Death Valley

We'd heard through the grapevine that something amazing was happening down in Death Valley so we decided to make a quick trip.  We drove down Friday night and stayed at Taylor's grandpa's house.  It's an hour later in Vegas so our kids went to bed late and I was hoping they'd get up an hour late too.  No luck.  Taylor and I slept in because it was so quiet but it turns out this is what they were all up to.  Sneaky buggers.

As soon as grams and grandpa made it in, we headed out.  A nice drive and then suddenly, even though we were in the desert, it was spring.

Ok so it's still the dessert but in death valley this is pretty impressive.  Out of the bare rocks and dirt beautiful, tall flowers of every color were just popping up.

The valley was in bloom.  Yellow everywhere.

We spent the morning stopping on the side of the road every few feet because there were just more and more flowers to see.

And such beautiful variety.

Amazing to see the beauty amidst such a hard environment.

After a lot of flowers we ventured out to the sand dunes which was much more interesting to the boys.

And the lack of sleep finally caught up to Isla but I didn't mind the cuddle time.

To end the day we went up to Dante's Peak to overlook the whole valley and watch the sun set.

And climb rocks of course cause we can't resist that.

Best seats in town to watch the sunset.

And to collect rocks.

And even though it was gorgeous it didn't parallel the Salt Lake valley sunsets.

Of course after a full day of picture taking and exploring and climbing and fun, we were all starving.  Unfortunately, there was nothing and nowhere to stop for more than an hour and then even then it was just a little diner close to Area 51 and next to ahem.. a brothel.  Luckily my kids had no idea what was going on and they were much more interested in the alien paraphenalia.

Especially the purple girl alien.