Day 20, headed down to Patagonia, AZ

The morning was a blur of, "Let's get the heck out of here" as we were still in Las Vegas. Ian had noticed the people mover out front and the castle next door and so we let him have that experience. He did like the the people mover, and really who can blame him I too think the whole idea of monorails as transit are pretty cool. But we were in and out of the castle and all of us ready to go.

While I appreciate the opportunity to have seen the place, and expereince for a brief moment what so many people find wonderful, I do not think I will be going back any time soon. It is so far removed from the natural world that I felt completely lost, like I was the intruder into some sort of parallel universe and really I couldn't wait to get out.

Now, I'm not trying to be offensive on purpose, but I came away from there with an extremely strong negative opinion. It is wasteful, all consuming, loud, bright, everything about it attacks you at every moment, all of your senses are affronted. In fact I think it is a clear example of what is wrong with our world. Everyone wanting excess in everything.

Ian's words as were leaving and heading south, "Let's get out of this bright, noisy, wasteful place." Although I must admit he thought the sphinx and the castle next door were pretty neat

From Vegas we headed down towards the Hoover Dam. Another place on our trip that Jim had been but I hadn't. Since we were on a time schedule to make it to patagonia we knew that we wouldn't have time to stop but thought it would at least be interesting to see. Of course it would be just our luck that as we neared Lake Mead, the traffic jammed up and the flashing sign told us to expect an hour to make it through. Great. Well, were already stuck in line and so we just tried to make the best of it by talking about the color of the water, the cool cacti growing, and the awesome rocks surrounding us.

Finally after being stopped at the check point to have our roof box searched, they allowed us through. I know the three of us look very dangerous, but I guess I would rather there not be any sort of catastrophe while driving over the dam and so I get it, the secirty check and all.

So, here it is. The Hoover dam. I suppose it was a great feat of humanity at th etime in which it was built. To me, I wonder at th emarvel it produces for so many. Why is it so amazing when people are able to completely conquer and "control" nature? Why do so many folks disassociate themselves from the fact that we are all part of the same? Anyway, a short wax philosohpical. I guess it was cool to see it, it was awfully big.

Actually the best part about the Hoover dam experience was that has we were leaving the area Ian said, "Look Mom and Dad there's a really cool Sundog!" And behold there in the sky above us, there truly was a beautiful sundog. For those of you who don't know, that's what we call it when the sun reflects sideways into a small spot of cloud producing a little piece of rainbow. After that we high tailed it down through Arizona and towards our destination which was Patagonia.

Gotta love those Joshua trees. Even though we didn't make it to Joshua Tree Nat'l park, I was glad that so much of our journey was dotted with them. I had never seen them before and I just thought they were really magnificent.

Losing time and heading east, the sunsets behind us instead of in front of us.

Cool vista outside of Tuscon as we made our way south. By the time we actually made it Gary's place it was after 9. They had waited for us to eat dinner and boy was it delicious. We had a little guest house to ourselves and a lovely desert well actually arid landscape to enjoy around us for th enext few days. I went to bed looking forward to the next day.