Archive for June, 2007
June 4, 2007 at 11:18 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
Yesterday Emma suggest we name the rental boat Titanic, but Brett pointed out that we would prefer a lucky name. It turned out to be an apt suggestion by Emma.
The day started off well. We got work under control and the boat ready by 11 a.m. and headed out to the Hoover Dam area. The water runs about 400 feet deep or more in Black Canyon, just up from the dam, and the water was a 80 degrees or so, which felt perfect when jumping off the boat in the 108 degree air.
Emma and Brett floating near Hoover Dam
A few miles northeast, we were exploring a cove when Brett noticed the boat wasn’t performing as well as it should. He checked in the bilge and found it full of water. We were “taking on water”, which is a polite way of saying we were sinking. Moreover, the bilge pump didn’t work.
Fortunately a boat like this won’t sink completely, but if we’d left it alone it would have eventually flooded the engine compartment and then it would have been a matter for the Coast Guard. We pulled the drain plugs, piled three of us in front to get the boat on plane (counteracting the weight of the water in the bilge), and zipped across Lake Mead back toward the marina.
We pulled the drain plugs so that when the boat was moving at speed, the water would drain out of the plugs. This worked, but once we were back at idle and docking we found water flowing back into the bilge very quickly.
Several calls to the boat rental company ensued. In the end, they came out to fix the boat, and when it couldn’t be fixed on the spot, they took it away and brought us another one. By then, it was 5:30, and Leigh & Brian were coming over again for dinner.
We’ll try again tomorrow. Unfortunately, the wind has picked up and it seems likely we’ll have a bumpy ride tomorrow — reminiscent of our attempt last year to ride jetskis on Lake Mead. It’s still a beautiful lake, but I wish we’d have more luck with the weather.
June 3, 2007 at 8:37 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
If you’ve followed this blog for over a year, or read the archives, you may recall our last experience with Lake Mead. Brett and I rented jetskis on a windy day and were basically flogged by the lake until we crawled out of it, bruised and missing a few things.
This year we vowed to try again. We have rented a 22-foot jet boat so that Eleanor and Emma can join us. Brett flew in this morning and we picked up the boat in the afternoon. We’ll take our first ride on the lake Monday morning.
Renting a boat is much harder than renting a car, renting a 28-foot box truck, or running for President of the United States. At least when running for President you don’t have to sign half a dozen liability releases and watch a tedious 30-minute safety video. (But maybe that’s not a bad idea — it might cut down on the crop of publicity-seeking candidates.) We endured the process and at the end I think we basically agreed to buy the boat if we ding it.
That may be a small challenge. Lake Mead is down to its lowest level in 40 years. There are islands poking up that we didn’t see last year, and some shallow areas are now dry. The low level is quite visible as a white “bathtub ring” on the rocks. The white is caused by minerals deposited on the rocks, not by bleaching as a lot of people guess.
Fortunately, the canyons are very deep and still run 300-400 feet. That’s also where the nicest boating can be found, so we’ll concentrate some time there and try to avoid the various submerged objects (ferries, airplanes, even an entire town) that Lake Mead normally covers. With some luck, our day on the lake will be much more successful than last year.
June 2, 2007 at 11:29 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
We’ve relocated to Lake Mead National Recreation Area, near Las Vegas, Nevada. This is the man-made lake formed by the building of the Hoover Dam. It’s a big blue-green splash surrounded by the small jagged hills of Mojave Desert.
It’s hot. Really hot. Today we hit 110 degrees by 2:00 pm, and it stayed above 100 most of the day. The air conditioner in the Airstream can’t keep up. It runs continuously to keep the interior in the upper 80s. We’ve decided that after 105 it’s not so much fun, but it is certainly novel.
I’ve been anticipating tonight for weeks. We had some special friends coming over for a barbecue. In the picture above (left to right) are Phil and Anita, Brian and Leigh, and Emma. Anita was formerly the personal assistant to a certain movie star whose trailer we are re-doing inside the pages of Airstream Life magazine. We became friends over the phone during the past year, and this is the first time we’ve been able to meet face-to-face.
The same is true of Leigh and Brian. They recently came off the road after 650 days full-timing in their 1963 Airstream Flying Cloud. Their blog was a daily “must read” for me over the past year, and we’ve been communicating via email during that time. Now that they’ve settled in Las Vegas, we had to meet up.
So we got our friends together for a single great night, and cooked dinner on the grill over charcoal in the 100-degree heat. It was fabulous. Grilled shrimp, steak, chicken, mushrooms, onions, plus salad by Leigh and tons of neat appetizers & desserts courtesy of Anita. And great times with the friends we’ve never met before.
This reminds me that it’s not just the travel opportunities that make this full-timing life so appealing. It’s also about the friends we make along the way. These folks, who we met strictly as a result of our involvement with Airstream, are some of the nicest people we can hope to meet, and we’ll stay in touch even after we’ve moved east from Las Vegas.
June 1, 2007 at 8:12 am · Filed under Uncategorized
Yesterday I mentioned the diverse architecture that can be found at the Grand Canyon’s south rim. It’s even more fascinating to me to know that most of it is the work of one woman, Mary Colter.
Mary Colter was a schoolteacher and apprentice architect from St Louis when she was first tapped to do interior design for the Fred Harvey Company. Around the turn of the century, she came to the Grand Canyon and designed the amazing Hopi House.
Hopi House was, and remains, a unique piece of architecture. Designed to reflect traditional structures of the Native Americans, it was actually constructed by Hopis and housed their artwork. Today it’s still a gift shop, right across from the El Tovar hotel and just a few feet from a miraculous view at the canyon rim.
Mary Colter also designed Hermit’s Rest, another fascinatingly unique structure about eight miles west of Hopi House. Like all her buildings, it seems to grow from the landscape, and it immediately invites you in to the cool shady overhands. A massive fireplace dominates half the space. It incorporates earth-sheltering, solar design, clerestory windows, and stone construction.
Mary Colter’s story is more amazing when you consider the era in which she did her work. Despite being a woman at a time when women weren’t expected to rise to power, she was the dominant force behind the Fred Harvey and Santa Fe Railway company’s hotel building efforts for decades. She designed several magnificent structures at Grand Canyon, and all over the southwest, many of which are still in use today.
I bought a book published by the Grand Canyon Association about her work, and it is a fascinating look into the times and the architecture. It’s called “Mary Colter: Builder Upon The Red Earth.” It’s available in the book stores here at Grand Canyon, but you may have to hunt for it if you want to buy it online or used.
After a full day of hiking we returned to the patio at Bright Angel Lodge to watch the condors again. We met up with a few new friends from yesterday (other photographers) and I got some better pictures. I’ve learned that to capture the condors you need a shutter speed above 1/500th at a minimum.
Today we are moving on. It is a shame to leave after only three nights, but the Grand Canyon will call us back next year. We are just getting to know this place a tiny bit, and I can see that to make our acquaintance better we will need many visits. Just the story of one person (Colter) who contributed to this park is enough to keep me occupied for a while; I can only imagine the thousands of other human stories here waiting to be heard.
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