May, 2009: We were somewhere near nowhere on a hard
gravel road in the back-country of Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge in Nevada, when it was seen.
I have been
told this is a gopher snake. When we saw it slithering across the road, we had no clue as to what kind of snake it was or whether it was venomous. I am guessing that there are two types of
people when it comes to seeing new, possibly dangerous animals: there are those
people that run the other way and there are those people that try to sneak
closer for a better look. Unfortunately,
I am in the latter group.
The picture gives a pretty close and detailed view, but I was a safe distance away, using a Nikon 300 mm lens and plenty of cropping. There was just not enough time to swap out the 300 mm lens for the 600 mm we had rented for the trip. If you are in Orange County, I strongly recommend Samy's Camera in Santa Ana. They always have whatever equipment you may want to use but not ready or willing to buy.
***
Anyway, it was approaching dinner time; our dinner time, not the snake's. So,we needed to make
a dinner decision. We decided to head from
Ash Meadows to Pahrump, NV to see what we could find. Furnace Creek is the place to stay in Death Valley (unless you are
camping), and the place to eat in Death Valley. However, options are very slim in the Furnace Creek Area (population 24 and decreasing).
We drove back and forth down NV160,
Pahrump's main drag maybe two or three times, eliminating the fast food
choices and hopelessly searching for something better. There was nothing better. So, we wound up at a buffet at one of the casinos
in town; I forget the name of the casino all these years later. The casino was not the typical Vegas-style
casino. It was not even the typical
Temecula-style casino. It was more like
how I remember a mid- 90's Cherokee, North Carolina-style casino.
The Pahrump casino is probably glad I forgot its name. Comparison to a mid-90's Cherokee, North Carolina-style casino is
not great advertising. All I remember of a mid-90's Cherokee, North Carolina casino is a lot of cigarette smoke, a prefab building or two, and an Indian in full tribal clothing demanding money to take a picture with him.
Despite my attempting to make the Pahrump casino buffet sound horrible,
it was not. First, we were charged $9
for the two of us, just for joining their preferred club (we knew we would
never be back). Second, the buffet had some of the
best braised BBQ short ribs I ever had in my journeys to 47 of the 50 states. I think that was all I ate that evening:
ribs, ribs, and more ribs.
After dinner, we made the left off of NV160 onto Belle Vista Road
and headed west out of Pahrump and towards Furnace Creek – a short 61 mile hop! It was not long before the sky started to dazzle.
At first, we just thought it was going to be a simple color
show.
How wrong we were!
The sky started showing off; becoming more and more dramatic
until "forcing" me to pull over and take pictures. There would have been no way to rightfully call myself a landscape photographer if I let this sky go undocumented.
During the first of photograph stop, when I got out
of the truck my first surprise was the weather.
It was not scorchingly hot and there was actually a cool,
comfortable breeze. The breeze was comfortable enough that we shut the a/c and drove with just the windows open.
We reached Death Valley Junction (DJV), which is eerily empty
enough during the day without a dramatic sunset throwing off wild colors. We have passed
through DVJ a number of times and it seemed on each trip through to be a ghost town. We knew of the Amargosa Opera House, which
dancer and artist Marta Becket had ran since she arrived in DVJ from NYC in 1967. But still, the only live thing we ever saw in
DVJ was a roadrunner running across a concrete slab, and that was back in 2005!
While doing some research for this post, I came across a very good movie, Amargosa, about
Marta and DVJ. Even if you are not especially interested in Death Valley, I highly recommend the movie. Considering the movie
showed the opera house, hotel, and wild burro preserve were all active to some degree, I remain surprised to
have never actually seen anyone in DVJ.
***
CA190 swung northwest as we approached Furnace Creek. We passed Dante's View Road, where earlier this morning we
did the whole sunrise watching thing --getting up at 4:30 am and making the drive to Dante's View (maybe we will post about this another time). As
we approached the Badwater/Furnace Creek turn-off, it was now officially a scorcher. Despite the scorching temperature (Furnace Creek holds several temperature records such as 134F on 07/13/1913), I got out to take the last of the day's pictures.
How can a lot of heat detract you from the "big
picture"!
