Death Valley California

We left Death Valley two days ago and I loved it so much it hurts. It has been my very favorite place to be on this trip. We were only there for three days and hiked 5 different places that just take your breath away. There was so much more to do that we didn't have the time for, I wish we had two weeks to enjoy it all. One of the hikes we took was to Bad Water Basin. It is 280 feet below sea level, the lowest place in the Northern Hemisphere. Temperatures can reach over 200 degrees in the summer, fortunately, we were there in the spring and the weather was great. It's very interesting to walk out on an empty sea bed and as a SCUBA diver I can totally visualize this area being the sea (the visibility was great), but what's really interesting is to see the salt flats that remained after the water evaporates. It's endless. I tasted some of it, it's very salty! Auby felt free as a bird on the wide open terrain and would just run and run.
Another joyful place we hiked was Artists Palette. It was a short hike, but very colorful. You would wind in around a small canyon 20-30 feet high and see mounds of color. Really. There was a purple mound, a beautiful sea green mound, burgundy, a yellow mound that Auby profoundly said looked like egg-yellow, and of course browns and tans, but even they looked colorful there. It's very easy to see how it got the name Artists Palette.
Then there was the Natural Bridge Canyon hike. Amazing rock formations everywhere. It, of course, had a rock arch over a part of the canyon that earned it's name and there where many dry water falls 30 feet high, some of them had natural stairwells that wound up around them. Nature can be so amazing, God has such an incredible imagination! This hike was about 4 miles long but you could keep going forever and ever if you had the mind to. It's hard for me to tear myself away from the next corner. Fortunately for me, I have to stop due to the kids ability.
One of my two favorite hikes was Golden Canyon and Gower Gulch. Gower Gulch was just an extension of Golden Canyon. This was a longer hike and if there was ever any doubt as to how long the kids could go, this hike tested their limit in durability, strength and stamina. We walked on skinny ledges, climbed high mountains and explored caves. There were many hikers at the beginning of the hike, which included canyon narrows and dry water falls, but once we started towards the highest lookout, we were all along the rest of the way! That was where the fun began and the terrain became more challenging. Towards the end of our hike, when it was late and I was beginning to wonder if we were lost, I finally spotted a car traveling in the distance and knew we were close to the parking lot. The next little water fall that I thought I was going to scamper down wasn't little at all, but a 30 foot drop off! For a minute there I was thinking it was the only way down and I wasn't going that way, we finally spotted a small trail that lead us back to the car, thank goodness!
Our last hike on Sunday was Marble Canyon. Guess what the canyon was made out of....marble! I've never seen marble in its natural state and it was fantastic to see walls of it. It was so smooth that you could slide down it. It was also one of the two of my favorite hikes because it was so unusual and curvy and long. We were expecting a 5 mile hike so we packed in a lunch to have a picnic at the end of the trail. Once we started back out of the canyon, everyone we passed were surprised on seeing the kids with us and commented on how good they were doing. I know they are my kids, but they really are great kids! They are just troopers, they would hike places adults would be afraid to go. All of that hiking and not one injury. Only a small hand wound Auby received from falling down. Nothing a band-aid couldn't fix!
We had a GREAT time and would go again in a heart beat, if you ever get the chance, don't pass it up.