It was so hot it melted my car

Well not the car exactly but the Yakima cruise missile carrier on the top of my car warped a little. I think it will probably bend back into shape in time, but right now it's drooping a little towards the front.

Today I spent another 3+ hours loading film again. I didn't get out until about 1pm. It was probably a good thing as it was even hotter today than yesterday. I think at the lowest elevation I visited it was somewhere around 125 degrees. At one place I saw that it was 118 in the shade and this was several hundred feet above the lowest point (there is a 5.5 degree difference for every 1000 feet here). Funny thing though was that it didn't see so bad to me. At times it even actually felt good.  It must have been to others as well as I saw a lot of people sitting outside. It really must be the dryness that makes it bearable. It averages less that 2 inches of rain a year here and some years they have none at all.

I drove around a lot more today, mostly waiting for the heat to drop a little so I could take some pictures. This place is really, really beautiful. I think I find it more beautiful than Yosemite at this point. I know that I would definitely come back here first vs. Yosemite. Perhaps it is just because this place is so different. At first I had thought that it was just an effect of being here at sunset yesterday, sunset always make a place look better. But driving around today, I was just amazed by everything around me. I could easily spend at least a week here taking pictures. Today though I think I got a few more awesome pictures.

Around sunset I set off across the valley towards Nevada. There were a few places that I wanted to see before crossing into Utah. The drive through Nevada was really pretty boring. Long, straight, mostly flat boring highways. It didn't help that is was night either. There was no moon out so it was really dark. I couldn't tell if there was anything around me or not.

For most of the drive I traveled down highway 375, otherwise known as the "Extraterrestrial Highway." I kept my eyes open and had the video camera right at hand, but I never saw any U.F.O.s. I have to admit that I was disappointed. About the only thing of interest on this highway is the 'Aleinn'. Other than that, there was nothing but jack rabbits and the occasional cow, which is quite surprising when your doing 80+ mph and there's a cow in the emergency lane of the highway. And about those jack rabbits, all I can say is that they're really stupid and often too slow. And from what I've seen on the highway, they seem to explode under certain circumstances.

I arrived at Cathedral Gorge late at night and rather than spending the time to set up the tent, I just slept in the car again. I think I've got this down now. I've found out all types of little tricks to make a Subaru more comfortable, like reversing the head rest, etc...