I've been slowly adding my Death Valley pictures to Flickr over the week. I had three days in the park (broken up over 5 days) and I was blown away by the beauty! It's an amazing place, you can see for miles across the valley floor and the mountain ranges are as unique as an alien world.

The first day was nice ... 70's ... nice cloud cover to accent photos. We stopped by Zabriskie Point and I filled the camera full of photo's. I took wide angle, standard, telephoto ... everything but macro shots. The clouds were amazing, perfect accents to the landscape. The lighting could have been better (it was around 3:30pm or so), but I'll take what I can get

On the second day the unthinkable happened .... FLAT TIRE! In the middle of nowhere! Mimi and I were caravaning with my parents. They were pulling a fifth wheel trailer and I was cruising along in our sedan. I stopped along side the road and a car pulled up. “Are you Chris? Chris Hughes?” I was like ... WHAT?!?! How do you know my name?!? “Your parents got a flat up at the summit!”

I hauled ass up the hill and found my parents ... they were happy to see us! Cell phones don't work in the valley. No roaming! You break down, you have to flag one of the few cars that go by.

The next morning, woke up early and shot the dunes by Stove Pipe Wells. It was exciting because it was the first time for me to really experience sand dunes. Even more exciting to photograph the dunes!

I took a ton pictures .. lots of junk, but a small batch turned into gems