Sarah, Aliana and Oliver arrive to defrost from Calgary’s blisteringly cold winter. We splash about in the pools for a few days, enjoying the desert warmth and just savouring time together. A peaceful relaxing ambiance prevails. … We leave the lush Palm Desert vistas behind and drive onward to Joshua Tree National Park for a little hiking and exploring around the stunning rock formations and boulders … this area has always been one of my favourite parts of the desert so it was nice to share this with Sarah and the kids. We opt for a night in an Airbnb trailer on the edge of the park, hoping to catch a starry sky, far removed as we are from the distraction of city lights. The evening’s overcast sky left us a little disappointed. We fall asleep “listening” to the silence and stillness of the desert. Winds moved in at some point in the middle of the night pushing the clouds westward! Sarah wakes up Aliana and I, leaving Oliver to his deep slumber! A fully lit, constellation rich sky our reward for climbing out from under warm comforters … the desert gets quite cool at night making it hard to crawl out from the warmth but glad we did! It is a deeply spiritual experience to gaze at the beauty of the twinkling heavens above us. Certainly a sense of Godly magnificence fills our hearts. More than twenty years ago, while holidaying at a bed and breakfast farm in Prince Edward Island, Brian and I woke up our sleeping kids to experience one of nature’s finest gifts of the night … the Milky Way!! … undoubtedly that memory lives strongly in Sarah and she wants a similar experience for her own children … prompting a return next year!ear