Thursday.
The park in Las Vegas was nicely landscaped. Each site had a little bit of
grass. Every night, we could hear the sprinklers come on at eleven. They
would run for just a few minutes, then shut off. Later, they would come on
again, for just a few minutes, then shut off. They would do it again at
five am, for just a few minutes. I guess they were being careful not to
water so much all at once that water could run off and be wasted. A little
bit of water wets the ground and soaks in before the next round of water
hits it. And it was all very carefully done under the cover of darkness.
In Colorado, we get a phenomenon called Virga. Virga is rain. You can see
the dark cloud. You can see the streaks of rain falling. The ground
beneath is totally dry. Not a drop. All the rain evaporates in the dry air
before it makes it to the ground. It doesn't always happen that way.
Sometimes rain makes it all the way to the ground. I can imagine sprinkling
lawns in Las Vegas at mid-day being something like that, though. Water
squirting out of lawn sprinklers, spraying into the air, the grass below
totally dry. Lawn sprinkler Virga.
I'm not saying it really happened. I'm just imagining it.
Life on the river.
It's hot here. In the hundreds. Blue sky. Light breeze. The river
running past. The river is controlled by the dam right upstream. Usually
the flow is low in the mornings, and they let out progressively more during
the day, so the water is at its highest in the afternoon and evening. It's
like a tide to monitor. When you jump in the water, you get swept away much
faster in the afternoons than you do in the mornings.
John and I floated the river in the kayaks. We started before it got hot.
It was only in the nineties. Three hours. Seven miles. We stopped a lot.
Sunscreen. Judy and Sue went shopping for clothes and toe rings. Then they
drove the Jeep to pick us up at a boat ramp downstream, and have lunch in
the restaurant on the river there. It was a nice float. And the toe rings
are stunning, as well.
We saw some quail in the desert outside the restaurant. I wonder if they
were gambel's quail, or California valley quail.
