Death Valley Trip – Sunrise at Zabriskie Point

During my trip through Death Valley I wanted to capture the sunrise at Zabriskie Point.

I was up at 5:30, had a beautiful morning sky, with Venus still high in the sky, and the Big Dipper in a very unfamiliar rotation (see the last photo). The temperature was only 6C, which was kind of chilly as I was wearing only shorts and T-shirt.

The sunrise was a fantastic display of colors and shadows, which is impossible to capture on camera. Below are a couple of the shots from this morning.

(1/50s, F8, ISO200, 28mm – Lens 28-70F2.8)

(1/80s, F8, ISO100, 11mm – Lens 11-18)

Below is the first shot this morning, which shows Venus and the Big Dipper.

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November clouds before sunrise

This video shows the view from my office in Trondheim, Norway. It was taken this morning, just before sunrise.

Death Valley Trip – Death Valley Junction

If you are going to Death Valley Junction, the place to stay is the Armagosa Opera house. Actually it’s the only place to stay 🙂

The population is less than 20, but it does have it’s own airport…

The Armagosa Opera house also holds a motel, where I pre-booked a room for the night. Which was good, because there were no available rooms when I arrived. The contrast to the Palazzo in Las Vegas, where I spent the week before, was huge.

The motel is pretty worn down, but still has it’s charm and is definitely worth a visit. Here is the reception area. Notice the guitar on the chair, which is painted on the wall.

Each room is different, and they have a photo of each room at their web-site. My room looked like this, and I even had a shower with hot and cold water.

After checking in, I went back on the highway to try to capture the sunset. Here is a photo of what I think is called Shadow Mountain.

(1/80s, F9.0, ISO100, 30mm – Lens 24-70F2.8)

And then later during sunset

(1250s, F10, ISO800, 70mm – Lens 24-70F2.8)

Here it is almost dark, and the moon is up in the corner.

(1/50s, F4.5 ISO 100, 12mm – Lens 11-18)

What really amazed me by being in the desert was the silence. I could hear no sounds at all. Except for a car passing by. Even turning the dials on the camera sounded like thunder after a while. Quite amazing, how there can be no sound.

Back at the Opera House the manager was kind enough to let me borrow the key to the stage, so I got to take a couple of photos there as well.

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Death Valley Trip – Shoshone

My first stop on my way to Death Valley, was the Shoshone Village. This is a tiny little village, which (according to Wikipedia) had a population of 31 in 2010. And it has it’s own airport 🙂

Fun little place to stop for lunch and some photos.

Below is about half of Shoshone, including the Crowbar Cafe & Saloon.

I had lunch at the cafe. Good food and great service (no, that’s not me in the picture :-)).

The sheriff is located here. Looks like this needs some renovation 🙂

The old gas station. There was actually a real gas station in Shoshone. The price of gas here was 6.65USD/gallon. In Las Vegas it was around 4USD/gallon. So fill up before you go.

The railroad crossing. I didn’t see any rails or trains, though…

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