I'M BACK:)OMG

Hello everybody!

I haven't posted for a while because I have been busy, but now my family and I are on a road trip through the California desert and Arizona and I thought that I would start writing again. We recently spent several days in Death Valley. Death Valley is the hottest place on earth. We went during the winter so it was only in the eighties, but that was plenty hot for me. In the early 1900's it was recorded to be 134 degrees. During the summer the ground can get to 200 degrees.

A dust storm that happened our last night.

The first night we got to Death Valley we went to a star gazing ranger program. The ranger took us out on to the sand dunes and showed us many constellations and shared some of their stories. One of the stories he told was his own. This is how it goes...one day when he was in his early twenties he was on a road trip with a friend (through Death Valley) and they saw a straight road with no cars, so he gunned it. They were driving in a Ford Taurus and they started to go 106 miles per hour. Turns out a Ford Taurus isn't supposed to go 106 mph so they blew a head gasket and had to send the car back home. The ranger showed us the constellation of his story and it was supposed to be a Ford Taurus hood, but to me it was just five stars.

The moon and Mars and Venus.

On the second day we went on a cool walk through the sand dunes and then later we went through Mosaic Canyon. The sand on the sand dunes had a much different texture than the sand on the beach. In Mosaic Canyon, at first I didn't know why it was called Mosaic Canyon but then I realized it was because of all the different textures. On the third day we went on a hike through Golden Canyon which was pretty hard but when we finished we were so happy. In the Golden Canyon part of the path was made by flash floods, and there was barely any shade so I got really hot.

Part of the golden canyon.

All in all, Death Valley was a pretty cool place to visit. The dust storm on our last night was a little scary and it was a little hot during the day, but the sky was really clear at night and the landscape was really dramatic.