The Racetrack, Death Valley, Ca

THE RACETRACK

During my roadtrip through Death Valley, one of the places I had never heard of was The Racetrack or  Racetrack Playa, nor had I heard of the Sailing Rocks. As mentioned in a previous post, these rocks sail along the ground. When the ground gets wet, the water freezes, then the wind pushes the rocks along the ground. Set inside some awesome mountains this ended up being a great place to take pictures. I captured the first couple of pictures during the day, but I must confess I had more fun at night. 

At night we could see all of the awesome stars. Not a cloud in the sky. One weird thing about this place, when the moon is just right, and your facing away from the sun, it looks like there is fog in the valley - weird - but there wasn't a cloud/fog at all. 

Here I caught a shooting star in the photo! I was pretty excited about that! :)

And one of my favorites from the whole trip - The Moon! 

All in all this was an awesome place to stay. If you pass The Racetrack, and continue own the road, there are some great campgrounds to stay at. Just beware, we had some coyotes take off with a spatula and empty can. WE WANT THAT BACK!!!! (lol)

Wes

Blood vs Water

Growing up there was a saying my dad
drove into my brain, "Blood is thicker than water. Family is blood, and Everyone else is water." This lesson was one I had to learn early if I was to be the leader of my 'Band of Brothers'.

There were many times when I fought with my brothers, but there were just as many times when I fought for them against outside threats (whether they knew about it or not). I'm sure you can sympathize with the saying, "Nobody can pick on my brothers except ME!". It was my birthright!

We all have a family. If you're in a situation where you don't know if you have a family, this will help: "Family bleeds together". Your family isn't perfect, and won't succeed in life unscathed; But it will be there to support you every step of the way.

We all need our family, whether we want to admit it or not. Some of us deny that we need them, only to learn later that life is better with your family in it.

I am so thankful for my cousins (see picture, heather I love you too). They are champions of their own lives. Each one going through something most would categorize as traumatic, only to stand at the top of the mountain they each climbed. None of them have come this far in life unscathed, but each one with an awesome story to tell.