Desert Beauty

On this Memorial Day, I am sifting through our photos from the desert, feeling so thankful for those who fought to keep our country safe. Today's peace and beauty is thanks to them.

It sometimes seems simply unbelievable to me that we have such abundant public lands where we can camp, hike, and ride bikes in solitude. Most of all, we can enjoy the gorgeous world around us.

We didn't arrive at our first campsite for our desert trip until after midnight. The moon, at about half full, was just setting into some low clouds on the western horizon. Despite the late hour, I pulled out my camera to try to capture the beauty.

After the moonlight had totally disappeared, the Milky Way glowed. Here was one end of it.

And here was the other end of it. I need to get a super-duper wide angle lens (like 8mm) so that I can shoot wide panoramas that can show the whole Milky Way in one frame. I guess that I could also learn to stitch together multiple frames but I don't have much patience for futzing with photos on my computer.

Needless to say, I was already grinning when I finally climbed into bed, despite how tired we all were after the long drive. We slept in the next morning, loving that wonderful feeling of multiple weeks of vacation ahead of us. As soon as we went outside in the morning, we knew it was going to be a special visit. More desert flowers were blooming than any other time I can remember. Endless cacti sported brilliant flowers.

Many other flowers were blooming too but I'll save them for a future post.

The sun was shining but it wasn't hot. Shyla and I had a blast playing in the desert rocks.

And we all watched the sun set at the end of the day in almost the same spot as where the moon had set the previous night.

Mother Earth is more beautiful than I ever imagined when I was growing up in a more urban setting. I'm glad that we found our way westward, landing in such an incredible part of the country that suits us so perfectly.