Vince had his fancy new Olympus with him and took some amazing photographs. These next three images are his.
One thing I love to do (and I think I excel at) is taking photos out a moving car window. Through the windshield, through the passenger window rolled up or down, it doesn't really matter. Sometimes I even try to take a photo through the driver side window. There's something thrilling about capturing a photograph in a split second - knowing your perspective will change in the next instant and the opportunity for the same shot may never arise again... especially since Vince is driving and he would not entertain the thought of circling back just so I can try again. By the way, I'll be sharing a lot more of my through-the-car-window photographs in a future blog post. :)
We descented Dante's Peak back to sea level.
There are a lot of photos of landscapes in this blog post. I usually don't post that many but the sky was so incredible that I seemed to find something unique about each photograph. For example, the clouds in the below image... I have never seen clouds like this... and I've seen my fair share of clouds. It looks almost like a glob of melted marshmallow was painted onto the sky with a giant horsehair paintbrush.
We took a little detour to check out the Devils Golf Course. It must be so much fun to name landmarks when you don't have the gumption to name them after yourself.
Did I mention how windy it was that day? I nearly got blown away on Dante's Peak and we got pummelled in the face by flying pebbles. Ouch!!
After we played 18 holes, we headed over to Badwater Basin, which is the lowest elevation in North America at 282 feet (86 meters) below sea level. I was most excited for this part of the trip. Not sure if you can see the sign marker for sea level way above Vince's head.
I got Vince to jump in the air and it was so windy, he lost his hat! Then he got me to jump too but I didn't lose anything except my dignity.
The salt flats seemed to go on for miles and miles. I thought it was really neat that there was an area for walking and it was great that there were not a lot of people around. There's a solemness about the place that would be marred by a big crowd.
It was so windy that the port-o-lets were blown around! Yeah pretty nasty business. I liked that this one looked like it was parked like a car. Like anyone would want to drive one of those.
Next we headed to an area with a short hike to the Natural Bridge. At a slightly higher elevation, there was a great view overlooking Badwater Basin.
Boys will be boys.
A really sweet couple took this photo for us.
And here I am returning the favour... seriously, how cute is this couple?! They were such nice people too. And yeah I know - I should dress a little better when I'm on vacation... I look like such a slob. :(
The Natural Bridge! :)
The last stop before we left the park was Zabriskie Point. I've always wanted to visit the Badlands in Ontario but never got around to it. I had to fly all the way to the west coast to finally see some!
Amazingly enough, even after everything we saw, we only visited a teeny tiny portion of the park. There are other sights like sand dunes, ghost towns, and even a castle within park boundaries. Perhaps one day, we'll find ourselves there again. All in all, the park was a great place for a day trip. Even this tough critic was impressed!
