"Death" Valley

After taking a week or so to recover, I decided it was time to give my mom a break and haul the kids down to the valley to see their Dad.  He had arrived back in Arizona the day before my surgery, and had driven down to Phoenix for his rotation there shortly after.  I had originally planned to go down with him right away, but chickened out at the last minute at the prospect of being on my own with the kids so soon.  Within a week; however, I was ready to go, and excited to visit one of America's largest cities that had somehow evaded me up until this point in my life.  Excited, until that is, I actually arrived.  As we descended the mountain I was greeted by lots of this,

 

 

and even more so, lots of this!

Now for anyone who knows me well, you know that I would just as soon be thrown into a tank full of hungry sharks as have to survive in any triple digit temperatures.  I simply have zero heat tolerance!  And despite our best efforts to stay cool...

 

It was all I could do to survive our month in death valley!