Hello, Lovine.com | Photo | 2014 | 1020 Death Valley

To celebrate our third year of amazinghood, we took the family out to where it 'officially' started - Death Valley. Loaded up Vanessa and took the long drive back down from Stephan's party in SF like a champ. Our plan was to (finally) take pictures of Kat's growing belly, to use as our announcement photo. I guess nothing is official unless it's on social media, there's no denying it.

Took a detour at Harris Ranch, and gave up at a rest stop 6 miles south of Olancha for the first night. In the morning, a man passed by and commented about having a bus when he was 18, back in the 60's. Boy, the 60's and 70's. He went on a passionate 15-minute monologue about life, similar to my drunken tirades of 2012 that I have come to loathe. However, the fire was real. Tirades about not believing in religion (despite being an altar boy and attending 12 years of Catholic school), taking acid from the guy who supplied the Dead, and changing his perceptions in life, but never wanting to try it again in his age. About driving up to the river and hanging out naked with his girlfriend. About a world where everything was ripe for change - the Kennedys, Martin Luther King, Vietnam War... About how he believed in reinstating the mandatory draft.. "light a fire under their asses, put their life on the line, and you'll get political awareness and social involvement real quick". About how kids these days have no idea how the world was so different back then. About his financially rich brother who had no appreciation of the outdoors, and how he didn't understand the point of sitting 6 hours in a river, fishing, and engaging in the art of 'conversation'.

Trust me brother, we're trying to keep it real.

We head down to the DV visitor center en route to Zabriskie, but quickly decide to turn around when the triple digit heat makes me cranky. We escape to Mahogany Flat campground at 8,000ft, and basically eat and sleep our way into oblivion. Stars were out full force, with no moon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNPDK7gga_A

For the third and final night, we backtrack west and look for spots along Lee Flat on Saline Valley road to rendezvous with the joshua trees that line the flats. I've always wanted to sleep out here, but we were always rushing through this section en route somewhere else. I did not take pictures because it will never make justice of how amazingly beautiful it is to look 360* around you and see nothing but a thick blanket of glistening stars, and the Milky Way spanning horizon to horizon.

Sometimes, the best memories are never taken on film but are kept as secrets- because who you love are always there, in and within that memory, to share it with you.