait! As we drove Dan spotted friend and wonderful photographer Franka Gabler. We stopped, chatted, and decided to have dinner together.

It was a great way to end our day … although we then had a long drive to our fancy Motel 6.

Hah!

Hello (again) Death Valley!

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After our earlier visit to DEVA we thought we might come again because it seemed as if there were signs that we’d find some nice flowers in March or April. Then we started reading reports of the rain the park had had and seen photos that implied perhaps even a February trip might be a good idea. Because of that we made reservations for both late February and March, and waited for more news.

Well, even more rain meant now might be a good idea, so early this morning we headed on our way.

The drive was uneventful — especially for me since I didn’t do the driving. Here are just a few shots (the train bit was in Tehachapi).

While in the Panamint Valley, just prior to heading up the mountain, we saw a car veer off the road on to the playa. That’s a huge, ugly, rotten, illegal thing to do. Dan held on to the horn for a good long time and whoever was driving must have gotten the message. But driving on the playa just ruins it for everyone else. What a dumb thing to do!

As we neared DEVA we saw a lot of the yellow … desert gold was definitely plentiful! There were places that were just blanketed. We also saw evidence of Phacelia … the purple does stand out! Eventually we pulled over and did a bit of investigating. I took a few iPhone shots just for the record. (Tomorrow I’ll get more serious about some macro photography.)


I learned about the name Stovepipe Wells…

Dan drove to a few different spots, just to get ideas of where we might shoot in the next few days. We also visited Salt Creek, where we saw more pupfish than we’d ever seen before! Stay tuned for the video … maybe It’ll appear soon, or maybe we’ll have to wait until I get back home.

More driving and I did pull out the Canon with the macro lens. I hope some of the shots turn out nicely — won’t know until I get home, though.

Eventually we headed to our motel. Places in DEVA were outrageously expensive so we found a Motel 6 in Beatty, Nevada for less that 1/3 of what we’d pay in the valley. It’s a drive, but so be it!

We checked in — the kind woman at the desk moved us to the first floor and we were relieved since the elevator was broken and we have a lot to haul into the room. She had her Fox News running — we are in a different part of the world now. Go figure.

For dinner we went to Smokin’ J’s BBQ. I had a turkey sandwich, Dan had turkey slices with fries (and more), and we ordered a salad to share.

Too. Much. Food.

Who knew? But in any case, it was just fine and it was one of the very few places open. Beatty isn’t exactly a hoppin’ happenin’ sort of place. (Population 880)

Then back to our hotel we went. We have to get up far too early in the morning so I am quickly writing this before a bit of reading and then sleep.

Stay tuned for more adventures. Today was just a “gotta get there” day, after all.