Flash floods strand 1K people in Death Valley National Park

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17. I'd bet money most are tourists from Europe

For some reason Europeans want to go to DV in the summer! I've spent a lot of time in the Eastern Sierra and during the summer months there it was common to hear languages/accents from Europe, and inevitably they were either going to or had been to Death Valley. There was actually a kind of popular route they would take--San Francisco over to East side/Mammoth, down 395 and over to DV, on to Las Vegas and finally to the Grand Canyon.

I had a good friend from the UK come for her first trip to US and I told her to make a list of places she'd want to go/see. I'm in SoCal so there were lots of choices in a multi state area to choose from. One of her choices was to go to Death Valley....she was coming in July. I told her I'd take her anywhere she wanted but we weren't going there in July. And I was driving a little Honda CRX at the time. She settled for seeing a giant hole in the ground instead--Grand Canyon! I assume it's some kind of a challenge to say that you've been to the hottest place on the planet. No thanks!!