Today, our schedule calls for crossing the Last Chance mountain range. This range separates Eureka Valley from Death Valley. We wonder if the name implies that one must not cross this last barrier unless one is prepared to meet his fate in Death Valley. We are a little apprehensive but for a different reason: this crossing is going to require us to climb 2,500 feet to the high point of the pass and then descend into the valley. However, we do have one advantage over yesterday: we have four cars today and thus we will have only five miles between the cars instead of 7.5 miles. And we will have two rest stops.

Before we started this walk, we had set certain ground rules. We would do the walk during July, the hottest month in Death Valley. We would walk only between the hours of 9 am and 5 pm and, once parked, we would not get in the cars and drive until the walk for the day was finished. On the other hand, even though we were starting at the north end and finishing at the south end of the park, we did not have to walk each day's distance in a southerly direction. As the north end of the park is in the mountains, walking in a northerly direction almost always resulted in an uphill walk. However, this saved us considerable time in laying out and retrieving cars. So it is to save time in laying out cars that, today, we are walking from Death Valley up to the pass and then down to the spot in Eureka Valley where we had stopped at the end of yesterday's walk. Joy has two and I have three quarts of water as we start today's walk but in an hour and a half we are both out of water. We sip some from Warren's supply, but soon he is out too. We are happy that the cars are parked only five miles apart today. We obviously need a lot more water when walking uphill.

We each take an extra quart for the second leg of our walk and head for the top of the pass. The terrain is mountainous, but unlike other mountain regions, there are no trees here. We see evidence of past mining activity but not much else.

We are camping tonight near a junction called Crankshaft Crossing. Underneath the sign are various car parts. Looking at the condition of the road, I wonder if I am going to have to contribute a part from my Acura to the pile. As we make camp, Patrick announces that he has a flat. No, it is not just a flat. The sidewall is split. He unloads everything from the back of his Toyota 4-Runner to get to the spare. He is having a hard time loosening those nuts but none of us other three offer any help. We figure he is young and strong and besides, he can't be too tired; unlike us, he did not walk yesterday. He is barely finished with putting the spare on when Joy announces that the lift-gate of her Explorer won't stay up. She does not even bother to ask me to help. She has been married to me long enough to know that my mechanical IQ is below zero and that I will only make matters worse. Patrick tries to fix the broken clip of the strut but to no avail. We take off the strut and add it to the pile of parts near the sign.

Dinesh's caption:
Starting Day 2. Smiling, but not looking forward to climbing 2,500 feet to cross over from Eureka Valley to Death Valley.

Car Talk's caption:
"Smile, Dinesh --because as soon as the shutter clicks, we're going to impale you on that cactus over there and get back in the car and go to the nearest McDonald's."