Death Valley: Ubehebe Crater and Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes

I'm not very proud of these photos, but I do want you to see the things I saw, so they'll have to do. After Scotty's Castle we made a couple of stops...


There is actually a series of craters here, but we just looked at the largest one. The hike to the others was going to be too difficult, especially at this point when we'd been walking around all day.


My parents at the edge.


Speaking of the edge...a sign depicting my fear!




That speck on the left is my dad!




The sand here was kind of a charcoal color.






I told you I photographed these bushes a lot.


Okay, next stop: sand dunes! I was really looking forward to taking pictures of this classic desert scene, and was disappointed to find that the good photo-worthy dunes were soooo far out. We didn't have the time or energy to hike through sand for an hour, so I just had to make the best of what I could get to.


Here's a little panoramic view of some of the dunes. When clouds cast shadows on them, some would look almost black. It was so weird, like they had actually changed color vs. a shadow making them dark. Click the image for a larger version where you can better see what I mean.


More salt.


I'm not sure if I mentioned that it was too early for many flowers, so any sighting was worth photographing. :)




Sorry, I wouldn't typically tease people in public, but hopefully they won't ever know about my blog. I just found it amusing how this guy was posing his girlfriend for sand dune photos. I didn't take the photo of them on purpose, I just realized after taking it that they were in the frame, so I cropped it closer for you. I'm nice!




My parents.



Okay, I think I have just one more set of DV photos coming later this week. :) Thanks for all of your nice comments about the previous ones!