Set up at my Death Valley NP campsite, I crawled into the truck sometime around 9:30pm on Sunday. It was still pleasantly warm (maybe 70 degrees?) and the curtains I velcro’d in place gave me all the privacy I needed. I’m not sure why I didn’t sleep all that well. I just know that I was pretty much awake already when my alarm went off at 4:30 Monday morning.
New moon in Death Valley. Yes, that means dark skies, but with that many stars out, I almost didn’t need a headlamp to pack things up in the truck.
I felt a tiny bit bad, firing up the truck at 4:45 when the rest of the campground was clearly still asleep. I felt even worse when I had to turn my headlights on as I drove out (the parking lights weren’t cutting it). But then I was out of the campground and on my way to Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes.
There were actually 3 other cars in the parking lot when I arrived. One of them was a Sportsmobile, leading me to wonder if that person had somehow slept in the parking lot all night. For free.
Anyway. I got a couple of starry-night photos from the parking lot, then turned on my headlamp and walked out into the dunes around 6am.
Part of the problem with hiking in the dark is that you can’t really see much of what’s around you. I picked a spot that seemed okay enough and set up the tripod. (Early morning light still means long exposure times. Hence the tripod.)
Pretty good for guessing, right? But if I’d planned it better, I would have left the camera/tripod set up in this exact spot, and then I’d have this exact image with different light levels.
Alas, I didn’t plan better. And I only have one camera.
So they’re close but no cigar.
Amazing how the light completely changes the image, though.
Of course, I wasn’t the only person out there on the dunes. I read that sunrise is the most popular time partly because of cooler temperatures, and partly because it’s the best way to get “trackless” photos. (Photos with nobody else’s foot tracks in them.)
You can see a group of people on the right, and lots of tracks through the sand in the middle. Still, it wasn’t hard to find spots with no evidence of people.
There are some foot tracks in the photo above. I tried Photoshopping them out but my skills are rudimentary at best. It looked terrible so I just left them in.
I finished shooting around 7:30 and returned to the truck… starving. It was a pretty big parking lot so I pulled out the table and set up to make breakfast right there. But first: coffee. Not that I needed it to wake up or anything, but it sure did taste good. I got some curious stares from other people in the parking lot, but even more compliments on my set-up. I thanked them all and mentioned to one that I’d spent a lot of time perfecting this system.
On to breakfast. The plan was fried potatoes, mushrooms, peppers, and tomatoes. I was slicing up potatoes when the knife slipped. And dug deeply into the pad of my right index finger.
And I mean, deep. It started bleeding pretty badly so I wrapped it in a paper towel and reached for the first aid kit. Then I remembered that I hadn’t actually packed the first aid kit.
Well, shit.
I approached the guy parked next to me in the lot. Turns out he was a smart guy who’d packed a massive baggie full of bandages, and he gave me several. I was able to get the bleeding stopped so I continued on with my breakfast. (It was delicious BTW.) Still, I was worried. I’d never cut myself so badly before.
After finishing my meal and cleaning/packing up. I headed out of Death Valley to the town of Lone Pine. There’s a big visitor’s center there and I stopped in to use the bathroom and get rid of my trash. It was there that I got a serendipitous text.
Tiffany is a CrossFit buddy and we have a good time working out together. I had missed her the entire week before (we ended up going to the gym on different days) and that morning, just as I arrived at the Visitor’s Center, she texted me to say she’d heard I was in Death Valley, how was the trip going?
Tiffany is an ER nurse. (Serendipity, see?)
I told her about the cut and she immediately asked for a photo. Hmm… I really did not want to peel off that bandage. But I did – gently! – and sent her a photo. Which she rejected as being “too bloody” and that she “couldn’t see anything.” She told me to rinse it off.
But that will hurt, I whined. The ER nurse had zero sympathy for me, reminding me that it will hurt less if it’s clean now rather than infected later.
Sigh.
I cleaned the cut off as best I could,trying not to make it bleed again, and sent her another photo. This photo:
Now, I left it as a thumbnail on purpose, in case you have a low tolerance for gross-out, like I do. If you double click on the image, though, it will open up a new window with that cut in full size.
In fact, you can do that with all my photos – click them to open them in a new window, where the image will be full size.
Anyway. Tiffany got back to me right away. Get some Crazy Glue, she said. Then clean the cut thoroughly. Then… glue the flap closed.
Yep, glue. That’s what they’d do in the ER, Tiffany said. They’d just use much more expensive glue.
So I put on a fresh bandage and set off through Lone Pine (population: 2,035) to find a drugstore. I found the Crazy Glue and a box of bandages, then went back to that Visitor’s Center parking lot.
I set out all my tools on the tailgate of the truck, steeled myself for the experience, and pulled off the bandage. Apparently I wasn’t gentle enough this time. Something tore inside the cut and it started bleeding. A lot. I washed the cut anyway, and got as much soap in it as I could. (Super painful!) But blood was running down my arm and splattering everywhere. The tailgate was starting to look like a crime scene. I finally gave up and slapped on a new bandage on the cut. Which it promptly bled through. So I put on another bandage, and that did the trick.
After cleaning up the tailgate then looked at my watch. It was 1pm.
I was so done with adventures for the day.
The closest place to camp was somewhere I’ve been before: Alabama Hills. I headed out of town and found a quiet-looking flat spot with a fabulous view of Mt. Whitney and called it good.
I tried taking a nap but it just didn’t seem to be happening. So I hung out and enjoyed the view and read for a bit. Since I hadn’t eaten anything since that fateful breakfast, I made myself a nice meal of chicken and vegetable soup. (A can of vegetable soup and leftover chicken meat heated up on the stove – no knives involved!)
And then, with a fully belly, and since I didn’t have anything else going on, I gave it another shot.
I carefully – oh, so carefully – took both bandages off my finger. Success! No torrents of blood. I gently ran some water over the cut and wiped off the excess blood, leaving it open to dry in the 20% humidity.
Once it looked pretty okay, I pushed the flap down so the pieces of skin were touching and dropped the Crazy Glue on top.
Success! !!!!!
I had one bar of service so I sent Tiffany a text with an update, as well as thanking her profusely for her help. I’m pretty sure she saved my trip.
I didn’t bother with sunset/starry night photos that night. I was exhausted. I crawled into the truck around 6pm, watched a movie, and immediately fell asleep.
Next stop: the ancient bristlecone pine forest.