From one extreme to another, then another!

When we awoke on Thursday morning, it was to scenes like this:

And, when we retired for the night, it was with this around us:

En route from Grand Canyon (-2 degrees Celcius, but a dry cold, quite brisk and with brilliant blue skies) to Las Vegas, we passed a couple of old mining towns (Mineral and Chloride - neither of which were worth our 10-15min detours to investigate them, sorry!) and spent time at Hoover Dam, an engineering feat for its time: 2.6 million cubic meters of concrete, 221.3 meters high, 201.2 meters wide at the base, 17 generators, completed in 1935, created America's largest man-made reservoir (Lake Mead), provides irrigation for more than 1 million acres of land in the USA and almost 1/2 million acres in Mexico (and California provides 1/3 of the food crops for the USA!), provides water for more than 20 million people, generates low-cost power in 3 states, provides recreation facilities for lots of people.  We went on a tour inside the dam and the power plant - at one stage, the waters of Lake Mead were separated from us by a mere 40 feet of concrete (that is old concrete - don't forget, it was made in 1931-1935!!).

Then, Las Vegas.  Glitz, glamour, lights, noise, smoking, gambling, people, cars.  It was frenetic and wild.  We saw the water and sound show at the Bellagio and the volcano eruption at the Mirage.  We went inside the Planet Hollywood casino (and ate dinner, and wandered around).  We saw scantily clad women (g-strings and stickers over their nipples, and feathers in their headgear) - the (younger) boys didn't take that much notice of them - they were more interested in the Minions and Superheroes located along every block of the Strip.  But, there were also seedier parts of the city - we went up some stairs to cross a major road, and there was a definite smell of marijuana in the air, and there were homeless people on the bridge as well).  That is something that Karl has particularly noticed, and commented on - the number of homeless people in the cities we have been to (apparently, there are even homeless people living in hollows under rocks around Joshua Tree).  He asked us the other day, "Do the homeless people die before other people, because they are homeless?".

Today, we left Las Vegas behind, and eventually left Nevada, crossing back into California once more.  We drove past Area 51 in the Nevada Desert, site of the atomic bomb testing (look it up on Google maps - you can see the rounds of the impact zones), saw some pilot-less US Air Force MQ-1 Predator drones flying, saw some sand storms ("twirly whirly roundy things"), and even saw a brothel in the middle of the desert (the boys weren't looking out of the windows at that stage).

Looked through Rhyolite, an old mining town within Death Valley that only lasted for about 10 years before the dreams died.  It went from up to 10,000 people to less than 1,000 in the space of about 2 years, and is now virtually abandoned, with some artists there and that's about all - a real ghost town.  One of the houses was made of over 30,000 bottles, and other stone structures have survived (the wooden ones were removed to other towns or sold and used as firewood).

Finally, Death Valley National Park.  A short visit, unfortunately, but interesting.  We went down to 185.5 meters below sea level at Badwater Basin (and yes, we did taste the salt there, just because we could!).  The colours in the rocks and sands along the valley walls was amazing - reds, pinks, greens, whites, browns, tans, coppers - due to the various minerals in the Valley - gold, copper, borax, talc.  There are old borax mines in the area.  Luckily for us, the temperature was no higher than about 37 degrees Celcius, but again, it was a dry heat, with a cooling wind.  In fact, it was quite pleasant when we were there.  There a number of springs and oases in the valley, and a couple of nice places to stay (if money is not an issue).

The boys hurriedly completed their third Junior Ranger badge.

Finally, ended up here in Ridgecrest for the night - a typical 2-double bed room.  Apparently, the town used to be called Crumville!!  Not sure if we will find anything to do here tomorrow before we head north-ish, but who knows?

Grand Canyon ... in the snow!

The day dawned, a bit overcast and very cold and refreshing.  We had had a touch of snow last night, as we left the Ranger talk, small round pellets of snow, but it had not settled.  But, the chance was high for more snow today.

We decided to drive along the rim towards the east, to Desert View and the Watchtower that is there.  In about 1901, Mary Coulter was employed as an architect for many of the buildings here at Grand Canyon.  She researched the local architecture and local people, and incorporated many similar elements into her buildings here, and they blend into the surroundings, looking as if they have always been here, and many having pictographs and pteroglyphs inside.  The Watchtower was one of her buildings.  It has sweeping views over the Canyon and the Colorado River, and is also a memorial site for an air accident in the mid-1950s, in which 2 aircraft crashed over the Canyon very close to that spot.  Over 100 people were killed.  It was because of this accident that the Federal Aviation Administration was started.

