Dining month

Fogo de Chao with Dasa and family.  Hugo ate more than me!

Easter

Easter, American style

Boy did I have fun putting easter baskets together.  All the candy I never got.  ugh.

Hiding eggs was fun too.  The kids came over the day before and dyed them

Turns out there aren't many hiding spots in our living room

I think the kids were happy though

A rousing game of King of Tokyo after

Pretty good Easter if I say so myself

Industrious Hugo

Hugo helping weed!  a dream come true

Red Rock Canyon (and Vegas)

So a Vegas hotel room and a dry night later, we got out of the city as soon as we could and went to Red Rock Canyon.

So did everybody else apparently, but it was still pretty

This is Red spring

I love Joshua trees

So yep, red rocks

called calico rocks

Looks like an apartment building

The creek at the bottom of the canyon was sweetly green

Looking out from the calico rocks

Hike to the keystone thrust

I think the thrust is the thing on the left, but we didn't do the whole hike due to time

The really cool thing was the group of Bighorn Sheep we stumbled across.  Can you see them?

Here is a zoomed in view

It was also interesting to see the pattern of the fire a few years ago.

Pretty place

We went to a Cirque du Soleil show that night, and walked the strip.  Ugh, so not my thing. 

Back to the park the next day to finish my grading.  Not a bad view to look up from work for, huh?

Then a celebratory hike up first canyon (term papers graded!)

Death Valley Superbloom

I finally made it to a superbloom in death valley!

 On the way into the valley on 190 between Death Valley Junction and Furnace Creek

 Fields of desert gold

 If I was on top of things, I would be able to tell you the rest of these lovely flowers names, but alas... I just have pictures

 This one is so sweet

Closer to the park, another spot with lots of purple

 This one looks like a hydra to me

Even without the flowers, the view was spectacular

 But there are flowers!

 Everywhere!

 Titus Canyon

 Also full of flowers

 I really like the leaves on this one

 So pretty

It was so busy with flower nerds that they were allowing dispersal campaign: hike in at least a mile and camp anywhere.  

 We found a lovely spot behind some overgrown sand dunes (northern end of the Mesquite flat sand dunes) and made a lovely camp.

 Sunset, wine, good food...

Our little camp in the morning.

 flowers here too

The next day we drove south towards Badwater Basin

 Flowers on the way...

 gazillions of caterpillars eating them

 not exactly little either

 Badwater basin

 My favorite field of the desert gold was quite a ways south on Badwater road

 By Ashford mill

Back up to walk on the salt flat

 no flowers here

 just pretty salt crystals

 Natural Bridge trail

 Not as many flowers here, but super pretty

 Artists Palate

Twenty mule team canyon

Looking back north, is that rain? No, my super power (bringing rain to deserts) isn't actually real.

Up to Beatty cutoff.  Those clouds are getting dark

spectacular flowers, spectacular clouds

Up over daylight pass

More flowers up here, including paintbrush.  

Did you know it's parasitic?

Even the tried and true bushes are flowering

Coming back down the pass into the valley.  That no longer looks like rain. It is suspiciously like a sand storm.  

A sand storm on the dunes where we camped!

Oh, but he kit fox hills are stunning with the storm clouds

 Headed into the sand storm to rescue our camp.  Wonder if our tent is still there?

The mile hike didn't seam like a big deal before.  My lungs hurt this time for sure.

 Amazing how pretty it can be even when the situation is a little desperate

Well, we have a tent.  it didn't get blown away. But, if you don't know our tent, this picture is deceptive.  It is practically horizontal and had pulled half our stakes up.

 The inside was full of sand

 Packing everything up for a quick escape was challenging but we managed. My lungs hurt typing this in remembrance.  

 Of course these pictures don't do it justice, but can you see the sand blowing across the road?

and the serious dust devil back close to our tent?

So, we drove out of the sand storm and searched for a new place to camp.  At this point it is about an hour from nightfall.  Getting away from the sand was the first priority.  We drove up and out of the basin, found ourselves a likely spot and started to pack up to hike in another mile... and it started to rain.  And I mean serious rain.  Full windshield wiper rain.  Who says Death Valley is one of the driest places on earth? 

Heather's super power strikes again.  

We gave up and drove back to Vegas to sleep in a dry, not sandy bed.  Wimps? Maybe not.