death valley, palm springs, and ladera ranch

visiting death valley national park feels a little bit like going to another planet. the landscape is wild!
this place is called “artist’s palette.” the minerals in the rock make it so colorful!:
  
we spent a lot of times on roads like this – long stretches of asphalt lined with quirky badlands and lots of dust:

hiking up “golden canyon” to the “red cathedral”:

 
sand dunes for daaaaays:

 
and a big crater:

”scotty’s castle” right in the middle of the desolation:

 
and one last view of the wide expanse of the hottest (recorded temperature on record in the world!), driest (spot in all of the usa), lowest (point in the western hemisphere) valley:

from death valley, we drove to palm springs, where my brothers and dad had gathered for a f&ffe (fathers and future fathers of eyrealm!) get-together. my favourite boys in all the world graciously let me sleep over at their rental house since we got in so late. i left ian and took off in the morning, and they have since been playing and watching a lot of tennis and surely having some awesome conversations, and probably some real good burgers.

and i’ve spent the past few days in ladera ranch at my brother noah’s home with his wife and kids and with my sister shawni and her four girls! the pothiers just played with us for an evening, overnight, a sunday morning and first hour of church before they had to head back to arizona, but it was so fun to have all these kids together!

amidst all this road tripping, i got a nasty sinus infection, so although it has been so great to hang out with kristi, mckay, lyla, cubby, bennett, and shelby, my body has been feeling super crummy. here’s to hoping that everything clears up before we leave for our big trip in just six days!!