Death Valley - Day 3, July 27

George drove most of the previous day as he has issues with letting me drive -it's the man's place, he is more relaxed if he is in control, and my reliance on my peripheral vision as well as my being (he thinks too) confident in my ability to gauge how long I can look away before any oncoming car or cliff can catch up with me (but I've never had a wreck while the car was moving, except for two slight mishaps at 2 miles an hour getting out of a gas station and out of my driveway, but I was a teenager!). So his chest must have been feeling a lot of pressure to let me drive on that 15 mile peninsula at the end of our Grand Canyon trek I told you about last entry. Uncharacteristically of me, I only stole a few glances at the emerging canyon as we went along the no-shoulder, narrow switchback road, mainly because I was trying to convince him to relax. The way out was scarier than the way in because the precipice was on the west side of the road. But the light was good and there were insane trees growing in cliff rocks to keep you from falling over so I was only mildly nervous - unlike how I felt on Highway 1 along the California coast but I'm getting ahead of myself.

The next morning he insisted on driving after we checked out of the Excalibur and headed through Las Vegas' Moon-like mountains into Death Valley's Mars ones. We were thinking being on Mars was pretty cool at the beginning "cool" part of the day as we made our way down below sea level to Death's visitor's center.Then you have to go back up and out for a very long way. They tell you to turn off your airconditioner so that your car wont overheat. So here it is above 100 degrees with my heart patient driving without airconditioning 'cause sure enough the engine began to overheat as we left Mars and ascended into Mercury's hot side. The mountains were obviously volcanic with the steam still coming out of the scattered black rocks which were laying everywhere. Hell would be having to walk barefoot through Death Valley. But still our brand new rental van's engine continued to overheat so we had to turn on the heater full blast to get it to cool down! Then the climb up and down Death's mountains began to melt the brakes and even when we were inspired to put the thing in low gear, we still had to pump the brakes and worried about sliding over the side as we took the turns. We only got one picture as our knuckles were too gripped to secure objects to even think about letting go to hold a hot camera.