We then started to re-trace our steps west again, with stops along the way: Navajo Point to listen to a Park Ranger talk on the effect that dams have had on the Colorado River and on the Canyon (there is less water flow, there is less sediment, the river is colder, fish that were blind are changing, plants (many introduced) are taking over riverbanks, archaeological sites are being uncovered and eroded (silt used to cover them up), ...) and the boys completed their Junior Ranger activities and received their Junior Ranger badges; Tusayan Museum and Ruins (including split wood horse shapes from about 12,000 yrs ago and displays on the local Indian tribes); a number of lookouts over the Canyon; the Pioneer Cemetery (there is a memorial to the aircraft accident victims; the grave of Captain John Hance, of the talk we went to last night; a lady (Mrs Bass) who was the 1st white woman to raise a family on the Canyon rim).

We parked the car then explored some of the buildings along the Rim - Hopi House which now sells Native Indian art, Bright Angel Lodge and the History Room (display on the Harvey Girls), Lookout Point, Kolb House (the Kolb brothers went down the Colorado in about 1911 or 1915 and made the first motion movie of such an event - it ran for over 61 years).  We then hopped on the Hermit's Rest shuttle bus and headed further west along the rim.  We didn't get off too often however, as it had started snowing about 11am and continued fairly constantly most of day.  It had started out as per last night - small round balls of ice, but the flakes got bigger and softer, and settled.

We did look out over Orphan Mine, which was originally mining copper then ended up mining uranium.  That stopped by the early 1960s and an act of Government has prevented any further mining in the Canyon.  They are now working on decontaminating the site.  Looking at it from above, it looks no different from any other area in the Canyon, but there are obviously dangers closer to it.

Hermit's Rest (another of Mary Coulter's designs) had a huge alcove area beside the fireplace where travelers could rest and warm up - it was popular today!

We returned to our car, swept off the snow, then drove all of 2 mins to the front of Maswick Lodge, where we are staying, to go and have dinner.  Then, a 1 minute drive to the back of the Lodge where our building is located.  We aren't really lazy - it was convenient, and really cold!!  -2 degrees Celcius!

So, although at times we could not see even the South Rim of the Canyon where we were, let alone the North Rim (over 10 miles distance in places), and we had to cancel our planned trip down part of the Bright Angel Trail, due to the snow and cloud, it was an amazing experience for us to be here, at the Grand Canyon, with snow.  And, it was the first time that the boys have had it snow on them, so they were especially excited.

Tomorrow, we leave this amazing, spectacular place, and head for the bright lights of Las Vegas.  Such an opposite - nature vs what?  Man-made glitz (or kitsch?).

Grand Canyon

Today (1 April) we explored the Grand Canyon.  The temperature up on the rim was no more than 10 degrees Celsius (it was warmer down in the canyon - up to about 22 degrees!  But that would have been a full day in and a full day out, just to get some warmth!).  We all had thermals on, and 2 or 3 more layers on top of that, and our woolly hats.  Funny thing was, there were people walking around with t-shirts and shorts on!!  Brrr!  There is a 30% chance of snow tomorrow, and they are expecting snow on Thursday, the day we leave.

We used the free shuttle buses to get from place to place today, and also walked along parts of the Rim Trail.  Our big walk of the day, going down a short way into the Grand Canyon, was walking from 7,200 feet at the top of the South Kaibab Trail down to Ooh Aah Point, 760 feet lower, then back up again.  This trail follows an exposed ridge line on a well maintained trail.  It goes down to Skeleton Point, which is a drop of 2,040 feet, but which takes about 6 hours.  Our walk took us about 1-2 hours.

We attended a Ranger talk at the Yavapai Geology Museum about the geology of the Canyon, how it was formed (layers of rock were created over time and at different time periods which included fossils and gave different layers differing colours; tectonic plates created a lifting of entire sections straight up (not like creating a mountain range); a river started to carve down into the layers of rock and it was widened by boulders tumbling down and gouging out the sides.  All this took hundreds of millions of years.  How's that in simple terms?!).

The boys have been working on their Junior Ranger activities, and have to do a Haiku poem about the Canyon.  Here are my attempts at them:

Grey clouds gather high
Casting shadows everywhere
Temperature drops low.

Crisp winds blow briskly
Whistling through trees and canyons
Dust swirls round us all.

Reds, browns, greens and whites
Layers of rocks lie exposed
Life's history revealed.

Enough already.  Now, for the photos, which do not do it justice, but which will remind us of the majesty and splendour we have been exposed to.