Practice, Practice, Practice

There is nothing like getting 6 grandchildren (siblings and cousins) age 7 or less together for a little photo shoot with Grandpa. Last Christmas when we spent the holiday in Boise helping with the new baby (Sammy) we got the younger 6 together (3 each for Suzanne and Sally) and I took some photos. They are so much fun at this age. For the most part they get right into what Grandpa asks them to do - and why have a normal shot when I can have some fun.

I've had a lot of fun taking photos of grandchildren with what I call the "rubberneck" syndrome. They grow out of it at some point, but I have a number of rubberneck photos I've taken over the years. I asked the kids to do a rubberneck for me. Most of them got the idea, although Hattie was really more interested in eating a little cheese stick then performing. I think that is probably different now.

Hattie, Danny, Chas, Bonnie, Dean

After that photo I thought I would take advantage of their love of making noise via screaming. I asked them all to scream. What big mouths they have - and they are noisy too. Hattie was still eating her cheese stick and on the other end Charlotte choses her own path (which I understand from Sally is pretty common for her!). Still I ended up with 2 adorable photos of our grandchildren.

Charlotte on the right

Seasonal Time

We have lived in Las Vegas for five years. There are many benefits to living in Las Vegas, not the least of which are mild winters and early springs. One of the downsides is the absence of a changing of seasons. We have color out our backdoor all winter long. Spring comes in early to mid-February and the Bradford Pears are good for about 10 days. We do have flowers that bloom for the next 3 months and many of them last all summer and well into the fall.

Cedar Rapids, IA - Donna and Sally

However, I have noticed over the last two springs and winters there has been a change in how I perceive time. After living in the Midwest for almost 40 years I became very acclimated to 4 seasons and constructed part of my feelings and expectations of time based on the expectation of 4 seasons. 


Those of us who have four seasons know they are considerably different. They each make contributions to our lives, both in perceptions, attitudes, and activities. Consciously or unconsciously we schedule ourselves within the context of our seasons. In many ways we consciously and unconsciously schedule ourselves around those seasons/ Just as sport is seasonally based, we too are seasonally based. Most of us are only indirectly aware of our linkage to seasons. When you lose the seasons you struggle to gain a new sense of seasonal time. 


For example, as we came to the end of the spring semester at the university, I have found myself thinking it can't possibly be the end of the academic year. We had missed fall and winter. I felt a sense of incompleteness, or emptiness, as we moved into our summer. Absent from my Las Vegas experiences are extended periods of fall, spring, and winter. We have all four seasons in Las Vegas, but to a much lesser degree. We have the colors year-round as well as similar weather, just varying degrees temperature with an occasional (and I use the term occassional loosely) rain shower or snow shower.

Fall in Terre Haute, IN - One of the prettiest places for fall
that we ever lived in.

What I'm feeling as we come to the end of the academic year is a lack of closure in my seasonal time. Intellectually I know that May signals the start of spring, the end of winter and the school year, but in the absence of easily definable seasons I feel incomplete. There is an absence that I stuggled to understand until I realized I'm still a product of midwestern seasonal time. It's unsettling, even after you understand it. I suspect that if I stay in Las Vegas long enough I will ultimately change my personal conception of seasonal time.

I always took seasonal time for granted. I suspect that if I had lived in Las Vegas my entire life I wouldn't be influenced by the lack of seasons. But since I have spent the bulk of my life living through the 4 seasons I find the absence of the seasons creating a dissonance of how I perceive closure. I am not even sure that "closure" is the proper term, but that's the feeling I get in the spring. "It can't be spring when we have missed fall and winter." But interesting side note is that these feelings didn't occur in the first three years that we were here. But this year I have noticed it more than ever. Even spending 2 1/2 weeks in cold in wintery Idaho didn't make up for a full winter season. Don't get me wrong, I'm not missing winter - just the seasonal time winter creates for me.

Denver, CO while we were visiting the Allen family

Seasonal time is as real as clock time. With a clock we can monitor the time of day. With the change in seasons we can monitor the change in temperature, daylight, color, clothing, and the like. When we change our seasonal time we lose a part of what has been ourselves. I don't think that is negative, but I've never seen anyone write about seasonal time - although I know they have. For those of you with 4 seasons, enjoy them. For those of us without 4 seasons we will just adapt.

