It’s Tuesday and I am already thinking about the weekend. Well thinking about what I am going to explore. Spring fever is definitely a real thing. The sun comes out, the days get longer, flowers and trees are blooming. I do feel for anyone who suffers with allergies but I hope maybe you can enjoy from a distance.
I live in Las Vegas, and other than the twinkling lights you might think there isn’t much out here than dirt and tumbleweeds. John Wayne movies, Bonanza, train bandits and robbers all in a big dust bowl. You get the picture. Doesn’t scream, you must see tourist attractions. But at this time of year, it really does come to life, in the literal sense.
This weekend I am going to take a little drive north of the strip and go check out the blooms in Death Valley California. It’s only about 2.5 hours so it’s a nice little road trip out of town. I highly recommend road-trips as often as you can take them, solo or with friends. This time I am going to be flying solo simply because I need to find a bit of calm, a bit of center before I make some important decisions.
Anyway, in case you haven’t heard of it, or know much about it, here are some fun facts. Death Valley is the lowest point in North America and it is also the hottest place on earth. Just a warm and toasty temp of 134 degrees is the record high in July of 1913. Furnace creek pictured below is where that high was recorded.
Not this year, but some years when the rains and the winters are right, the park hosts a superbloom. You can see hillsides full of gold, purple, pink and white flowers. Overall Death Valley has over 1000 different types of plants and wildflowers. Cacti are actually really beautiful in full bloom.
It is a historical park and does, like most western locations, have a silver and gold strike story. There were silver mines in the surrounding areas. But for this park the mines arent the cool site to check out. The Wildrose Charcoal Kilns are. They look like giant stone beehives but were structures to provide fuel built by Hispaniic and Chinese workers.
There is more to this desert park than meets the eye. Mysterious moving rocks, the darkest night skies in the country, a crater, even movie sets. I can’t show them all and I won’t be seeing them all when I go this weekend, but I hope I might have sparked a bit of wanderlust for you readers. Or maybe a curiosity for what wonders might be within a 2 hour drive of wherever you are. Its that feeling of needing to see something new, needing to be in the sunshine, getting back to our basic natural desires. Go explore!
The Distracted Damsel 