Astrid, Bjorn and Snorri were flying into Las Vegas, Nevada … again. But, to Astrid’s relief, it was only to land, get lunch, buy gallons of water and leave again, to travel to California’s Death Valley National Park.
They chose the Chevy Malibu rental car because it had an app that connected to Bjorn’s phone –with all the GPS information and pre-programmed maps, but once on the road they immediately felt out-of-place. The highways were a sea of exotic cars-Porsche, Mercedes, Maserati, Rolls Royce–along with a bunch of domestic muscle cars, and lots and lots of Teslas.
“Did you see that car? It’s an {insert fancy car name here}. It has a Toyota engine, but a Volkswagon chassis,” Snorri would say as the flashy marvels of human engineering passed by.
“No, no, I didn’t. How do you know all these cars? How can you identify them? How do you know this?!” Astrid asked, a little amazed that he knew, by sight, the make and sometimes model and year of so many high-end cars.
Olaf the White, Astrid’s older son was the same way, except with military tanks. She was the same with plants. To put a name to something, to categorize it in one’s mind, is a way to orient oneself in the world, and start to understand particular systems in one’s environment. And when one spends time studying cars/tanks/plants, one can identify them with just a glance.
Their first stop in Death Valley National Park was at the bottom of a mountain, by a frighteningly wide and expansive valley which, at a glance, looked like it was covered in water, but was almost the opposite: it was salt. They were at Badwater Basin. High on the mountain behind the parking lot there was a sign, “SEA LEVEL”. They were standing at -282 feet below sea level.
It was hot, but not yet Death-Valley-hot. It was the weirdest hike. The first quarter mile was a wide trail of flat white cement-like ground, the bright sun beating down, making it glow.
The further she went, the more bumpy and ridged the ground became, until at the end, where it ended into a wide white-floor valley of nothing. The ground was covered with white angular tile-like crystalline-covered, angular, geometric plates–and people, lots of tripods, lots of posing, putting on a temporary happy face for a few seconds for the camera to capture.
After sufficient admiration they returned to their plebeian Malibu and headed off down the road. The carspotting which had started in Las Vegas continued and wouldn’t let up until they got back home to MI. Californians, and its visitors loved their “fancy” cars. There was a pack of Porches in the parking lot, and as they were leaving, a Corvette Stingray pulled in, scraping the undercarriage on the pavement as it turned.
***
Next was the Artist’s Palette, where Astrid and family followed a trail into mounds and small hills of layered, multi-colored soil, and a place where Star Wars was filmed. As they drove back down the curvy road, a pair of Ravens flew over the car.
There was wildlife in Death Valley, and of course, that included the sturdy, ever-present Raven. Down the road as they approached an intersection, they watched as a lone coyote looked both ways before crossing the road–a wily one, not doubt.
At the Furnace Creek Visitors’ Center they milled around with other visitors–including a Scout troop, to refill water, and of course buy a patch.
Death Valley NP is not all salt, heat and thirst; at The Oasis, an area with patches of green grass between palm trees, hotels and shops, the family grabbed some dinner and sat in the shade for a rest.
Because of high cost and low availability, they didn’t stay at the Hotel at the Ranch at Death Valley that night, but instead had a room at a motel in nearby (1hour drive) Beatty, Nevada. Beatty is a quaint southwestern town, reminiscent of Radiator Springs in Cars, the Pixar movie. The motel was clean, with decor trying not to be so blatantly 1970s, but failing, and a sufficient place for sleep and a shower.
***
On the flight into Las Vegas, Snorri and Astrid sat toward the back of the plane, next to a young man, probably military, who, during the flight, requested and consumed an above-average amount of alcohol–so much so, that the flight attendant cut him off. During the flight, he watched movies and grooved to his music, but when the plane landed, he became audibly upset on a phone call. Astrid couldn’t block it out: she heard distress in the man’s voice (and many spicy expletives) as he talked about how he couldn’t believe some person was gone.
Someone in his life had died; it may have been the reason he was on the plane. He started to get an emotional strain in his voice as he talked. He was trying to find a way out of death valley, trying to understand, to distract himself from the vast, dry, despair into which a death of an acquaintance had put him.
Death valley-the metaphorical- is a wide open nothingness, disorienting in its vastness. One is sure of nothing but the cruel, dry, lifeless ground beneath them. It is difficult to see a way out of the seemingly infinite void. Any hope of help lay on the far, far horizon, a journey for which the sorrow-worn soul seems poorly equipped. A person can’t usually get through it alone.
Not I 