16. Day - day 16 (for english scroll down)

You won't guess it, but we .... got up early today! This time not because of smoke or too many people, but because of the heat 😉 That's only acceptable for Zoë because she can chat with Switzerland then - otherwise I would never get her out of bed at that time of day 😉 We started at 6 am and passed by a lot of agriculture (oranges, olives, dates, nuts, fruits, etc.). It looked like the pantry of the USA. Then we passed by a few oilfields and windmills as far as the eye could see. We also passed by an extremely long freight train and wondered what kind of power could pull such a train. Then came the barren landscape. Really intense! Miles and miles of sand, stones, bushes. They must have shot Ricky Strauss (the swift bird from Disney - beep beep) here 😊 Then came a road sign: turn off the air conditioning here to avoid overheating the cooling water! So we sweated for 10 miles .. The landscape became even more barren and we began to see huge salt and borax deposits. Such an incredible difference to yesterday, where everything was green and gentle!

We arrived at the hotel: The Oasis at the Death Valley. And that's exactly what it was! (with tennis and golf!?!?) We both leaned against the air conditioning in our room and cooled down our overheated bodies. After a nice lunch, we ventured out again into the 51° Celsius to Dante's View. Really spectacular view, but it took all our strength. On the way back, I stopped at another viewpoint called Zabriskie Point. Zoë was like a dead fly in her car seat and preferred to stay there at a felt 50° instead of getting out at 51°. The people (and I) stayed there for max 3 minutes - more it was unbearable. Back at the hotel and after the 3rd shower of the day, we felt better again. Now we are sitting in the hotel lobby and enjoying Margaritas (with and without) and the relaxed atmosphere and a breathtaking view at about 22° - just wonderful!

You won't guess it, but we .... got up early today! This time not because of smoke or too many people, but because of the heat 😉 That's only acceptable for Zoë because she can chat with Switzerland then - otherwise I would never get her out of bed at that time of day 😉 We started at 6 am and passed by a lot of agriculture (oranges, olives, dates, nuts, fruits, etc.). It looked like the pantry of the USA. Then we passed by a few oilfields and windmills as far as the eye could see. We also passed by an extremely long freight train and wondered what kind of power could pull such a train. The landscape became more barren as we went along. Incredible - miles of sand, rocks, bushes. Surely they filmed Ricky Strauss (the swift bird from Disney - beep beep) here 😊 Then we passed a sign saying: please turn off the air conditioning here to avoid overheating! So we sweated for the next 10 miles.... The landscape became even more barren and we started to see salt and borax deposits. Such an amazing difference to what we saw yesterday, where everything was green and gentle! Really exhausted, we arrived at the hotel: The Oasis at the Death Valley (with tennis and golf!?!?) . And it was exactly that! We both leaned against the air conditioning in the room and cooled our overheated bodies down. After a lovely lunch, we dared to go out and face the 123° Fahrenheit again to Dante's View. A real spectacular view, but it demanded all our strength. On our way back, there was another viewpoint, Zabriskie Point. Zoë remained like a dead fly in the car and preferred to stay inside at 122° instead of going out at 123°. The people (and I) stayed there for max. 3 minutes - more was simply not bearable due to the heat. Back at the hotel and after the 3rd shower of the day, we felt better again. Now we are sitting in the lobby of the hotel and enjoying margaritas (with and without) and the relaxed atmosphere and a breathtaking view at about 72° - just wonderful!