death valley national park

Photos of Artist Drive in Death Valley National Park

Published April 1, 2015 | By Elizabeth Weintraub

Elizabeth Weintraub in Death Valley

Not too far down the road from the Furnace Creek Inn Resort is a winding road leading into the canyons called Artist Drive. Many types of minerals such as decomposing mica, manganese, and iron salt deposits color the igneous rock, which explodes in brilliant hues. It’s one of those passages through an incredible place when you say out loud it just can’t get any better than it already is and then you turn a corner to say it again. My passenger side car door was covered in dusty footprints left by me kicking the door open with my right foot to get out to snap a series of photos. No time to fuss around with door handles when the sun is in the right position, lending its rays, if only temporarily for a few minutes to capture.

It’s surprising when you consider the fact that Death Valley, to most people, conjures up an image of an unforgiving place where death rules big time. My husband spotted an old 1930’s postcard asking the viewer to consider taking a vacation in hell (AKA Death Valley), suggesting that we might be heading there anyway but it’s a good idea to get a sneak preview of what lies in store for us. To the Native Americans, the Timbisha Shoshone, who arrived in Death Valley over a thousand years ago, it must be very disconcerting to hear your place of birth, where you were raised and still reside, honoring your ancestors and living out your normal day-to-day life, referred to as hell or even Death Valley, for that matter.

But that’s what we Americans do. Seize land, rename it and carry on as though nobody was ever there before us, among other atrocities such as trying to strip heritage from the original residents, enslaving, beating, berating, all of those shameful things our country was founded upon.

To put into perspective, how would you like to wake up in Sacramento one morning to discover the name of your town has been changed to Shithole? And from now on, the Klingons are in power and run our town. Some residents, I venture to guess, would argue that’s the way things are in Sacramento every day, so they won’t agree with the irony.

Ah, but there is Artist Drive, and as we were halfway through the canyon, we were stopped by a police car and a bunch of guys from a filming crew. They were shooting a commercial for the Nissan Leaf, an electric car. Cars were backed up down the road waiting for the film crew to finish. The guys with the cameras were joking and laughing about the hold up, but this was a major interruption for those of us who pay for our national park. We had to sit in our cars and try to show “understanding” while commerce took precedence.

Below are photos of Artist Drive in Death Valley National Park, by Elizabeth Weintraub:

Artist Drive Death Valley National Park

Cops holding up traffic in Artist Drive to film a Nissan Leaf commercial.

Film crew on Artist Drive for Nissan Leaf commercial

Artist Drive Death Valley National Park

Posted in Death Valley, Vacation Travel | Tagged artist drive in death valley, death valley national park, nissan leaf, nissan leaf commercial filming, timbisha shoshone

The Spring Wildflowers of Death Valley National Park

Published March 31, 2015 | By Elizabeth Weintraub

Elizabeth Weintraub in Shoshone

Whenever a person leaves a National Park such as Death Valley, we tend to take away a little bit of the park with ourselves — and I don’t mean by stuffing one’s pockets with rocks after disturbing protected areas. People are always swiping things, doing stupid stuff, rationalizing to themselves that it’s OK because they are only one person, but it multiplies and, after a while, all of that stupidity adds up to less for anybody else to enjoy. People, as a collective group like the general public, can be disgusting. Like the tourists who steal the moving rocks at The Racetrack, probably because there aren’t any wildflowers to stomp on and destroy.

The stuff we take away from our visits to National Parks like Death Valley is the memories, and our internal connection to the earth in all of its richness, textures and colors remains. Unlike other mountain ranges where moisture is abundant, where trees, wildflowers, vegetation cover the landscape, the mountain ranges in Death Valley lie exposed, uncovered, showing us geological layers, which we wouldn’t ordinarily be able to view under any other circumstances apart from maybe a road cut by a road construction crew.

Pool at Furnace Creek Inn

Between the Panamint Mountains and Black Mountains is the Furnace Creek Inn Resort, and across the road is the Ranch for campers / RVs. The reviews I read before we went made it sound very rustic, but the Furnace Creek Inn is lovely and romantic. The dining is first rate, too. Where else can one sip a pink prickly pear margarita after swimming in a spring-fed pool? Well, there was that one young woman who dove under the water and came up with a long string of snot glued under her nose. After she dipped her head into the pool and emerged a second time, I thought for certain the snot would have vanished, but no, there it was, globby, gooky and icky looking.

I thought about pointing it out to her but then it occurred to me that maybe it was a defect of sorts, perhaps attached to her body, like those bulging veins in a Klingon’s forehead, and to say something would be like calling undo attention to a disabled person’s permanent affliction. If that wasn’t the case, then how else could I politely let her know because she was obviously oblivious. Would I say: “Pardon me, but perhaps you’ve snorted too much coke.” Fortunately, after she dove under the water a third time, the glob had vanished.

I got out of the pool.

That’s one of the drawbacks to being in such a hot and dry climate like Death Valley. Your nose does all sorts of strange things. Below are spring wildflowers of Death Valley in bloom, which I hope will help encourage you to visit this magnificent place.

Photos: Elizabeth Weintraub and Adam Weintraub