Desert Views

Australia has a lot of Big Things, especially the magnificent Big Prawn from Ballina NSW, blogged in Dec 07. But America has some too. Here's the tallest thermometer in the world, in Baker, California, on the road from Barstow to Las Vegas. If you blow up the picture, you can see the temperature reading of 59 degrees. This seemed a little cool...my car said 64 and the sun was fairly warm. But usually it's much hotter here in Baker...the top rung of the thermometer is for temperatures in the 130s. The town is only about 900 feet above sea level...it's actually in an extension of Death Valley...so it's seriously hot here in the summer.

On Saturday the 16th, the air was crystalline. Above 400o feet, the arms of the Joshua trees stood out in front of the deep blue sky.

Here's a typical lake in the Mojave desert...just a salt flat. This one, like several others, is called Soda Lake. It's near a little settlement officially known as Zzyzx. (pronounced zye-zix)This name was coined by a bloke who established a mineral springs resort on the site and crafted the word so that it was the last one in the English language.