I've arrived

Yay! I am on Vacation! I arrived in Los Angeles on Friday evening. I stayed over with some extended family and we packed up the car for our trip to across the country.

FOOD--- it is amazing how it makes you feel. We ate the most delicious homemade Miso Soup to start our day. It was delicious Japanese Great Grandma--made soup! Tofu, egg, sweet potato, greens, onion :-) And we even were given wonderful seaweed sticky rice for our dinner. And imagine, all I could think about when I arrived in LA was Mexican food. Maybe we'll have some today :-)

Here is the big fish Koi Pond at great grandma Peggy's house. They were huge! They have a wonderful grape vine roofed pond and so much personality.

I took tons of mountain photos for my husband and oldest daughter who are rock and geography lovers.

All kinds of mountains and rocks---

Palm Tree

Again. The desert was blooming with millions of yellow and orange and violet flowers. There were brilliant Fuchsia cactus flowers, and Dark Red spiky tipped cactus. I picked up a postcard to identify them all.

We drove into an area of Lava sheets. So what do I do? --Hop out and grab a tiny piece for my kiddies (and Husband). Hey, I know what they love :-)

Here is where I found it, amongst these wonderful yellow flowers.

Mountains

And different mountains

And more--- when I was flying in, I looked down at the mountains and thought how they much they look like the same patterns in puddles and stream banks.

Has anyone ever been to the Franklin Institute in Philly? There is an exhibit where you watch water re-shape a sandy-rocky river bed. I thought about how wonderful that demonstration is.

Erosion-- A wonderful force. This morning I am waking up at the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. I can't wait to get out and walk around!