Well, if you haven't heard, we went to Death Valley this weekend. There were a total of 12 of us there. We went to all sorts of different places - places where there is one theme in common - desolation. Thus, the name, Death Valley...

1st off, the logistics. It took 8 hours to get there - me and Liz hopped in her Trooper and headed down at around 11:45AM. Stopped by split pea Anderson's along the way, and just kept driving and driving.... It took the whole 8 hours to get there. Then we had really expensive-and-not-worth-it salad bar and then went to find the campsite and pitched the tent. The rest of the gang arrived at 3AM to find the tents pitched and air mattress inflated (Courtesy of Me and Liz)!!!!

Saturday morning, we went to Dante's view for a grandview of the salt flats, Zabriskie Point to see the golden rolling hills, then to Furnace Creek Inn for lunch (which had rattlesnake meat!!!) then drove down to see the salts at the Devil's golf course, played in the salt marshes, stopped by Badwater to check out some 'bad' water, and drove back through the Artists palette, and back. Sunday morning we went trekked along the sand dunes before we headed back....

Boy. Lessons I learned: 1) its soo nice to have a house and a toilet within walking distance. 2) Its nice to have a kitchen to put stuff. 3) I can't believe how dependent humans are on 'stuff' to survive (pots, pans, lamps, heater, air mattress...etc.) 4) Going to Death Valley definitely makes me appreciate what God has given me already! Praise God.

john