In awe...

...after walking in the sun, gazing at ancient monumental structures in Luxor.

The Racoon says that we all must have belonged to this magnific culture, at some point during our endless coming and going through time and space. I am breathless. It is so stunningly beautiful. The color of the desert, and of the sun when it hits the desert-shaded stone. The overwhelming size, the overwhelming history. The stories of lives past and gone, of cultures buried in the sand.

This is one of the trips I had on my list of ten most-wanted life experiences. Karnak, Luxor, the Valley of the Kings. We could not go to Abu Simbel and Alexandria. And we did not spend a night in the Sahara. This means that half of the dream is still out there, waiting to be lived.

But the beginning, if we could dare call it that, has been astounding.

We are just tiny particles in the history of life, a tiny kernel of sand in the midst of the Sahara...