The next stop on our itinerary was Death Valley. As I wrote in an earlier post, we didn’t plan this road trip very well and to be honest, the itinerary was more according to recognizable names on the map between the Grand Canyon and California than actually research on national parks and sites along the way. Thus, I had absolutely no idea what to expect and it wasn’t until we reached Death Valley that I learned that it is one of the hotest places in the world and partially below sea level. Again, the landscape and the environment there were almost unreal! I have never experienced a place that hot outside a sauna and I am glad our car didn’t break down on the way (and that we even had a car!), but it was well worth the detour we made. Below are some pics. When looking at them, try to immagine it being 48 C (118 F) in the air, with hot winds blowing and even the slightest sand dust burning your skin! It wasn’t exactly the season for hiking around there, but Native Americans have actually lived there in a quite complicated symbiosis with the surrounding environment. Their traditional land and water management methods are now again being applied by the National Park Service in cooperation with the Timbisha Shoshone Tribe.