Death Valley's Artist pallette

Death Valley is an absolutely beautiful park. It seems stuck in time. There are still minerals protruding from the mountains. There are still areas that haven't been diseased by factory's or mining pits. The remnants of the "famed" borax days are there but nature has done a good job of covering them up, leaving the memories posted only on the visitor center walls.

Abandoned Train

This train car sits in Rhyolite Ghost town just outside of Death Valley National Park, CA. The colors inside were amazing and the cloudy day intensifies the contrast. We highly recommend Death Valley NP. Go in October when you just might catch some rain.

Badwater Basin Death Valley

The salt flats are immense in Death Valley and they sit at the lowest point below sea level in the western hemisphere, -200 feet. You can walk for miles and still be walking through honeycomb patterns of salt.

Sea Otter

A sea otter that floats around in the water just South of Santa Cruz California. This guy has a good life as long as he stays around clean water. There is quite a bit of industry around, let's hope that they are conscientious.

Artist Palette - Death Valley California

It was late in the evening when we arrived at the free campground. After camping in Yosemite, Grand Teton, Yellowstone, etc., my first thought was that this park was ugly. The campgrounds were no more than white dust and tumbleweeds. I was pretty sure that we would only spend a day there. We awoke the next day and went to check out the other campgrounds, certainly the entire park couldn't be this ugly. Then Death Valley opened itself up to me. We found a slightly less ugly campground but after seeing everything that Death Valley had to offer who needs to be at their campsite anyway.

Death Valley is my personal favorite National Park. From the highest point to the lowest point, it is amazing.

Redwoods

This image was taken in Henry Cowell State park in California. The redwoods are amazing trees that make one believe in giants. They are magnificent examples of diversity in nature and beacons to all that want to perserve our natural roots.

A Bear encounter in Yosemite

This black bear surprised us on a trail in the Hetch Hetchy area of Yosemite National Park. The black bears in this area have more of a brown coat. This is probably a male judging on his size. We were pretty much scared out of our gourds. We slowly moved back and started talking and singing so he knew we were not sneeking up on him. He just went on his merry way doing cute bear things. We had to wait for at least 15 minutes to make sure that he was off of the trail before we continued.