2005 04 28 Beatty
Today was a mixed day.
It was raining (!) when I woke up, and even though I had no specific plans to be anywhere early I was disappointed. But after doing come clerical stuff with some images I looked at the weather and decided to drive south, away from the worst of the weather. About 30 miles south of Beatty I drove out of the rain and it quickly became only partly cloudy, but very windy. The sun was nice when it was out and the clouds were beautiful.
There is a dune field (called "Big Dune") in the Amargoas Valley south of Beatty, and although I have driven by them many times on US95 I have never driven in the 8-9 miles to look at them. The dune field is a lot bigger than it appears from US95. And you can drive right up to them. The last 2-3 miles are all coarse sand, and the road gets worse and worse, but you can get right up to the dunes. They are used by ATV riders, so they are probably cut up most of the time with tire marks. Today there was nobody there.
I didn't take any photos here since the sun was't out much, but I'd like to come back.
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The Ash Meadows wildlide refuge is nearby, so I drove in and walked around a little.
On the way back out to 95 I passed this, a burned out bar. I can't resist these places.
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I drove back to Beatty, and then into the Amargosa Desert again. A thunderstorm was moving from the north toward Beatty, and I took some panoramic photos of the sky. Lots of lightning and deep dark clouds.
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After that I did go into Death Valley. I thought the clouds over the dunes near Stovepipe Wells might be nice, but the wind was so high that the air was filled with fine sand. You could see it from miles away.
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I am finishing this up on Friday morning, and all the weather has cleared out.
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