Death Valley is HOT!

After a great time in Yosemite we headed for Death Valley. Before we got there though we found time to drop in on the biggest tree in the world. I had heard about some of the huge trees in America and where else would you find the biggest tree but in the ¨GIANT FOREST¨ (very imaginative!). We were surprised at just how big this tree was though it WAS giant! (as you can see from the picture). The tree has a circumference of about 30m, madness.

Anyway enough about trees and stuff we were on our way to Death Valley (as we don´t have sound on the blog I said "Death Valley" in a Darth Vader voice for dramatic effect). We had taken the precaution of booking a campsite in advance as national parks get really full in the summer time. We were shocked when we arrived and found that we were the only people camping in the park. The reason for this we discovered later that evening when at 12:30 it was still 105f. Before our hot night, where we ended sleeping outside rather than in the tent due to the heat, we spent a scorching day exploring the Valley of Death (again in a dramatic voice!!). Death Valley is only a few hundred miles east of the lush green, river filled national parks of Yosemite but it is the most arid place I have seen or been in my life. The only sign that there is ever water in the valley is a large flat salt "lake", that is actually 85.5m below sea level. I decided that I would take a walk out into the middle of this lake (don't worry it´s very dry and hard!) to get some good views of the whole valley. Ellie opted for the safer option of staying in the air conditioned car. As I got out of the car I glanced at the temperature gauge, it read 122f which is over 50c! (and the car was in the shade). I can say that the next 20 minutes were the hottest I have ever experienced in my life. The sun blazed down, the white salt reflected all the heat back up and there was a strong wind blowing that was hotter then a hair dryer in my face. I walked for 20 minutes and did not get sweaty at all due to the water on my skin evaporating immediately that it came into contact with the air. You get the picture, it was bloody HOT but an amazing place!!

While we were there we noticed about 10 identical cars driving around that had no markings on them and were covered in a kind of black body cover. We found this really strange and wondered what these weird cars were. We were slightly surprised when we learnt that car manufactures send there new ranges (hence the body cover for secrecy) to Death Valley for heat testing, cool! (well hot actually but you know what I mean).