Not quite busy.
Whoa. This week has seemed so busy and fast. In reality it wasn't, I'm sure. But still, time is funny like that. On Monday we went to Ash Meadows Wildlife Refuge and climbed a mountain that I'm still not positive we were actually allowed to climb. There was a lovely lake- the first large body of water I've seen in three states!- and when we walked around it our boots sank in the salt and clay. There were enormous paw prints imbedded in the soft mud, and although I'm no wildlife expert, they looked an awful lot like mountain lion tracks. Does Nevada house mountain lions? Pennsylvania is full of them. Needless to say, we discarded our idea of napping out in the sunshine.
In addition to offering visitors the recreational option of "hunting" (which I don't understand at all), the refuge boasts the only population of pupfish known. I had never heard of pupfish before in my life, but they are actually quite pretty little fish that hang out in warm pools of water that bubble up from under ground. They were neat to see. Another exciting thing that happened at this rather deserted and lonely place was that I tripped over my boot shoelaces- twice- and after helping me off the ground my mother and brother both lamented the uncaptured Kodak moment.
Today we went to the Las Vegas airport to pick up a family friend who will be staying with us for a little while. It didn't go very smoothly. My mother gets very testy in traffic, and after more than half an hour of trying to figure out how to get to economy parking, the rest of us were pretty testy as well. Luckily, we managed to get directions from a friendly shuttle bus driver via our lost friend's phone, and we were, after quite some time, reunited. To celebrate, we went to the Hoover Dam, which looks a little something like this:
Although it was pretty incredible to see, thoughts of China's Three Gorges Dam (you may have heard of it), and all the damage and heartbreak it's expected to cause, for both humans and wildlife alike, kind of put a damper on the experience for me. I'm no ecologist, but I know that that much water displacement can really devastate an ecosystem. And it was- is- such a statement to me. The Dam says "Look at me. Look at what you people have created. I am an attempt to thwart nature- to prove how powerful humans can be." I know that's a little silly. I know that the dam provides a lot of clean energy for a lot of people. There are so many different ways to look at it, it's impossible to find a "right" and a "wrong". But to me, initially, it seemed like a symbol of man's power, a triumph over nature. A slap in the face. Sad. My brother, on the other hand, commented only on how many movies he's seen that involve the Hoover Dam, and how weird it must have been to film all the falling/jumping scenes. It just goes to show how differently people can see things, and I love that.
Also at the dam, I stumbled upon the first really green anything that I've seen in a long time. I snapped a picture in awe.
Being out in the afternoon sunshine, we also took the opportunity to snap some shadow pictures. We are rather fond of these things:
All in all, it was a good day. A good week. It's a good life.
In other, unrelated news, my grandmother just returned home from Aruba! What a trip that must have been.