Photoblog: Hoover Dam

Looking downstream from the dam

I had all these intentions of writing a travelogue for Las Vegas — and, in fact, I've started one — but honestly, the photographs are better and there's not much to say, anyhow, at least about Hoover Dam. We parked on the Arizona side, we walked across the dam, we looked down, we walked back. It was horrendously hot. (We had this thing in Vegas, where not only did we manage to visit during the hottest days of summer, in a drought year, but whenever we had to actually be in the baking sun, we would choose to do it right around high noon. We do things with conviction around here.)


They don't like the Black Spy at the dam. Presumably the White Spy is acceptable.


The entire structure is done in the Art Deco style from the 1930s, even the much more modern parking lot-gift shop-restrooms complex.






Lake Mead, on the other side of the dam. You can see the high water mark — someone told us that Lake Mead has lost 150 feet of depth in the last 10 years


Lake Mead from a lookout close to the dam (on the Nevada side). They have apparently moved the marina three times in the last 10 years.
We got the D90 literally two days before we left for Las Vegas, so this was the first time out for the camera. The verdict: the camera is everything we'd hoped for and more, but the tool is only as good as its wielder and it turns out that this wielder could not find a straight horizon line with two hands and a map.

In other news: the straightening tool in iPhoto is not only fabulous, but also my BFF. Digital darkrooms forever!

breaking (in) the house

Isn't there a rule that says it's not a real housewarming unless someone breaks something?

I love summer flowers.

I also love buying them from grumpy farmers who say things like, "We do food, we don't do flowers," when asked for paper to wrap said flowers in. (Not me. I would never have had the nerve to question that grumpiness.)


Have a happy Friday, everyone.

the social butterfly that I am

Last summer was really busy. Last summer was cool and not terribly sunny, but we had all sorts of things to do that didn't involve heat or sunshine — like climbing outdoors, or the MINI celebration — and the week when it was terribly sunny and warm, we spent at the cottage soaking it up. It was a good summer.

This summer I had intentions. I was going to relax. I was going to update this blog more than once a week. I was going wander around Toronto taking photographs, and maybe take long walks to the Beach. It was going to be so good.

Well, now I know that this summer is making last summer look like a sleepy church picnic.

As far as I can figure it, we haven't had a single weekend without some pre-scheduled social event-type thing since June 26. Since then, there have been three trips to the farm, one trip to the cottage, one soccer tournament, one World Cup final (go France — oh, wait), two birthday parties, Las Vegas, one wedding, one visit from the adorables, one slightly hare-brained sausage-making scheme (that was last weekend), and more spontaneous barbeques and hostings than I can remember.

Coming up before the equinox, we have another wedding (out of town), a houswarming (ours), another visit with the adorables, and at least one more birthday, possibly two. Oh, and Iceland.

It's still a good summer, but I feel like I'm going to die from social exhaustion.

And also, more pertinently, it is making me a failure at this whole "keeping my intentions" thing that I had vaguely had going. I haven't had time to go through all of the photographs from Vegas (300+) or the sausage-making (~200 — and which is exactly what it sounds like, by the way), but hopefully I will, soon, and then I will blog about it, because I know that you are all waiting with bated breath.

...
Meanwhile, you can have a mildly amusing photograph, evidence of my last-ever attempt to wind a centre-pull ball on my own:

Dyed in the Wool mediumweight in "Vixen," Bailiwick sock pattern
Yes, that used to be one ball until it gutted itself — literally. Or, as Pd said, "Oh. It exploded."

my boys

Well, technically only one of those boys is mine, but they're both adorable, aren't they?

My sister- and brother-in-law, with their two little boys in tow (that's the younger one above, and the older one at the bottom), came to town for a few days last week, and stayed at our place. It was lovely. And chaotic. And kind of fly-by-seat-of-pants. I've discovered that leaving the house with two children happens in stages — you start at the back of the house and you slowly gather everything with you at each stage. Kitchen, dining room, living room, door. It's kind of like a military campaign, but with diapers and little toy cars. (The older nephew has a thing for cars. And also Cars.)

They were in town for a family wedding (Pd's side, obviously). We went to the playground in between the ceremony and the reception, while the wedding party were taking their pictures; we don't go to the playground in formalwear. Usually.


Things that I have discovered that we don't really have enough of (at least, in terms of a family of four adults and two kids): sleep, space, dishes, and bathrooms.

pictures from a vacation

We're back from Vegas. We took the red-eye, which leaves Vegas at 11:30 pm, and lands in Toronto at 6:30 (technically 6:45, but our flight was early) in the morning — which, not incidentally, is 3:30 Vegas time. About the only good things about the red-eye are that it's reasonably easy to sleep (albeit not well), because of the dark; we also got the chance to see a visiting friend who was leaving Toronto the same day, and we actually got to watch the morning fog burn off the downtown skyscrapers as we were being driven home; that was fun.

Otherwise, it really has no redeeming qualities whatsoever.

I will most likely to do a travlogue or a photoblog or something, but until then, here's a quick summary of our trip:


Hoover Dam, looking south. The new bridge is supposedly opening this week.


Vegas sunrise outside our window, before our way-too-early-in-the-morning trip to the Valley of Fire.


Valley of Fire.


The kitchen (and the view from our countertop seats) at L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon, our first meal in a Michelin-starred restaurant. The food, needless to say, was fabulous.


How do you follow up a Michelin-star dinner? By having brunch in a Thomas Keller restaurant: Bouchon, inside the Venetian.


A slightly blurry sign for LOVE, Cirque du Soleil's tribute to the Beatles. Slightly blurry is appropriate, as we missed the first 15 minutes of the show after I semi-collapsed from heatstroke in front of the Venetian. Good times. No, really — the show is fabulous.


Balloons inside the Bellagio. This has nothing to do with anything, except for the fact that I love balloons.


Pd's amazing photograph of the Luxor, taken outside our hotel with an improvised tripod and an 8-second exposure.