Death Valley

When we arrived at Death Valley National Park headquarters in Furnace Creek, the main campground was full and by sheer dumb luck we wound up in the "generator-free" Texas Springs campsite.  What a blessing.

By the time we'd set up it was 30 C in the valley so we decided against any hikes.  Instead we did a driving tour of some Death Valley highlights.
First stop was the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere, Badwater Basin at 282 feet below sea level.

The white expanse is just where people have trodden the salt flats down; naturally it looks like this.

I was hoping the Devil's Golf Course was the site I remember seeing pictures of in my childhood: rocks rolling along the flat ground and leaving a track behind them, but instead it was more, extremely lumpy salt flats.

Leo looking for golf balls  on the Devil's Golf Course.

Next we drove the Artists Palette Drive past multicolored hills.

Finally we stopped at the spectacular Zabriskie Point overlooking a fantastic badlands vista.