Catching up!

It’s hard to believe we’ve been on the road for six days.  Time, like the miles, has flown by.  It’s been 1500 miles from home to Phoenix.  Our return trip via Canada has been deleted due to the complete expiration of our passports.  Fortunately, we checked them before we packed otherwise we’d have ended up at the border with outdated documents.  We considered trying to renew them while traveling, but abandoned that idea as it became increasingly complex. 

Only 1600 miles under our belt and we've already celebrated Lisa's birthday, met Teresa in Vegas and  had dinner and a morning swim with my sister Julie.  What could be better.  After hearing about Lisa's home for years it was so nice to finally visit.  From the hike to the  party and everything inbetween it was all fun.  The big surprise was the arrival of my sister Teresa who flew from Florida to Vegas and then drove the desert trail with all its curves and dips to get to the party.

We left Bshop heading to Death Valley.  A detour to the Bristlecone Pine Forest took us on a .75 mile trail through the world's oldest trees, including one tree that was 4600 years old and many that are 4000 years old!  Amazing story and surely some great luck for the discovery of these trees.  Though there's a tendency to think that big trees are the oldest, in fact it's the small trees that have achieved this great age.  They grow at 10,000 feet and because they grow with high density and high resin which increases their durability and resistance to disease.  I was just glad to make the trail at that elevation and not be gasping for air the whole time. 

Our original plan was to spend a day in Death Valley, but with the detour to the Bristlecone Forest we arrived a bit late.  We traveled along the eastern border of Death Valley amazed at the moonscape look of this amazing area.  We were told that, in fact, this area has been used in films to depict lunar landscape!  http://www.nps.gov/deva/