DEATH VALLEY

Tarjei really wanted to visit Death Valley. It all has to do with watching way too many cowboy shows on TV when he was little. Tarjei’s parents allowed him unlimited TV time, whereas my parents permitted only 1 hour per week — usually Walt Disney, 7 PM on Sunday night. This is just one of the many profound cultural differences between the WASPs and the Vikings. You can imagine how this clash of civilizations affected our own child raising practices.

We stayed 2 nights in the Panamint (“Gathering of the Peoples” in a native language) campground at the entrance to Death Valley National Park. We slept in a small tent set up with camp cots (a far cry from Mendocino luxury queen size bed, but still very comfortable). The sunny desert sky was slightly hazy from the smoke of wildfires far to the west, but at night it seemed to clear and the stars were brilliant. I had my usual opportunity to see the stars at 11 PM, 2 AM, and 4 AM, as well as the sunrise around 6:30 AM. It was fun to cook on a camp stove again. We made pasta with sauce and salad for dinner, scrambled eggs with onions and cheese and herbs for breakfast.

The nights were a bit chilly, but by noon in Furnace Springs it was 34 ° C. We did some hiking with dogs in the morning along the rugged desert track towards “Skidoo” — presumably not related to the Canadian Brand snowmobile and more related to the “23 Skidoo” slang phrase). By afternoon the heat and sun made it just too oppressive to walk anywhere except across the road to the campground café for a cold beer. Species discrimination was rampant — there were anti-Dog regulations on many of the trails, but the café did provide bowls of ice water for canine friends at the outside tables.

We came accross the same Japanese film crew 3 times in the last 2 days. The state police and park rangers stopped traffic and diverted walkers while the crew filmed the stark desert landscape of cliffs and rocks and salt flats. On our third encounter, I finally asked one of crew what it was they were making. He said it was a commercial for Sony Corp —something to do with a new video system.

The landscape was dramatic — dry, rocky, sandy, harsh, unforgiving. Cliffs. Salt flats. You could easily die here. But we survived and it was beautiful, even though John Wayne and Clint Eastwood never put In an appearance.Read more