Welcome to the Owyhee's

We made it to our first campsite in the Owyhee's. We've found our water cache yesterday after snaking our way through the canyons. Ash spires and rhyolitic walls tower above us and cast chilly shadows on our journey. I woke this morning bundled in fleece from head to toe. The first crystalline water droplet fell slowly from my trap on my barely exposed face from my mummy sleeping bag, one cold kiss at a time, I slowly woke. Today we layover and day hike deeper into the Three Finger Gulch. More exciting geology to come. As the children wake the frost still covers the ground and all their backpacks left outside their mid's. I'm drinking maté on a purple massive rock from the Sucker Creek Formation. My sweet sweet friend Liv left a note in maté bag. It started sprinkling. Compassion makes you feel so at peace with the world, I just finished filling a letter with love and goodness.

The birds are sining, it's constant. I imagine they are all singing different parts of a chorus but the song remains on the tip of my tongue. I often wonder if the students notice these things, the musics, the gentle breeze, the rustling grass, the high desert smells. Do we learn to notice? Or are people born aware? I believe senses grow over time, with reflection, which largely depends on the pace you move or merely what is important to you, this doesn't leave much room for growth now does it?

The sun is bleaching the high desert

radiation it's rays in all directions

casting it's shadows across this rolling land

kinetic

The walls of rhyolitic miocene

It's energy temporarily stored

The sun is bleaching the desert high ..

- Lauren