Keys View

Sunday night we drove through the northern parts of Joshua Tree National Park to a lookout point called Keys View. Albie & Court had been there before, and were anxious to get there before sundown to get in as many gigabytes of pictures as humanly possible. When I got there I did so too, I think I must have shot upwards of 170 pics in all...

The views are just stunning; you can look to the southeast and see the Salton Sea, south into the Santa Rosa mountains and west to San Jacinto and Palm Springs. The famous San Andreas Fault runs along the valley floor and is easily visible. According to the information panel at the parking lot, it moves the scenery at least ten inches every year...

I tried out every possible combo up there; B & W, color, zoom, pics of the mountains, the moon, the sunset, the Salton sea. Some of these pics came out well, probably from sheer, dumb luck. But I have to face reality now: I need a new camera before I head up to Death Valley. Probably gonna buy one from Walmart first thing Tuesday morning; the one I have now I bought online in late 2005, so it's about time.

All Keys View pics here.

This was one of the first I took, and I had no idea how it would come out, I just pointed it towards the sun and clicked...


The Salton Sea is California's largest lake in surface area.


The light was incredible up there, as were the views.


Sigh.


Golden sunset.


If you squint just so and have pretty good eyesight, you can just make out a tiny line going diagonally from the bottom right corner to the center of the pic. That's a vapor line from a passing jet.


In B & W.


Quite nice, even without the colors.


Thank heaven for air pollution.


Dere's gold in dem dar skies, ah tells ya.


Sweet Jebus, it was purdy up there. Not even the German tourists or the home-made white trash that surrounded us at times could spoil the atmosphere.


Night falls. This is the last pic I took up there.