Liz Baumann

This past weekend I traveled from my home near Boulder, Colorado to the Colorado River in Boulder Canyon, on the Nevada / Arizona border just below Hoover Dam.

My cousin Tracy, an expert at cramming what normal people consider “vacations” into short weekends, planned this glorious outing a couple months back, and I happily accepted her invitation to come along! There were 9 of us altogether: family and friends from California, Nevada and Colorado. Tracy arranged our trip with Desert Adventures, who did a wonderful job transporting and orienting us for our journey. We split up into 2 canoes and 5 1-person kayaks. The canoes held most of our gear and thankfully none tipped over! Here’s a brief description of our journey, followed by a galleria of photos.

Day 1, Saturday: gathered at 8:15 just east of Boulder City, launched around 9, then traveled 4 miles down-river. The launch point is just below the Hoover Dam. We explored the Sauna Cave, hot springs in Gold Strike Canyon and also some spraying in to the river, etc. Reaching where we planned to camp around 1, we ate, set up camp, walked to a hot springs with waterfall just up the canyon, ate, hung out, ate, paddled, made s’mores, with most of us going to bed before the sun went down.

Day 2, Sunday: 7 miles. We awoke to find a mouse had drowned in a cup of water we’d left sitting out. We ate (but not the mouse), packed up and set out (before 7 I think it was), paddled and enjoyed the water until about 9:30, had brunch, paddled some more, some of us took a swim along the way, the wind kicked up in late morning and there was a hellish mile-or-so long slog heading south into strong winds from the south until our take-out point at Willow Beach, where we then ate lunch, napped, lounged etc. until our pick-up at 3.

Interesting things about the trip:

• Something about being on the water makes you want to eat all the time. Which we did. Thank you Tracy for packing such good food for us all, we really appreciated it!!
• Hot and Cold: The water in the river is 55 degrees Fahrenheit, which is pretty cold to bare skin. In contrast, there are hot springs flowing in to the river in numerous places, some of them pretty scalding, and the air temperature was above 90 F both afternoons.
• I don’t know if it’s always like this, but it got windy both days near noon, from the south, the direction the river was taking us. I think it canceled the current and then some. This made paddling downstream feel like paddling up hill.
• They tell you to pee in the water instead of on land. It is hard to feel comfortable doing this after years of conditioning.

More photos on my Flickr.

P.S. Aside from the afternoon wind, this trip was delightful!

This past holiday I drove from Colorado to California to spend time with cousins in Big Bear and friends west of L.A.

I’ve missed going on long drives. I used to do them a lot when I lived in the southeastern US, when I would spend most of my vacations returning to the midwest to visit friends and family. When I moved to California in 2001, I stopped doing that because it just seemed too far to get back. But now that I am in Colorado, both California and the midwest take a more manageable number of hours to drive to. And I really enjoyed this trip, with the varied scenery, interesting weather, music cranked just a bit louder that my speakers can handle, feeling of independence, time to think, etc.

One thing that’s changed though since I lived back east is that I feel a little guilty about the environment now with my 20 mpg pickup… but I’ll try to make up for it in summer by biking more. Would flying out there have been worse? I don’t know – but certainly more costly and probably not much quicker since I would have had to rent a car in Las Vegas or L.A. anyway to make it to Big Bear… where there was plenty of snow and my 4WD came in real handy.

Here are some photos from the drive – the best I could do with my iPhone and Canon PowerShot, hurtling at 70+ mph down the interstates and highways of the wild and wonderful western US (is that as bad as texting behind the wheel? shame on me).

More photos from my trip on Flickr:
Big Bear, L.A. and Big Bear again
Snowboarding at Powderhorn (Coloraaado) on the way back
Full set from the drive (the ones here plus a few more)

Wide Open Spaces, New Mexico

Arizona Sunset

Flooded desert in Lucerne Valley, CA

LA Freeways... normally I'm on the other (slow) side

I'm only happy when it rains... Pearblossom Hwy, CA

Typical "scenery" between Los Angeles and Las Vegas

aahh, Utah

Painted Sky - late afternoon in Utah

Winding through scenic mesas on the way to Powderhorn resort in CO