A Great Gift

As you know Salt Lake, like most other northern Utah valleys, gets socked in by inversions. Utah inversions lead to pollution and smog being trapped close to the ground, which has adverse effects on health and are incredibly oppressive AND depressing to live through.

Dad and Mom gave us a great gift for Christmas, money to spend on an adventure, and boy were we excited and happy to use it! We'd already planned a getaway to Mesquite, NV and St. George, UT for some clear skies, warm (or at least warmer) and clean air.

Mom and Dad's gift easily covered the cost of renting a house from one of our client/friends for a long weekend. We loaded up the car with our gear, bicycles and the dogs and headed south.

Our first day we got up and (late, yea!) had breakfast and then loaded up again to drive to Hoover Dam on the Arizona/Nevada border. We were excited to see and walk across a brand new bridge spanning the Colorado River. The bridge is the second-highest in the United States, behind Royal Gorge Bridge, at 840 feet above the Colorado River. Built as part of the Hoover Dam Bypass Project.

It's hard to imagine what it's like to stand 84 stories above one of the most amazing dams in the world so I took this video when I was standing at the midway point of the bridge. The wind was blowing like crazy, the bridge was busy with foot and vehicle traffic, and BOY it was a LONG way down. Pretty darn cool.

Here are some of the photos we took there...

There are great photos of the bridge under construction and more information about it on the Wikipedia website.

The next few days we spent just relaxing and enjoying the clean desert air. The dogs particularly liked the fact that there was green grass and that it was warm enough to ride bikes (in their doggy ride trailer) everyday. We were close to the Virgin River which recently flooded and damaged a golf course. Leaving a great abandoned play ground of grass and sand. We played frisbee and had a great time.

Below there's a photo of me and Chloe and Luke on one of our rides and a video of Chloe and Luke getting ready for one of our rides... (I haven't posted in so long I can't get the photo and text to line up... but they're down there somewhere, lol.) Chloe tricked me in this one, by sneaking out the front of the trailer. Kind of funny.

Of course it wouldn't be a Ward post without the obligatory block photo... Here's a wall going up in the new Del Webb development 'Sun City Mesquite'. Maybe someday we'll be back to enjoy Mesquite in our golden years. Thanks Mom and Dad.