Taken at a county park south of Terre Haute, IN. This represents the king
of summer and green that we miss in Las Vegas. It is also one of my
favorite photos.

Rain, Rain, Go Away

Can you believe it, we had a little rain yesterday. Yes, even in Las Vegas we get rain - less than 10% of what we got in the midwest, so when we get rain here it's like driving on ice for the locals. They all slow down - well most of them anyway. When we got up yesterday morning we looked out and there was only a low gray cloud cover to see. We thought, "Well that's not so bad. It's nice to have a little cloudy weather and some rain." However, by the time mid-afternoon rolled around the comment from the front room (the alternate quilting room) was, "Where's the sunshine?" It didn't help that we had this little drizzle (or what we like to call a Las Vegas downpour) going on all day and night.

This morning we got up to another day of predicted rain showers. Thank goodness the weather forecasters in Nevada aren't any better than the ones in the midwest. As it started to clear we went out to get the last of those Christmas packages mailed and the sunshine was peaking through. As we looked east to the strip it was shrouded in a low fog that made the hotels and casinos appear as more of a distant mirage. It was sort of cool. As we looked west the mountains behind our home had a light snow covering and those further away in the Red Rock Conservation Area had snow, clouds and the like. It is absolutely beautiful to see the sun, clouds, and snow on the mountains.

By the time I left for work at noon we had beautiful cumulus clouds with breaks of sunshine coming through. Yes, living in Las Vegas with its 300 plus days of sunshine is wonderful and we certainly enjoy it.

I took this a year ago, but this is the view we often see in the winter when we
look west.

A Las Vegas Fall

This is our fourth fall in Las Vegas, and our most unusual. Of course as I write this most of the places where our family lives is in a deep freeze or has snow, but nonetheless, I find this fall, or what locals call winter, to be different. To begin with, over Thanksgiving we uncharacteristically had the coldest weather since we arrived, and that counts the snow we received during the first two years. We lost several plants outside during Thanksgiving week. It was more Idaho weather than Las Vegas weather.

Since then the weather has been great, yet now we find ourselves in the midst of a 5-day rainstorm. It has people all over the valley scratching their heads. It's more like an Indiana fall than a Las Vegas winter. People are scrambling to find those long lost umbrellas and discovering they can't find them.

The prettiest part of this winter is the leaves that are falling. It seems our Thanksgiving cold snap has caused the leaves to drop in numbers we haven't seen since we arrived. It does remind me of the Midwest. I even went out and took photos. Before the rain began I even enjoyed walking through the leaves and causing a rustle. One day as JoAnn and I were driving by our local park we saw a couple of small boys jumping up and down in a leaf pile their dad's had made. On the downside, no one has a clue how to remove leaves efficiently.

I took this photo at our local park on Saturday while
JoAnn and I were out for a walk. It was a dry moment.

Yes, we do get fall in Las Vegas! And yes, here we call that winter. It's not over and we may even get a little snow this year. However, that idea strikes fear into the heart of all of us.

Have a Merry Christmas you snow dwellers!

What a Difference a Week Makes

WARNING: Those of you living in cold climates may find this post a bit hazardous to your mental health.

It hardly seems like it has been a week when we were in the midst of our winter monsoon season. I'm still not sure what our total rainfall was, but I know it was considerably less for 5 days than for a half-day in the midwest. Of course that doesn't make it any safer to drive here. Rain in Las Vegas is like driving on snow the first time in the winter. Cars are everywhere, but where they belong.

We were driving home from the Las Vegas Temple last Friday night (February 5) and took the following photo while we were waiting for a light to change. We've been by this place a number of times, but have yet to stop. One of these days we are just going to have to stop. Friday night was not the time, since they do not have an indoor area to eat.


This week, however, has been more friendly to us Las Vegans. It has been warming up steadily and while we can still see snow on the distant mountains (for us that counts as winter), I knew we were closing in on a patio lunch when JoAnn told me yesterday she wore her Birkenstocks yesterday without socks. So today, we tried lunch on the patio. It was 67 and as long as you sat in the sunshine it was wonderful. In fact, as you can see from the photo, lunch was over, but the sun held us in our location - well at least JoAnn, as one of us had to take a photo.


