Saturday, March 29, 2008

Death Valley Flora

Where in the World are Keith and Kathy?


When most people hear the name “ Death Valley”, it conjures up visions of a dry, barren area of desolation. In the spring, Death Valley is anything but barren. The three days we spent in Death Valley were full of beautiful scenery as Keith expounded upon in the previous email. While Kathy also was entranced with the marbleized and colorful mountains, there were other sights that she liked just as well.

The desert blooms for a very short time each spring, and we were fortunate enough to be in Death Valley during this time. Colorful flowers painted the desert and gave it a very different look than Kathy remembered from our winter visit 7 years ago. A plethora of flora snaps are included at the end of this post. Kathy bought two books and put many hours hard work into identifying these flowers, and learning the software to polish the photos, so please be impressed.

In Death Valley there are several campgrounds. We stayed at the Sunset Campground. It was a bit rustic ( no water or electric ) but the scenery more than compensated for the boondocking. A photo of our campsite was included in the last post.


If you are not a camper there are two other types of accommodations available in the Valley. One is the Furnace Creek Inn and the other the Furnace Creek Ranch which are both located midway into the Valley. The Inn is high end rustic (complete with $50 lunch), while the ranch is more mid-range rustic.

High Rent District

Intermediate Cost Accomodations


Later this morning we leave for Lone Pine, up the long grade over the Panamints where Keith overheated in 1965. Wish us Luck.



Displayed below are pictures of various flowers, photographed, selected, enhanced, identified, and labeled by Kathleen:



























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