Once a year we travel to St. George, Utah to visit our good friends, Bill and Trudy Ostler. Last week we made the trip. This time we flew into Las Vegas, on the advice of Bill and Trudy who said it was cheaper than flying into St. George. They met us at the Los Vegas airport and we began our adventure with them by touring the National Atomic Testing Museum featuring bomb testing in the Nevada desert and other places that took place in the 1940s and 50s. I had no idea the extent of the testing, both above and below ground that was done during that time.
Over the three or so days that we spent with Bill and Trudy we drove for hours to various places of interest. We loved seeing the north rim of the Grand Canyon. The extremely rocky roads insured that not many people ventured to that part of the Canyon. We weren't quite alone there, but there wasn't much company. The dirt road that led us there passed by some interesting sights, among them an abandoned school that educated the children of the the local land owners, when there were enough of them to justify a school. I love seeing abandoned places. It is such fun to imagine what went on there. The countryside boasts red dirt part of the time, which is my all-time favorite kind of dirt. I love the shades of orange and red that color the views!
Here's the school I mentioned.
The north rim of the Grand Canyon.
On one of our days we returned to Las Vegas, where we toured the Hoover Dam. I've been there before, but this time there was much more infrastructure to support tourists. We went inside the Dam and learned more about its creation than I ever imagined. It was built to last 2000 years, or so we were told. That's quite an accomplishment when you consider that most of the workers were unskilled. It is an amazing structure that dwarfs we mere mortals. In case you didn't know this, there are quite a few dams that have been built along the Colorado River, but Hoover Dam is the largest. One of its most important purposes is to control flooding in the Central Valley of California, where so much of our food is grown. We were properly impressed.
Here's Bill and Trudy, along with us in a photo taken by photographers there.
This is a view of the Dam from a nearby bridge.
This picture was taken from the top of the dam looking down. Looks a bit scary!
There is a park not far from Hoover Dam called the Valley of Fire that attracted us with the advertising claim that, when the sun is shining just right, the cliffs and rocks in the Valley look like they are on fire. We didn't see anything that looked like fire as we drove through, but stopped to find the petroglyphs that were hidden behind some of the red cliffs that filled the Valley. You know I loved seeing more of the red stuff. We hiked behind some of the hills and found them, petroglyphs that were scattered on the face of some of the cliffs, arranged like a message board. I imaged that, perhaps, ancient travelers left messages for those following. Since the carvings were not arranged into any sort of artistic display, I determined in my own mind that they must have been some sort of communication. Look at one of the pictures and see what you think.
Trudy and I in a "cave" at the Valley of Fire.
Layne looking for petroglyphs in the Valley of Fire.
We enjoyed a musical evening during one of our nights, viewing a play about a group called the "Plaids" who sang 1950s vintage music. The performers were full of fun and so good. We rarely go to such things as that, so it's nice to experience it once and awhile. It is such a pleasure to enjoy interesting adventures with people that you also enjoy. Bill and Trudy are good people, through and through. Being with them is a pleasure. We don't really communicate with them much in between visits, but when we are together it is easy to pick up as if we hadn't been apart for months and months.
Our trip home took us from Las Vegas to San Francisco and then to Boise. Both flights were delayed hours and hours. "It's the weather in San Francisco" we were told over and over again. But, having lots of time to wait, we got acquainted with a security lady at San Francisco who told us that the real reason for the delays was that President Obama flew into the airport earlier in the day. I was disgusted. Why not just say so? Especially since he was long gone by the time we got there. Despite that, multiple delays continued making our arrival in Boise extremely late. We didn't make it to bed until 2:30 AM! So hundreds of people experienced multiple delays and missed flights because of one guy. Ok, so he is the President. I'm still disgusted by the whole deal.
But we are home now and finally caught up on the missed sleep. It takes us older kids longer to recover from such happenings, you know. It has been a sweet, mostly open week since our return. That will end next week when we begin our marathon singing with my Treble Clef group. as we serenade the many senior centers and assisted living places on our schedule for the next three weeks.
Gotta gear up for it!
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