A Day At Death Valley

The family took a day trip to Death Valley, CA. today and it was really interesting and surprising.
First, Death Valley actually has many green areas in the area. When I thought of Death Valley, I thought of the desert with nothing growing. Well, I was wrong. While we did not see water, it must be close to the surface as there were areas of date trees, bushes, flowers, pine trees and other assorted vegetation. It also has a golf course with green grass! It seems it has more natural green areas than Las Vegas. Other than a few birds, we saw no wildlife.
The temperature when we there was about 95 but it didn't seem so bad. Well, the wind was blowing about 30-50 mph, so that cooled things down.
The mountains are like the mountains like those in Las Vegas. No vegetation on the mountains and they were tall. While there was no snow on the mountains, some of the mountains with snow were visable from NV 373, which is close to the park. There were hiking trails in several areas.
There were a lot of people camping out in there RV's and the hotels were almost full. Lot's of motorcycles as well.
Unlike most national parks, there were no fees to drive through the park.
To get to Death Valley, it was an easy trip. Just take Hwy 95 to NV 373 which is near Armagossa Valley. Drive down about 15 miles and turn right onto the CA highway. It's less than a 3 hour drive. One hint though, fill up with gas in Vegas. Gas in Indian Springs was $3.27 while gas in Death Valley was $4.07 a gallon.
I'll try and post pictures tomorrow.