Vegas to Bishop via Death Valley

As arranged we were meeting at 8 o'clock in the lobby of our hotel to leave for Death Valley. Incredibly everyone managed this! Even Igor and Pal who rolled into the hotel and didn't sleep at all they arrived at 5AM packed showered and met in the lobby! The standard procedure followed of deciding where everyone was going to sit and packing the trailer. All together today the trip was going to be 5 hours but that included stops and lunch. First up was Death Valley, it was exactly 50 degrees and we have never felt heat like it. It's like standing very close to a bonfire. We stopped at the lowest point on some salt flats which were around 700ft below sea level, we went around the corner to a pool where apparently fish have adapted to swim however we never got as far as this as we were distracted by Audi and Range Rover testing new vehicles. They were doing extreme heat testing on prototype cars. Obviously I took photos, I was photographing an Audi when a rather irate German man asked me not to and when I was photographing the Range Rover the driver drove off at rather high speed, photos have since been sent to top gear so have a look to see if they show it! We then drive 70 miles to a viewpoint overlooking a vast mountainous area and salt flats this was amazing but again incredibly hot. A couple hours of driving through the desert and we stopped for lunch, today it was a warm Caesar salad with warm humus and warm pita bread I'm not going to lie it wasn't that great. We ate outside in some shade and then hid in a visitor centre as we heard it had aircon! We took some photos by a thermometer and then proceeded on our way.

 (When we left it was 126*F)

On leaving the visitor centre we bought a pint of ice cream for a very reasonable $3 this made up for lunch and was so very refreshing needless to say we polished it off in a matter of mins. An hour or so later we stopped at some sand dunes to take a look and play but only 4 of us got out of the van the rest whimpered away with aircon, Laura included. I laughed at them for this however I was wearing sandals and as soon as the sand touched my feet it burned you couldn't hold your hand flat on it for more than a second! Photo taken and it was a retreat back to the van. We hit a straight road and I think the whole group bar the driver had a really good sleep. When we woke up we were still driving in a straight line and the view was exactly the same. Sand and rocks. We arrived at our campsite to much nicer temperatures it was only in the 30s but rather windy. Tents erected it was time for dinner, tonight was catfish fillets rice and 2 types of squash, even though it wasn't my turn to cook I still cooked the fish with quite a success the squash I didn't try and neither did Laura. Entertainment tonight was something special, we were taken to some natural hot springs! The water was crystal clear and was a perfect temperature just like a warm bath the only thing that put us off was some rather large power lines arcing above us, gave a good light show though, as well as the stars! We spent over an hour relaxing in the pools before we had to go back to camp. I'm currently lying in our tent again, Laura is asleep again and our clothes are hanging in the the gazebo thing we have to dry off.That was about all there was from today as most of it was in the van so on that note I shall say night night from both of us hope your still enjoying our adventure along with us as much as we are! Love to all the family's, bye for now love Myles (and Laura if she was awake) she's sleeping like a baby hehe xx