Neither of us felt a whole lot like driving a long way given the nightmare awaiting us on Thursday. So it seemed like a perfect opportunity for Mojito Wednesday.
Not sure what Mojito Wednesday is, but it involved (for us) a 1.75L bottle of Bacardi Mojito. Pre-mixed, and ready to serve ladies and gentlemen.
Let me tell you Mr. Bacardi didn't disappoint. Not quite the same as a Mojito with brown sugar and muddling and such, but from a bottle, not too bad.
The afternoon and evening progressed as one might imagine. Despite my idea of getting up early and not being hung over, this was not to be the case....
Thursday - Yosemite to Death Valley
It seems that when I planned some of the legs of this trip, I only paid attention to the relative distance of places on the map, and didn't check the actual distance using Google Maps.
This really caught up to us on Thursday - as we spent nearly 10 hours on the road.
But I'm pleased to note that the day passed without any incident from either Turd or Jeep, which is impressive since we ascended to nearly 10000ft, and then returned nearly to only about 2000ft in Death Valley.
Sadly we didn't spend any time at Yosemite on the route we took out, which turns out to be stupid, as it was even more stunning than the valley. The granite peaks are covered in snow and trees and look simply stunning. Of course I don't have any pictures, don't be silly.
This is the view from just past Tioga Pass, the highest point of our trip. The lake is still partly frozen as you can see.
This is the view from one of our (many) stops on the way down from the pass. You can see the steep grade of the road winding down on the left side of the picture. The Turd is like a giant brick in this circumstance, and picks up speed like you wouldn't believe. Happy to report that the overhauled brakes were functioning perfectly, and apart from the 8% grade, the trip down was fairly relaxing.
Once we were over the pass, we hooked the Jeep back up. It was great to have some company at the helm again.
The scenery changes dramatically once you leave the park - the Sierra Nevada mountains stretch up on your right hand side, and on the left, there are smaller hills. It's wide open and fairly desolate.
As you can see there's still plenty of snow on these mountains.
Probably not enough to ride on, but it still looks beautiful.
It seems that in California they still haven't realised that they shouldn't be growing crops in the middle of the desert. What country does that sound like to you??
About a billion hours later we turned off towards Death Valley, and the landscape changed again. It seemed to be getting hotter and hotter the whole time (even though it was now around 6pm).
The land is dry here, and looks more volcanic. The hours passed....
Finally a sign that we were nearing our destination.
But don't get too excited, still 12 miles of 6-8% grade to go down. That's just what we needed.
Finally we arrived at Panamint Springs Resort - and it was like a little oasis in the desert. The neon Land Shark sign in the bar/restaurant was like a beacon for thirsty travellers.
Abandoning our budget, we decided to have dinner - and a great dinner it was - one of the best burgers I've ever eaten in my life. I've rarely (if ever) been asked how I want my burger cooked, and medium-rare was a great choice. Mmmm... burger.
The atmosphere was great - eating dinner looking out onto the mountains. Mmm... Land Shark.
The sunset was spectacular, so I decided to fiddle with a long exposure. It turned out ok I suppose.
Even though it was dark it was still pretty hot - a contrast from Yosemite where it was getting quite chilly at night.
Bedtime.
3 comments:
OK, so the photo's are just getting better, your skills are starting to piss me off!!!
Keep travelling and snapping, monsewer and mad-am!!
that last photo of the night sky is awesome.
pfft.. you call it a Mojito without brown sugar? hmmm.. those were delightful at mumma africas... um.. ok.. maybe not :)
ewwwwwww. I can still taste those nasty mama Africa mojito's.
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