My Head Is Full of Books: Sunday Salon -- Mother's Day and Don's Birthday

"Outside a dog a book is man's best friend, inside a dog it is too dark to read!" -Groucho Marx========="The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid." -Jane Austen========="I don’t believe in the kind of magic in my books. But I do believe something very magical can happen when you read a good book."-JK Rowling========"I spend a lot of time reading." -Bill Gates=========“Ahhh. Bed, book, kitten, sandwich. All one needed in life, really.” -Jacqueline Kelly=========

Saturday, May 13, 2023

Sunday Salon -- Mother's Day and Don's Birthday

Death Valley: View from Dante's View

Weather: Warm and sunny. Yesterday the temperature got over 80 degrees, which felt really hot after a very cold spring.

Back from our nature-full vacation: Ashland, Kings Canyon NP, Sequoia NP, Valley of Fire State Park, Las Vegas, and Death Valley NP. Here are a few of the highlights:

With friends Gary and Mary wine tasting the day before we saw "Romeo and Juliet" at the Oregon Shakespearean Festival in Ashland.


Inside a hollow, dead sequoia tree looking out at other big trees in Grants Grove, Kings Canyon National Park.

Two of the big trees (sequoias) in Grants Grove in Kings Canyon NP. Awe inspiring.

Don photographing the petroglyphs at Hospital Rock in Sequoia NP.

We spent the night after visiting Sequoia NP in a little town in the middle of thousands of acres of orange trees in bloom and in fruit. The scent of that many orange blossoms all at once was overwhelming.

We were blown away by the beauty of Valley of Fire Nevada State Park. More examples of petroglyphs in the rocks.

Petroglyghs

The views beyond were just as good as the views nearby.


Don and I got up at 3 AM in order to get to Dante's View in Death Valley NP by sunrise. We were the only ones at the viewpoint and we were glad for the coats and hats we had in the car, it was cold in the desert that early.

It was pretty cloudy but we were rewarded with this golden sky full of sun beams.

Everything about Death Valley was so unexpected. Here we are on Badwater Basin, the lowest point in North America, 280+ feet below sea level.

Artist's Palette, Death Valley NP

On our way back to Las Vegas we saw lots of these types of these signs for burros, tortoises, wild horses, big horn sheep, deer and elk , and even bees! Right after we saw this sign, since our eyes were open and on the lookout, we saw several groups of wild burros.

A profound moment during The Chicks concert in Las Vegas. in the Planet Hollywood theater.

My sister and her husband watched our dog while we vacationed. Here is shot of Bingley and Caspian after they returned from the groomer. Aren't they handsome? Thank you for taking care of our baby, Kathy and Tom!