{"id":10161,"date":"2012-06-23T12:15:07","date_gmt":"2012-06-23T19:15:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=10161"},"modified":"2012-06-23T12:15:07","modified_gmt":"2012-06-23T19:15:07","slug":"home-again-blogging-to-resume","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=10161","title":{"rendered":"Home Again, Blogging to Resume"},"content":{"rendered":"

Home again, and perhaps now I can get back to blogging. \u00a0I’ve been such a faithless blogger!<\/p>\n

Right on the heels of our California car trip we loaded it up again and drove to Las Vegas for our granddaughter Taylor’s high school graduation. \u00a0Got home yesterday. \u00a0Our grandson Quentin is with us; his parents plan to drive down for the 4th of July and take him back to Las Vegas when they leave. \u00a0We’ll have the young man to ourselves for almost two weeks (well, two weekends, anyway).<\/p>\n

On our trip home yesterday I spotted a plume of black smoke on the horizon and instantly knew it was a burning car and that it was going to cause a huge traffic jam on the freeway. \u00a0Sure enough, traffic stopped, and we sat still for 40 minutes in 110\u00b0 heat. \u00a0When the cops finally allowed traffic to start rolling again and we got to the scene of the crime, it turned out to have been a burning tractor-trailer rig: the tractor was burned down to the chassis and a blackened lump that must have been the engine … everything else was literally burned away. \u00a0Impressive.<\/p>\n

Other than that it was a great drive. \u00a0Later last night I announced our safe arrival home on Facebook and mentioned how glad I was our car had a good air conditioner. \u00a0My sister Mary responded, mentioning how when we were kids our mom and dad drove us all over the country in non-air conditioned cars. \u00a0I don’t remember suffering. \u00a0Only a few wealthy people had cars with AC back then, and no one thought anything of driving in the summer. \u00a0I’m veering off into curmudgeon territory here and must restrain myself.<\/p>\n

Our granddaughter Taylor’s graduation ceremony was held in the Thomas & Mack Center at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, a huge indoor stadium. \u00a0They had to book a stadium because there were over 780 kids in the senior class. \u00a0When you plan events like that, I guess you have to figure on six to eight guests per graduate. \u00a0And those guests will arrive in at least two cars. \u00a0Never mind the kids themselves. \u00a0It was a huge crowd:<\/p>\n

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Coronado High School graduation, June 21, 2012<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Taylor, of course, is a W, and was one of the last students to walk across the stage. \u00a0Believe it or not, they got through the entire ceremony (speeches and all) in two hours. \u00a0Here’s Taylor with her proud grandparents afterward:<\/p>\n

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Taylor the graduate!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Earlier in the week I went to a local park to watch Quentin meet with his Cub Scout pack. \u00a0I took a photo of the kids in the park and posted it on Facebook, prompting questions from my friends about the water, to wit, where does it come from? \u00a0Once you get into the neighborhoods where Las Vegans live and play, you’d never know you were in an arid and lifeless desert. \u00a0The lush greenery is almost shocking. \u00a0When Donna and I lived in Las Vegas (1995 to 1997, not that long ago), the spot where I took this photo was nothing but sand, rock, rattlesnakes, and scorpions:<\/p>\n

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Quentin (third from right) in the middle of the Mojave Desert<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

My friends’ concerns are valid, as are yours: the water comes from the ever-diminishing Colorado River and is drawn from two huge man-made reservoirs, Lake Powell and Lake Mead, both of which are at historic lows and forecast to continue going down. \u00a0These reservoirs are also the primary water supply for parts of Utah, all of Arizona and southern California, and (through an international agreement unknown to most Americans) the Mexican states of Sonora and Baja California. \u00a0Won’t the immigrant-hating white supremacists of the American southwest be surprised, a decade or two from now, to find themselves<\/em> the illegals, trapped south of a wall running across the middle of California and along the northern borders of Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, and Texas, the unwanted refugees of the coming water wars. \u00a0Tough love, baby. \u00a0And I’ll be one of them!<\/p>\n

As dry and arid as Tucson is, it’s good to be home. \u00a0We’re having a pool party for Quentin and the neighborhood kids tomorrow. \u00a0If you have young kids, you’re welcome to bring them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Home again, and perhaps now I can get back to blogging. \u00a0I’ve been such a faithless blogger! Right on the heels of our California car trip we loaded it up again and drove to Las Vegas for our granddaughter Taylor’s high school graduation. \u00a0Got home yesterday. \u00a0Our grandson Quentin is with us; his parents plan […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[555,2],"tags":[841,840,839,842,843,844],"class_list":["post-10161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-color","category-personal","tag-colorado-river","tag-graduation","tag-grandchildren","tag-lake-mead","tag-lake-powell","tag-water-wars"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10161"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10161\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10180,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10161\/revisions\/10180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}