Death Valley here we come! With 3 gallons (that’s about 12 liter) of drinking water on stock (ATP), we headed for the hottest desert located in California and Nevada. It was not easy to get there, with a lot of ups and down (literally), tricky turns and long straight roads the driver needed to keep his concentration on the steering wheel. The camera crew however had the time of their lives, clicking away at the beautiful nature surrounding the car.

Every now and then we stopped to take some close-ups of the surroundings.

And then we continued our ride until we saw the below sign.

Our first stop was ‘Scotty’s Castle‘. Patrick was completely surprised to see this building in the middle of nowhere. It’s the winter home of a rich guy who invested a lot in gold mines in Death Valley. Unfortunately, they were renovating the house so we couldn’t enter it. There was a fire in May this year, which you can see by the looks of the trees.

Next stop: the ‘Ubehebe Crater‘. This is a crater in a volcano formed by explosions of the mountain caused by steam getting stuck inside the mountain and heating up inside until it bursts out. This only happened 800 years ago in Ubehebe, not millions of years ago like in other places.

After we stopped in Stovepipe Wells for lunch at the ‘Badwater Saloon’ we headed to ‘Rhyolite’, a ghost town at the edge of Death Valley, close to Beatty. Three years after the town was founded in 1907, 8,000 people lived there. Two more years later, only 14 people were left as there were better mining prospects elsewhere.

We also wanted to share some of the most amazing shots within Death Valley with you…

After surviving the hot temperatures (going up to 44°C) we deserved a cooling swim in the motel’s pool. We went for grocery shopping at eight o’clock and it still was a solid 38°C – which actually felt quite cool!

Planning for tomorrow … we are going back to Death Valley :). There are still some sights that we can go and see, such as Furnace Creek where it may get even hotter still!

It’s getting hot in here

So hot

So take off all your clothes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeZZr_p6vB8