The Desert is Stunning

     There are less than 20 days left here in the Middle East until I am home in the States for the Summer. This past weekend, my family and I decided to take a spontaneous trip into the desert. You see I hold the desert very deep in my heart. I have spent more than half my life in the Middle East and I love it! Teaching here has been more "home" to me than teaching in the states. I love being around those who have the same lifestyle I did growing up and it is a plus that most things are familiar to me. Moving to China this Fall is going to be different (and if I admit a little scary too) from what I am used to. The trip that we took was to a place we have heard about many times but have not traveled to ourselves.
     So we found a weekend that would work before I leave, packed the car, put Angel in the kennel, and headed out on the road. It was a long 7ish hours from our house to Edge of the World. We had to travel to our hotel for a short bit and then to the spot. Once we arrived, we hiked a bit to the edge of the canyon to different sports. It was breathtaking to see. The only thing that kept going through my mind was that only God could have created something so beautiful in a desert.

     I mean just check out the formations of the side of the canyon here. It was all so wonderful and yes you are right. I am on the edge of the Edge of the World and I am not scared at all. Which if you knew me you would know that as much as an adrenalin junkie I am, I HATE heights. I would normally be terrified to be this close but the only thing I could think of was how stunning everything was. As you can tell in the picture below it looks a little foggy. We were there around 3pm and it was not fog but sandy. You could tell see the sandstorm was picking up in the distance and it was amazing.

     The next day before we headed home, we went to go see the Red Sand Dunes. It was a short drive over to the dunes. We had the option of taking some ATV's out to the top and take pictures or park on the side of the road and climb. We chose the park and climb option because we wanted to take pictures and head out. If you have ever taken pictures in your life, you know that the camera takes out some of the colors. This leads to the picture not looking as stunning as in real life. So when we got home I played around with some filters on Lightroom and fixed the following picture.

     If you look closely you can see the different groves in the sand. This was taken at the top of a dune with my phone and you can look for miles at all the other dunes. I love how Lightroom was able to bring back the red into the dune. This is how they actually looked when we went. It just goes to show how stunning and breathtaking something so simple as the desert can be. God, you have done some great work here and I am so glad that I can come back and visit my "home" whenever I can. Right now I am going to love on my 21 littles for the remainder 13 days of school I have left with them.