120 degrees

So of course we just happened to be cruising through Death Valley during the hottest month of the year! The average high for July is 115, the forecast called for 118 yesterday (the highest this week), but the park ranger said we hit 120! So now we have experienced both extremes: the nose-biting, eyelash & nosehair freezing, lung-numbing bitter cold of Alaska AND the skin-blistering, eyeball-singeing, and lung-burning heat of Death Valley! Most of our photos were taken from the car; we got out as little as possible because it hurt to breath, our skin felt like it was on fire and our eyeballs literally felt like they were burning, no exaggeration! I've never experienced a hot wind like that; it was an unpleasant, but interesting sensation. Of course we had to get out at the main point-of-interest spots, but we kept the stops short. At one point Anissa actually felt dizzy, light-headed & tingly so Joey had to help her back to the car. Alea also said she felt sick to her stomach, so we had to be careful with her because she actually threw up in Africa one time from getting over-heated. The hard part was that we had to turn off the AC when we were driving up elevation (which was often; we were in & out of valleys all day). One time we tried to leave the AC on but the car over heated and started blowing hot air, so we had to grin & bear it! Despite all this we had such a neat trip through Death Valley!