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Where Gumbo Was #17: Death Valley, USA

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Desert flowers after a wet spring

 

No one claimed bragging rights this week, although Travel Luver named the place...but along with a few other places it reminded him of. But it is Death Valley, home of Wiley Coyote and the Road Runner; of the Twenty-Mule Team Borax commercials, and the long-running Western series Death Valley Days, which included Ronald Reagan's last performances as an actor.

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The name calls up images of dry desert and parched cattle skulls, but it's actually a quite varied environment, or series of environments. Nearly unpopulated by humans today, for many years the area now controlled by the Park Service had a number of villages clustered around the one serious industry: mining borax. The park is mostly in California, but sticks a bit into Nevada. The pictures below show the park in some of its incredible variety.

 

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Birds at a campground at Stovepipe Wells

 

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 Badwater, at 282 feet below sea level, is the lowest point in the United States

 

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Dunes near Stovepipe Wells

 

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 Desert Holly

 

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 The Devil's Golf Course

 

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 And, of course, the Road Runner and Wiley

 

Tune in tomorrow for a new puzzle: Where in the World is Gumbo?

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  • WITW 17 Clue 2

The best part of every trip is realizing that it has upset your expectations

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