For all of you who have suffered through the last 10 days of winter we feel for you, but as my brother used to say to me, "My heart cries peanut butter for you," you know we don't really feel that way, we just wake up every morning, put on a light jacket, look out the back window and head for work or play. Oh yes, what we look at are our Pansies, which we have enjoyed all winter and will expand next winter.

We had Winter Last Week

Last week we had winter and monsoon season all in three days. It wasn't much of a winter for those of us accustom to midwest winters, but then, this being our 3rd winter in Las Vegas, we found it quite refreshing. The last 2 winters we have had a little snow at our house, but so far this year it has restricted itself to the mountains, which we can see from our home. I do love the snow and I love it even more from a viewing distance.

Just to give you a sense of how wintery it was here, and I use the term winter loosely, we had our 3 days of rain and 1.79 inches of official rain. We had another day of rain this week. The amazing thing is that we exceeded in 3 days all of the 2009 rainfall total (1.59 inches). It is an adjustment when you realize that 1.59 inches in a day in Indiana was not uncommon.

On Saturday morning, the first day after our rain I drove out to the Spring Mountains past the Red Rock Conservation area. I love going out at sunrise, especially when there are low clouds coming over the mountain. It almost looks like a waterfall or ocean wave cresting over the top of the mountain. As the sun crests to the east and I'm looking west at the mountains it touches the top lighting the top against the darkness of the rest of the mountain. There is a beauty I find difficult to describe as I watch the sun march down the mountain and bring life and beauty to it.

As the sun raises in the east it marches down the mountain in the west. Mixed with the clouds cresting over the mountains the mix of white, sunrise orange, , and gold of the rocks mixes to give a warm glow for the morning.

Good to be in Iowa - Believe it or Not

I sit here writing this post on the second floor and northwest corner of Tim and Lonita's home, listening to the wind blow; and blowing it is! Until you have lived in the midwest and participated in a northerner you have difficulty understanding just how much the wind can blow. As I write this post the weather channel says the temperature is 6 degrees F with a wind chill of -15 F and a wind blowing from the NW at 21 mph and gusting to 30 mph. Now that has all the beginnings of a true northerner and reminds us of the years we lived in Iowa, especially the winters.

The morning started pleasantly enough at 27 F and when I compared it at 8 am to our other families cities only Las Vegas was warmer. However, that has all changed. By the time 11:30 am got here the temperature had only dropped one degree, the wind was only 8 mph (see to the right), we had a light snow, and it felt 17 F.

I have taken a little effort to point things out on the graphic to the right to make sure everyone understands "how" to read it. Our kids used to tell us the weather channel was old folks "MTV" and I think they were probably right. Since we have moved to Las Vegas we don't watch it any more. Go figure! Actually the whole thing is really self explanatory, so read it for yourself. If you can't figure it out it's because you either don't live in the midwest or you aren't old enough.

The early mild temperature didn't last long, by the time 1 pm rolled around we had dropped 6 degrees in real temperature and 13 degrees in wind chill and the wind was picking up.

Three hours later we began to feel the real brunt of the weather and we had not even gotten to the cold part of the evening yet. A little after 4 pm we were down to a wind chill -10 F, in just 3 hours. We are just beginning to feel a real Iowa winter.

You have got to wonder how the early settlers handled this kind of weather. Some of Willa Cather's "O Pioneers". She writes, speaking of Nebraska (which is only 3 hours away by car), "Winter has settled down over the Divide again; the season in which nature recuperates, in whcih she sinks to sleep between the fruitfulness of autumn and the passion of spring. ... The ground is frozen so hard that it bruises the foot to walk in the roads or in the ploughed fields. It is like an iron country, and spirit is oppressed by its rigor and melancholy. One could easily believe that in the dead landscape the germs of life and fruitfulness were extinct forever" (pp 185-186). And so it does feel that way sometimes, but when you sit in the comfort of your home with your family you have faith and know spring will come again, the green will return, and this winter will be left behind as a receeding memory.

It is good to be in Iowa - believe it or not!

Western Iowa along Interstate 80 at 20,000 feet (or so) - Not quite what Willa Cather remembers, but things have changed in the last 100 years.