Immuno Treatment 5 - Death Valley

My sister and I had a very strained relationship growing up. We were very competitive, had strong personalities and couldn't see eye to eye on many things. For some time, we didn't even speak to each other. It all changed once I was diagnosed with cancer. I couldn't remember why we were even mad to begin with, and everything seemed trivial. Over time, our relationship strengthened, and now she's one of my best friends. Can you have your sister as a best friend?

I don't get a chance to see her often and go on many adventures with her often since she's been at school. When she first got accepted it was around the same time that I was diagnosed with cancer. She was hesitant to go, but I don't want people to stop their lives, and so I encouraged her to go. 

The hardest thing about having cancer is the feeling of being trapped. Usually your life is put on hold as you undergo treatment, and resumes once you're done and cured of the disease. The problem with me is that it's become a chronic disease. I can't pause my life for a few years. Time will continue to pass. Life will go on.

It's a boa constrictor, and it won't ever let go.

I'm on the cancer's timetable. It takes whatever it wants whenever it wants, and tells me when I can live. I don't have a choice. This is the hand that was given to me. I don't want my friends and family, the ones that do have a choice, to put their life on hold for me. Cancer has already taken so much from me. What I try hard to not let it do is dictate my life, and the lives around me. I want my loved ones to live, and be happy. That's what I stress to my family and Andrew.

Even though my sister was in Florida, we still managed to find time to hang out and travel together (usually on one of Andrew's crazy adventure tours). 

This time, it led us back to Death Valley. It's one of my favorite national parks is Death Valley because it shows that even in extreme conditions, there can be beauty and life. I'm so grateful that I had a chance to go back with Andrew and create new memories with my sister who had just finished her PhD Defense. You never know when the last adventure will be, so you might as well go H.A.M. 

Enjoy our trip to Death Valley and the ghost towns of Panamint City and Ballarat!

Road Trip adventure time

Red Rock Canyon State Recreation Area

Eastern Sierra Nevada escarpment

Further east on Highway 190 is the dramatic sweep of the 50 mile long Panamint Valley and the Panamint Range

Death Valley

Death Valley is the driest place in the United States. It has the lowest average annual rainfall of any place in the country, less than two inches per year. Some years, there's no rain here at all.

Last October, the above-average rainfall was enough to trigger the growth of millions of wildflower seeds that have been dormant for years.

Desert sunflowers (Geraea canescens) cover the desert in the Badwater Basin area off Highway 178 in Death Valley National Park.

This Super Bloom of wildflowers is a rare occurrence. Only once every 10 years!

Rhyolite is one of many ghost towns in the area. Just outside the remains of the town is the Goldwell Open Air Museum with sculptures by famous artists including Charles Albert Szulkalski

Andrew and I eating in front of The Last Supper

Lady Desert The Venus of Nevada

The penguin represents how out of place life is in the Nevada desert. Who looks more out of place, Andrew or I?

Tribute to Shorty Harris by Fred Bervoets

Titus Canyon Road is a back country road leading back into Death Valley. It features mountain, steep canyon walls and event it's own ghost  town of Leadville

Leadville Population 3

Drive Carefully, Anh!

Best viewed around sunset, Artists' Palette features red, orange, yellow, blue, pink and green rocks. Most of the colors are due to the high concentrations of iron and chlorate ions in the igneous rock.

Who is the better artist and who is the better muse?

We Found Waldo

Dante's View is an astonishing 5,500 ft above Badwater Basin below. It offers stunning views of both Death Valley below and the Panamint range in the distance.

Dante's View

Vy's Coffee Shop is Open!

Worked by one man over 40 years, Eureka Gold Mine in the Panamint Range to the west of Death Valley offers a look to the past gold mining era.

Eureka Mine! Still looking for a pot of gold!

Found a tree in Death Valley! From Aguereberry Point

The lowest point in the Western Hemisphere, Badwater Basin drops 282 feet below sea level. The salt flats stretch about 200 square miles and represent the bottom of a now dried up lake bed.

Near by Devil's Golf Course consists of jagged land from wind and rain erosion of the salty mud. The name comes from the anonymous quote "only the devil could play golf on such rough links."

Andrew spotting my drive

Named for the mesquite bushes in the area Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes are an easily accessible dune field open to hiking and sand sledding. 

The mountains behind create the wind conditions necessary to create the dunes

Best viewed around sunrise, Zabriskie Point is known for its undulating hills caused by erosion of the mudstone 

Ballarat

Ballarat is a ghost town serving as supply point for the mines in the nearby Panamint range. Currently the population is one man who runs the "General Store" selling tourists refreshments and souvenirs.

The building was vacant at the time the photo was taken, but we decided to go home rather than inquire about rates.

Watch out Ballarat, I'm on the road!

So long Super Bloom!

(Editors note: The words are almost all Vy's with some of my light editing. I chose the photos and many of the captions.)