Christmas Day Death Valley

there was a cancellation at Stovepipe. All the roads in and out of the valley were closed due to flooding. So we grabbed the room and spent Christmas eve and Christmas day in Death Valley. We were so tired after hiking Fall Canyon we had dinner appetizers in the bar and went to bed. John drug me out of bed for sunrise on the dunes. I have seen that many times before, but this time there were tons of people, none speaking English and hardly a square foot of the dunes was untracked. It was still beautiful.

It is sad that people come from all over the world to see our National Parks, but hardly any Americans come to see them.

The colors were beautiful. John said 'Merry Christmas, sorry I couldn't wrap it for you!'

the sunrise colors do not last very long.

 After the sunrise we headed home to the bus in Shoshone. As we past Lake Manly we decided to boat it. Don't get many chances to do that, it only fills up on really heavy rain years.

Lake Manly, the patterns on the bottom are the salt formations from the floor of the valley under water.

John on the lake and my boat on the lake. We had to carry the boats till the lake got deep enough.

Humidity in the air from the flood. In the foreground is the Amargosa river, raging to Lake Manly.  It flows into the bottom of Death Valley. It ends farther north than where it started from. The Salt river runs into the valley from the north. Both dry up before they meet.

Here are a couple photos John took of me on Lake Manly.