Death Valley was closed in the summer months when I was growing up and I had
never seen it before. Today it is a National Park and costs 10 dollars to enter.
There are water tanks at regular intervals, handicap rest rooms, all kinds of
safety rules and a lots of heat. The thermometer at the Visitors Center
showed 113F which if I have figured correctly is +45 centigrade.
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But if you have a happy little car that just keeps going all the time
and it has air conditioning it's a beautiful place to visit. And if you missed "Why is the desert painted" you can go back and look at page 43.
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A straight road!
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The sign points out that the elevation here is sea level.
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We always had a box of 20-Mule team Borax at home which we used for scrubbing
things clean. Sodium tetra borate decahydrate is a white powder used to soften
water, and in soaps, laundry starch, ceramic materials, glazes, enamels and special
kinds of glass, and as a flux in welding. I read that!
There was a picture of the mules on the box. Death Valley was the place that they did
their work and there is a canyon named after them. There are lots of old mine holes in
the valley which you are warned to never try to enter. My thoughts go to the people who
tried to work those mines way back then and to the mules who had no choice.
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After Death Valley we turned north and drove up highway 395 along the back side of the Sierra Nevada mountains. We found a good motel on June Lake and took a late swim in the pool.
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Next day we turned left and drove up over the Tioga Pass into Yosemite Valley. That is the mountain called "Half Dome" in the background.
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© Ann Thulin © Lars Thulin,
© Per Thulin, © Ingrid Hansson |
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