Seeking water

I'm so glad we left early this morning; we had lots of hours for wandering once we arrived in Death Valley. We started with a walk up Desolation Canyon. I don't remember bouncing there before. It's funny, the dirt road leading to the trail didn't have a sign on it. I guess we were lucky that one of the rangers told Denise about it. That was a good way to start our day!

I thought we were heading to Badwater next, but Denise kept driving south. She was hunting for water; there isn't as much surface water as last year, but there is some. It was well worth the hunt - we found some strands of water in the middle of some crunchy salty ground. After that quick walk on uneven terrain we headed for Badwater. Denise played with her camera for a while and then we started walking. The salty surface closest to the water and the boardwalk is worn flat; we walked out until we started to see patterns in the salt.

Late in the day we followed the road to the north, looking for more sparkles of water in the salt. Denise is really good at spotting sparkles - we had a late afternoon bounce between narrow strands of water cutting through very white crunchy salt. Nice.

It was a beautiful day with a clear blue sky. It's funny though; Denise really wanted some clouds. Do you think that's a photographer's odd wish? Or do other people like clouds too?

--- Rover