Going to Extremes

 Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah

Extremes: high points, low points.  High temperatures, low temperatures.  In Death Valley it was 102 degrees.  One Oh Two.  In March!  Two days later in Brrrryce Canyon the thermometer sank to 8 degrees in the early morning.  Eight!  Ice formed inside our camper.  The icebox had icicles.

Extremes.  How curious it is that the lowest point in the contiguous United States is only 76 miles distant from the very highest point (i.e., as the crow flies, point-to-point; by road it'd be 130 miles).  Only seventy-six miles between the two extremes.  Badwater Basin in Death Valley National Park is 282 ft below sea level; Mt Whitney is 14,494 ft above.  Shannon and I visited both (and many other points of interest) during our latest 11 day excursion beginning 26 March, driving a total of 2,221 miles in our Toyota-mounted Rocky Mountain Four Wheel Pop-Up Camper. 

Badwater Basin in Death Valley National Park is 282 ft below sea level.




Mt Whitney, only 76 miles away, is 14,494 ft above sea level.

Directly below, not the two pinnacles the red lines point to.

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We drove into Death Valley from the south, passing Artist Drive on the way toward the very aptly named Furnace Creek Campground.

We continued north to Golden Canyon where we hiked a loop with a side spur that took us up to Zabriskie Point.

The colors are pretty amazing

The trail up to Zabriskie.  See the two tiny hikers up to the right?

Atop Zabriskie Point

Fun Trails

We did a lot of driving in the heat the first few days, preferring to see some highway sights from the truck -- while enjoying the cool AC.  We drove up to take in the sights from Dante's View:

And drove north to see Scotty's Castle:

Nice detail on the weather vane --  a prospector cooking over a campfire

One evening we had dinner at the Death Valley Inn, a nice white table cloth/wine list kind of dining room.  Recommend it highly.

Outside it was 99 degrees.  Those folks in the pic above chose to have their dinner out there.  I do not believe they asked to have that patio heater turned on.

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After a few days in that heat we headed west to Lone Pine, California and the Mt Whitney portal trail.  En route we needed a couple gallons of gasoline to be on the safe side, way out in the middle of nowhere, so we stopped at Panamint Springs and paid $5 a gallon:

Lone Pine NFS Campground wasn't really open for the season but the eight spaces available were free, so WTF.

The trail up to the Whitney Portal Campground is less than five miles in length, but climbs some 2500 feet in elevation.

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After a couple nights and a great hike we headed back toward Death Valley, but stuck to the higher elevation, south in the Panamint Mountains to Wildrose Campground.

A very thoughtful fellow tourist pointed out to us the spot where we could hike to see the rare Giant Panamint Daisy, Enceliopsis covillei.

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We headed out of Death Valley and passed by the ghost town of Rhyolite on our way toward Cedar City UT.

This was the Rhyolite casino.

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Next, on toward Bryce Canyon, Goblin Valley, and Cedar Mesa.

Bound for Death Valley

Today, 26 March 2015, three months to the day after Shannon called EMS at seven in the morning to transport me to the hospital with my runaway pneumonia and incipient meningitis, we set off from home at nine in the morning for a visit to Death Valley National Park.  From knocking on Death's Door to visiting Death Valley.  It's my way of thumbing my nose, I suppose.

We passed the Four Corners National Monument on the way:

That place is funny in that the latest GPS technology allowed the spot where AZ, CO, NM and UT meet to be verified as ACTUALLY some 400 meters off to one side of the fancy mesa top monument shown here.

Marie the Artist

My late sister Marie Moore worked in art even in my earliest memories of her, ranging from charcoal drawings to oils and acrylics, water color and pastels.  She won many awards and exhibited her works in galleries and museums around the Midwest and beyond.

Above is her masterful water color entitled Lily Pond II.  It rests above our fireplace mantle between a Chyako Hashimoto ceramic on the right and a copy of Praxiteles's Aphrodite.  Good company.

