Back to the trip . . .

So do I have you confused yet? I talk about the trip, then I talk about side trips, then I go to other ideas that are not about trips - well . . . that is the story of my life . . . and my life goes.

Today is the end of Hoover Dam. We decided to be big spenders and go on a helicopter ride. It was $30 - not bad we thought - when we got there is was for two minutes! Of course you could spend $75 for 5 minutes, but we did the two minute ride.

The helicopter sat on top of a hill and they took you up there by way of their van.

We got there early to be the first ones on - and we had to wait a few minutes for them to open.

This was the cool temperature at 8:30 am.

My husband got the front seat - which we wanted, because he LOVES flying.

Lake Mead.

The marina at Lake Mead.

Closer look - wouldn't it be nice to have one . . .

The mountains around Hoover Dam.
Hoover Dam.


Hoover Dam.

Ole Chatty getting out of the helicopter. It was fun.




My friend leaves today so I will start catching up on checking your blogs. Thanks for understanding.

Happy Birthday Henry David Thoreau - many of us have heard his quotes - here is his beliefs according to Wikipedia - it was full of information about this man.

"Most of the luxuries and many of the so-called comforts of life are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind."

Thoreau was an early advocate of recreational hiking and canoeing, of conserving natural resources on private land, and of preserving wilderness as public land. Thoreau was also one of the first American supporters of Darwin's theory of evolution.

He was not a strict vegetarian, though he said he preferred that diet and advocated it as a means of self-improvement. He wrote in Walden: "The practical objection to animal food in my case was its uncleanness; and besides, when I had caught and cleaned and cooked and eaten my fish, they seemed not to have fed me essentially. It was insignificant and unnecessary, and cost more than it came to. A little bread or a few potatoes would have done as well, with less trouble and filth."

Thoreau neither rejected civilization nor fully embraced wilderness. Instead he sought a middle ground, the pastoral realm that integrates both nature and culture. His philosophy required that he be a didactic arbitration between the wilderness he based so much on and the spreading mass of North American humanity.

He decried the latter endlessly but felt the teachers need to be close to those who needed to hear what he wanted to tell them. He was in many ways a 'visible saint', a point of contact with the wilds, even if the land he lived on had been gifted to him by Emerson and was far from cut-off. The wildness he enjoyed was the nearby swamp or forest, and he preferred "partially cultivated country." His idea of being "far in the recesses of the wilderness" of Maine was to "travel the logger's path and the Indian trail," but he also hiked on pristine untouched land.

In the essay "Henry David Thoreau, Philosopher" Roderick Nash writes: "Thoreau left Concord in 1846 for the first of three trips to northern Maine. His expectations were high because he hoped to find genuine, primeval America. But contact with real wilderness in Maine affected him far differently than had the idea of wilderness in Concord. Instead of coming out of the woods with a deepened appreciation of the wilds, Thoreau felt a greater respect for civilization and realized the necessity of balance

On alcohol, Thoreau wrote: "I would fain keep sober always... I believe that water is the only drink for a wise man; wine is not so noble a liquor... Of all ebriosity, who does not prefer to be intoxicated by the air he breathes?"