Through Happy Valley to Las Vegas

We left Lone Pine at 8:00am and made our way towards Death Valley. Janet was extremely worried about the journey, having read so many bad things about the place. On the way we stopped to get 15 litres of water as it was recommended that we each drink a gallon of water whilst in Death Valley and we also took some in case the car overheated. Did I mention that we had a problem with the car yesterday – a warning light came on requesting an oil and filter change. All of these concerns made Janet very nervous and the only way to calm her down was to suggest we call it Happy Valley. We even made up a song about going to Happy Valley to the tune of Cliff Richards “Summer Holiday”. It seemed to take her mind off it for a while until we saw a road sign suggesting we turn the air conditioning off whilst we went up a hill for the next 10 miles.
It was about 125 miles from the edge of the park to the centre and on the way we stopped at Stovepipe Wells where the temperature was 108. Although it was extremely hot, it was a dry heat and not too uncomfortable if you stayed in the sun for 10 minutes or less. We visited several vista points in Death Valley and although completely different to Yosemite, it was still wonderous to behold. There were several opportunities to visit other parts of the park but as they were along the same type of gravel road that we got the puncture yesterday, Janet was very insistent we were not going on any of them. Our last stop in Death Valley was at Badlsnds salt flats, some 300 feet below sea level.
After Badlands, we made our way out of Death Valley,another 100 miles to the end of the park. We then drove to Las Vegas and are now in The Mirage. It is so big, you could spend a week here and not see everything. We went down to the pool for an hour and we are just getting ready to walk down the strip and have alook at the other hotels.
Just returned from a walk down the Strip - words fail us at the sheer size and content of each hotel. They are enormous and include casinos, numerous reastaurants, many shopping malls and high class shops. Each hotel must be the size of Naphill. It is all too much for us simple country folk. Glad we have done it but we only need to see it once.
We have an eraly start tomorrow, pick up at 7:00am for a helicopter trip into the Grand Canyon.