The hottest place in the world...during a heat wave

Mono Lake ahead

When I was 7 years old, Christopher Hill-Kelly (my best friend at the time) once told me in that excited way young kids will do that he knew where the hottest place on earth was.  His older brother had told him that it was so hot people would die in the sun.....and you could fry eggs on the ground and, well, no doubt there was more to the tale, but age is unkind to memory.

This magical place of heat and death was called Death Valley.  Clue’s in the name I suppose.

We are on the right road

Happily we could have a quick shower before we left the rafting headquarters and so we set off on our way from Yosemite to Death Valley, smelling sweetly and with huge grins on our faces.  With a 5 hour drive ahead of us we wanted to be out as quickly as possible and try and arrive before darkness.

 The drive out of Yosemite was easy enough and before long we were heading up past that beautiful spot near the Tuolumne Meadows and through the Tioga Pass.  I write all this without knowing what I am talking about, as I was fast asleep until we got to the Tioga Pass and were on our way out of the National Park J

I awoke to a beautiful scene of mountains and rock, a river valley below and sparse trees around us.  We were at about 10,000 feet (around 3,300m) and the air was thin here.  Descending back down a ways, we began the move from greenery to brownery, from trees to sand.  It took a while and along the way we saw again how wonderfully beautiful this Californian state really is.

As the land around us changed colours, the sun began to lower against the horizon.  We turned left off the main highway and began following a road that was deserted (sorry, I couldn’t resist the pun!).  The sky was giving us a wonderful cloud display and the road ahead of us shimmered in the heat as the temperature gauge on the car began to climb.  We spotted our first tumbleweed in the USA and like a silly child I grinned from ear to ear as the ball of hateful little thorns rolled across our path.  In the distance dust devils whipped up the sand into mini-tornados and we marveled at the show nature was putting on for us.

Some of the towns we moved through were truly taking us back in time.  This will become a bit of a theme as we drive through some of the back-country parts of the USA.  The cars became pick-ups, the brands became American and where LA had given us Toyotas, Audis, Nissans and Mercedes, now we were seeing Chevvies, Dodges and Fords in abundance.  These huge beasts would rumble past in town, looking like they could tow half of it with them.  Then we began to see the RVs or recreational vehicles. 

Back in New Zealand our little baby Babette had seemed large to us.  At 6.7m or around 22ft, she certainly wasn’t small.  In comparison to some of the palaces on wheels we saw along the road though, she was but a babe.  I have to admit to continually pointing them out and admiring them whilst Julia just shook her head at what was quite clearly a bit of man love for some new toy!

Long Road Trips clearly make us go a little crazy

What does this cloud remind you of?
Alex found it very funny

Once again the ground climbed and we began to ascend the mountains that separated us from our destination.  Up and up and then past a sign that read “turn off your air conditioning for the next 10 miles”!

Now it might seem counter-intuitive, but it was utterly necessary.  The road was steep and even though the temperature had already crept past 100 Fahrenheit, we followed instructions.  Maybe the people round here knew what they were talking about!?  They did.  As we began our descent into the Valley of Death we passed a German family that was stuck on the side of the road, waiting for the engine to cool down.  They hadn’t followed instructions.  We asked them how far the next petrol station was (we were running precariously low) and gave silent thanks for the interminable downhill stretch we seemed to be on.

Classic american highway shot

The Americans will talk about the price of “gas” just as much as the British will talk about the weather and the last place we had passed had wanted nigh on $7 the gallon!  Daylight or even highway robbery you might say.  Especially as when we pulled into the first petrol station in Death Valley it was a mere $3.80 odd!  By now the sun was setting and the colours on display were marvelous.  So was the silly number that our car’s thermometer was showing……118 degrees Fahrenheit.

 In the words of Sean Connery - Shome mishtake shurley Mish Moneypenny!

Alex and Billy Bob Junior

Nope.  As I entered the shop to pay for the petrol (I refuse to say “entered the store to pay for the gas”) I saw a sign confirming our car’s readout.  It was already gone 8pm and the temperature wasn’t dropping.  Unbelievable.  We were wearing jumpers and long trousers after our rafting trip and the looks we got from the shopkeeper was funny.

Our address was a post office box….which kind of confused our GPS.  So we drove into a settlement and asked an elderly couple the way.  Eventually, as darkness fell, we pulled into the hotel and checked in.  It would appear we had found the only hotel in the world where a queen sized bed was just big enough for one fat child.  Which was weird, as we were in the land of the tubby and as we stared at the bed we gave thanks for the fact we haven’t yet fully larded out!

Dinner was eaten out of ziplock bags, because that’s just the kind of classy people we are – bottle of bubbly and BBQ chicken from a plastic bag.  Yum!

The next day was spent dozing, lazing and eating a lunch in the diner that proved we had been right to buy ourselves a cooler in which to keep our own food.  We made one quick run to catch the sunset up on the dunes, but had failed to account for the mountains that blocked the last rays of the sun.  So we had to stop short on the side of the road and enjoy a glass of bubbly, totally alone on a stretch of highway.

Clearly no cars on that road

In a way the peace and solitude of Death Valley that evening was poetic.  We were about to head to Vegas, a place where those two words had no meaning whatsoever.