Leaving Vegas on the Saturday, we were making our way to Bakersfield near LA for our Saturday night stopover. I decided that it would be fun to see Death Valley on the way, as it was only a few hours out of our way.

Mistake.

We were surprised to find that Death Valley is a popular tourist destination and is a National park, with many walking trails and lodgings available. You are recommended to visit in winter, but we thought we were tough enough to get through it even if our car doesn't have air conditioning. The Valley itself was well worth the visit, however the temperature was in the high forties and the steering wheel became painful to touch.

Leaving Death Valley was a major problem. You climb from -200 feet to 5000 feet and our car struggled to cope in the extreme heat. We finally made it but foudn that we decended again to 2000 and had to climb to 4000 feet again! In the end we were driving for a mile, then letting the car rest for 10 minutes at a time, leaving took a long (unpleasant) time.

The taxing journey means that our car is now leaking coolant and oil, it also overheats just climbing normal hills. Death Valley, never again!

Near the base of the Valley

Harsh conditions

Waiting for the car to cool down again.