"Sharrie's Death Valley Graben " a Death Valley National Park Travel Page by Sharrie

DEATH VALLEY (3.3 million acres!) - a vast & remote, awesome & sunken fragment of the earth's crust (282 feet below sea level) was established as a national park on Oct. 31, 1994 (pretty recent, isn't it?). This is America's largest national park south of Alaska; the driest & hottest spot in U.S. with temperature record of 134 degrees Fahrenheit!

As many of you may have known, Vegas is one of the most interesting city in U.S. & on my yearly trip to the U.S. I'll usually stopover for a stay in this amazing city for a few days. Being one of the cheapest city in Western USA with great entertainment, it is one city where I can comfortably venture out into the nearby national parks (& there are at least 7 of them around). On one such visit, I signed up for a 1-day tour with GrayLine to the Death Valley. It was a long long day...

Death Valley is so remote (no airlines, public transport, or railroads serve the park) that I felt we were the only people on this earth (there was less than 20 of us in the tour)!

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Facts about Death Valley

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Established on Oct. 31, 1994.
Area: 3.3 million acres.

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Facts about California

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Population: 29,100,000.
Area: 158,706 sq mi.
Capital: Sacramento (pop. 355,600).
Largest city: Los Angeles (pop. 8,770,000).
Origin of Name: Named by Spanish explorers after the island of California, a fictional land described in a 16th-century romance.
Motto: Eureka! (I have found it! - the cry of prospectors in the 1849 gold rush).
Info:
California Office of Tourism:
801 K Street, Suite 1600, Sacramento, CA 95814.
Tel: (916) 322 2881.

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Web Resources

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Country Code: 1
Yellow Pages: YellowPages.com
Newspaper: USA Today