things i learned in death valley

• it's hot, as it has been said many a time before ,"but it's a dry heat"- and coming from my experience of humid southern summers it's a whole other ball park- sometimes not as bad but i had a hard time deciphering the temp. it did reach 105 yesterday and was a mild 90 today. 80 feels cool enough for a sweater.
  
• it's windy. i imagined deserts to be somewhat stagnant, but i forgot about the dunes and so forth that are reshaped by wind often. as we drove in over the panamint moutain range a cool breezed teased us into complacency. as we drove down the valley the air temp rose and by the early evenings a hot (imagine opening an oven door mid-bake) strong wind ripped though the "village" we're staying in, stovepipe wells- a national historic site fyi....
• my geology classes finally paid off! while walking the rim of a volcanic crater i spotted a rock that stood out. being a bit of a nerd i think that it's prolly good for making an arrowhead and start to whack it along a fault line. low and behold two whacks in a chunk flakes off to reveal a perfect fern fossil. it's about the size of a quarter, maybe a silver dollar. out of the millions of rocks i pick that one. i thank my lucky penny necklace.
• there are flying grasshoppers & biting flies. i'm not a fan.

• adventures are at every corner. we stopped off at a canyon this afternoon but i spotted a little nook to the side of it and suggested we pop over for a look. twenty minutes later we had hiked up a gully in one of the large alluvial washes (basically layers of sediment hardened into rock) and nearly were at the top of one with a spectacular view of the valley & its salt flats.
• dust storms are insane to be in. we drove through one on our way back to the inn tonight and it's a brown curtain...if i thought the car couldn't get any dustier i was mistaken. every time i go outside i am covered in at least a fine layer if not a full on coating of dust.