Been here for a month now.

Hello! Been a while since my last update. Since San Diego I've been back to Lake Mead for more fencing, then down to Phoenix this weekend. So I'll write myself out of this intro and into the main narrative...

Day One

So this time at Lake Mead we were on the Nevada side; this meant that we moved into Pacific Time; gaining an hour. For reasons I can't be bothered to go into, this project ended up being 6 days rather than 8. We were camping near Overton Beach, in the garden of adandoned Government housing. They were abandoned within the last few years as the water level of Lake Mead (which is created by Hoover Dam) has dropped so low that "Overton Beach" is no longer a beach. Our worksite was quite far away from the base camp; we had to drive to a town called Overton (A big Mormon town*), leave the minibus there, then drive quite a way in the 4x4 over tricky ground. The car could go no further than the fenceline, so we had to hike for about 2 miles to work.

Day two

Began with a stretch circle near centre of town; locals gave us strange looks. We drove to the end of the dirt road (this is what 4x4s were made for!) then hiked for an hour carrying 5 T posts on our shoulders (not TOO heavy, just f'king awkward to carry!). We had to pound them along between the braces (which was not easy as the braces were wonky as shit). Here's Dan's drawing again:

We had to clear quite a lot of vegetation - at least a metre or so from the fence-line on either side, for the purpose of wiring. There was another team working on this (Americorps - Basically Americans who were getting paid for the work. Grr.)

Day Three

Started off with the same hike to the dump site; then we were taken to an archeological site.

This Native American settlement is believed to be over a thousand years old; rather large number of people would live here - up to 30 in this settlement. The lake used to cover this area - it was at its highest level in 1998, but has since receeded.

Onto work; James and I started where we'd left off the day before - going over a rocky mound. Luckily we managed to find spaces between the rocks and didn't need to use the Pionjar.

James pounding.

We had lunch when we got to the corner brace; after lunch we had a team of 4 pounding Myself, James (Hull), Lawrence (Holland) and Steffan (Denmark) - 2 lining up with the sighting posts and 2 pounding posts. This was really efficient. We did keep swapping around the roles, but by the end of the day we managed at least 60 posts on that stretch. Altogether we did at least 80 between the four of us!!

Chris (project partner) was so chuffed with the work of the foreigners that he bought us a drink at McDonalds!

Day Four
Can't remember much about Day Four -  all we did all day was stretching wire between the braces; approximately 400 metres. This took bloody ages! We ended up finishing the last bit of fence after sunset - clipping in when it was dark, then hiking out in total darkness. Took some rather nice photos:

 

The Sun shining on the mountains in the background; The whole scene looked like a painting. Not very good quality sadly (taken on my phone)

Day Five

Chris didn't want us to work today; instead we spent the day re-packing the car and moving camp. There was an unbelievable amount of stuff to get in to one tiny car; Eight people, their rucksacks, big cooking stoves, two big (BIG) cool-boxes and a shed load of tools. Somehow we got it all in, then went to our new campsite at Temple Bar (Back in Arizona - losing an hour). On the way we stopped off at (what we were told was) a hot spring by the side of the road. Turned out it was just warm, though it was full of little fish that came and ate the dead skin off your feet. And it did look rather pretty:

 

When we got to our campsite in the dark, no-one could be bothered to pitch the tents, so we decided to sleep under the stars. I haven't done that since Switzerland, but I think I might do it more often from now on! It was brilliant!

Day Six
We drove home and cleaned the car - nothing more to say.

 

 

James, Bas and I rented a car this weekend and went down to Phoenix. Nothing much to write home about; there's bugger-all to do in Phoenix it seems. On Sunday we did go to the Zoo - which was shit! I've decided I don't like or agree with zoos, or at least this one. They had all sorts of animals, but they had tiny enclosures. They had a Rhino living in what could only have been 10 metre square area that looked utterly unhappy - there was a sign saying it was under medical observation. The elephant also looked unwell - it had a rash on its ear and trunk and was moving its legs on the spot. The whole thing just felt wrong. And the Americans were just going "Wow! An Elephant! Click!" and moving on. Tossers.

Prairie Dog - cute!

Anyway, I'm now back in Flagstaff. We had snow today and are expecting some more tomorrow. On Wednesday I'm off to Tonto Creek (I'm told it's helping trout to mate - more info soon)

Ian

* Fun Fact #1 - Mormons aren't allowed to drink caffeine, yet they own Pepsi!