A New Year

Spring officially arrives today.  I see evidence of new life, lots of it -- crocus and daffodils are up, grass is greening, buds are on the trees.  And I have a lot of catching-up to do here.  I'm lucky to be alive.  So lucky.  More so than usual.

In October last year, as part of our Tour de Johnston, Shannon and I visited nieces, nephews, cousins and siblings around the Midwest, notably my brother Gene in his Evansville, Indiana nursing home.  Gene was 89 then, nineteen years older than me; I had not seen him for several years. 

He died a month later.

I myself damn near died in December/January, from streptococcal pneumonia and meningitis, right after my birthday, Christmas Day.  Spent a week in ICU sedated and intubated on the ventilator, stewing in a mix of high-powered antibiotics.  And I survived.  It has now taken me the better part of ten weeks to regain my strength.  But I survived.

Then, sorry to say, earlier this month, my dear sister and my veritable second mother Marie suffered a stroke.  She died a few days after.

It's almost as if the Johnston siblings (the three out of four remaining; my sister Wanda died 17 years prior) -- almost as if we had collectively reached the end of our shelf life within a few months of each other.  (Yah, I know I could have said Our Expiration Date.  Bad pun.)

I've always been the baby, born eleven years after Wanda, 15 after Marie, 19 after Gene, who was off fighting WWII in the Pacific, late 1943 when I straggled onto the scene.

Now I'm the only one left, sole surviving sibling, and it's a lonesome feeling.

My earliest auditory memory is of hearing mourning doves; I'm two years old or three, sitting on the steps of the old family home, 1112 North 19th St, Mattoon, Illinois.  After her funeral last Saturday when we returned to the house Marie had shared with Marvin Moore for many of their 68 years together, the mourning doves were again active.  Marie is buried within sight of that house on North 19th St.   

Recap -- Back from South America

"Curious, Outlandish Ways"

A tiresome day selling fruit in Leon, Nicaragua

"We wish to learn all the curious, outlandish ways of all the different countries, so that we can 'show off' and astonish people when we get home. We wish to excite the envy of our own untraveled friends with our strange foreign fashions which we can't shake off. ... The gentle reader will never, never know what a consummate ass he can become, until he goes abroad."

---Mark Twain in The Innocents Abroad

Catching up after our 31 day 8400 nautical mile trip from San Diego down to Peru and back.


Costa Rica

Shannon, not so sure about those mesh suspension bridges

Meh

Camo Butterfly

Passion Flower

Classic Costa Rican Cart for collecting coffee beans

Mural of the same
BTW Costa Ricans say that Juan Valdez drinks Costa Rican coffee.

Exotic Varieties at a Roadside Fruit Stand

Nicaragua

Lion in Leon

View of Leon's Parque Central from the Cathedral

Very Interesting Roof of the Cathedral

Hmmmm ... no comment

Volcanoes in the far background

The San Jacinto Mudpots

 It ain't no Yellowstone

Locals allow their children to play around the mudpots

Guatemala

Buggy ride around the Parque Central of Antigua, “Safest town in Guatemala”  (Sounds to me like Damning With Faint Praise), Cathedral in the background.

Vendors everywhere, of course

Arch beyond the arch.  Behind the town hidden in the clouds is a volcano.

 

Santuario del Santo Hermano Pedro, one of many churches in Antigua damaged or destroyed over the centuries by earthquakes.  Of course the Spanish overbuilt, planting a church in each and every neighborhood.

Many of them sit like this, broken, simply abandoned.  Looks almost like a Roman ruin.

Others, like the ornate and lovingly restored church and convent La Merced, remain beautifully intact.

Smoke from one of Guatemala’s 33 active volcanoes

View of the countryside, more volcanoes

Classic Guatemalan textile work

 Last Two Stops in Mexico

Manzanillo

Sport Fishing for the Pez Vela or Sailfish is big business here.
MS Statendam docked there behind the palm trees.

We explored the hillside neighborhoods of Manzanillo

Puerto Vallarta

Fun Sculptures all along the Malecon

And Cra-cra Pastimes for the Adventurous Tourist