...was my first time visiting Death Valley. Up to that time I had heard about how hot it was, how dry it was, how it rarely rained. That weekend we were camping at Texas Spring and on Saturday night we woke up to a gradual rain that became a torrential downpour. It seemed as if Death Valley was receiving all its annual rainfall that night and turning whatever could be considered our camp into what seemed like one giant lake of knee deep mud swallowing up everything - tent, sleeping bags, cooking gear and everything else. We eventually collected everything, made it down to the visitor center and literally hosed the gooey mud off ourselves and our gear then made the long, damp five hour drive home in wet, semi-muddy clothes.
Ever since then I have been hooked on the special place Death Valley is. I have been back a number of times over the succeeding years, mostly by taking detours before or after backpacking up in the Sierras. Probably because of my damp introduction, however, I have always been back in the heat of summer and have never minded camping out even if it only got down to 101 degrees at 6:00 in the morning.
Thanks for the special website that I'll always come back to and thanks to those of you from whom I've already learned a lot while observing from the electronic shadows.