Today in Arduino class, our son and I wrote a bit of code to display the current value of a thermistor, the little blue fellow in the photo below.  We intend to create a program to turn the bathroom fan on and off automatically based on air temperature:

In the afternoon we drove into town and filled a propane tank as well as our 45 gallon fresh water bag.  We then drove to the visitor center to begin our hike into Palm Canyon.  The clouds cast interesting shadows onto the mountains:

The first half mile or so from the visitor center to the campground is paved:

The kids brought their cameras along:

After walking through the campground, we entered Palm Canyon:

Interesting leaves:

At last we reached a point where the stream that creates the palm oasis above flows down towards the valley:

Looking upstream:

At last, we could see the palm oasis.  Apparently, natural palm oases are quite rare:

As the sun set, we hiked back on the “alternate trail”, which gave us great views of the valley with a beautiful sunset as company:

Unfortunately, my phone ran out of power before the hike completed, so the track below is not complete: