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It all started from here - Miramar Street apartments, residence of Kanishka and Ranjita. Loading up the stuff into the Bravada, early thursday morning.
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The first sights of the desert, as we stopped for lunch at Olancha.
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Among the first points of interest we hit as we drove was this area, the Devil's Cornfield. Could not have been less like a cornfield, but then at Death Valley, everything is totally hard core.
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'I was here' type of snap at the first photo point.
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Roads in Death Valley are long and straight - we were really missing the steering lock on the car.
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Sand Dunes. We tried to get closer, but then we had to head to a motel before sundown, the motel being another hundred miles away, and sundown being just a couple hours from now.
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Sand dunes, from the roadside.
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Our first sunset at DV, taken from the Visitors' Center.
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Badwater. A huge, huge, flat area with massive salt deposits, and a little water. Some 230 feet below sea level, lowest point on continental US, second lowest in the world.
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Closer to the sunset. It's still thursday.
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Way early on friday morning - about 30 mins before sunrise. We were taking turns getting ready for the long trek.
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At StovePipeWells - the nearest rest area towards telescope peak. From here, it's desert all the way to the top - some 50 miles away from here.
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Charcoal Kilns, on the way to Telescope Peak. At the edge of 'rough roads' - beyond this, it's like driving through a ploughed field.
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Trekking up the Telescope Peak.
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Stunted vegetation en-route to the peak - at one of our (many) 'short rests'.
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Everybody but I seemed to have massive tempo and stamina - crossing the 'meadow' region (some 3 miles of it), torawds the middle of the trek to the summit.
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Close to the summit. Death Valley has it all - snow, mountains, trees, desert.
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Yeeaaaaaaahhh! Reached the summit! None of us believed we could walk 7 miles, and 5000 ft, to the very top.
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The view from the summit made it worth the trek.
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More views on our way down.
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Sunset on day-2, friday evening.
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Las Vegas. The anti-parallel universe to Death Valley. Where there was darkness , there is light.
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New York, New York. That's the casino, not the Big Apple. The replica of the statue of Liberty is actually larger than life - but then everything in Las Vegas shows over indulgence.
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A street in Paris. Again, a casino. Entirely indoors, everything is fake - the skies, the trees, the breeze, the people. OK - not the people.
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One of the stunning exhibits in the MGM Grand was this beast of a drag racing car - that can do 0-60 in 0.8 secs, and 0-200 in less than 2 secs, and does not turn, and is the fastest thing to move on land.
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The huge lobby area in the MGM Grand. Probably larger than Grand Central terminal itself.
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View from outside Paris, the casino. Again, replicas larger than life.
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Inside one of the casinos.
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The Bellagio. The most stately hotel on the Strip. With the musical fountain in progress.
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Motor boating in San Diego.
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Kanishka and Ranjita at the steering wheel in the boat ride.
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