Light Behind the Rain

Merry Christmas Eve!

Thank you, everyone who reached out to me after my last somewhat-depressing post. The days are growing longer now, so the winter blues will soon pass. To help speed things up, I took off from Escalante for my 9-day break. I work 3 weeks 24/7 and then get a full week off. This time I also had two banked days.

The plans for seeing my daughters fell through due to the forecast calling for a "frozen mix" in the Rockies and High Plains during my planned travel days. My daughters were both so understanding, and we've made alternate plans to get together under better weather conditions.

Soooo.....I woke up early on Thursday and had no power in my bedroom. I'd been vacuuming the night before and blew a breaker. Since resetting the breaker would have involved going out into the cold, climbing a flight of stairs and going down a long, dark, creepy hallway, I opted for packing by candlelight.

The plan was to drive to Lake Havasu City, get sunshine, and visit Brenda and her extended family for Christmas.

I headed west...

And then west some more through Red Canyon...

And then south, and more west, through Kanab and Hurricane to get to St. George for lunch.

It started raining just north of Vegas and stopped raining as I exited the city.

For the most part, Buena slept in the back. Sometimes she came up to the front to get her ears scratched or to look out the window.

I wish I had a better camera...not the phone...for when I see stuff like these mountain-hills surrounded by rain clouds in the Mojave desert. A dark band of clouds hung overhead, but behind that dark band, light broke through, illuminating the misty rain. The foothills looked like floating ships.

It was almost nightfall when I passed between the Gibralter-like rocks, the northern gateway to LHC.

When I arrived at Brenda's, she insisted we go out. (She knows me so well!) Frank wanted to stay home to finish watching football, so we took off for dinner. She also wanted to show me the new lights they added to the London Bridge.

At the restaurant, we split a pulled-pork taco dish with mango pico relish. The dish came with an orchid garnish!

We walked around the touristy channel area, looking at the display of lights before heading home and making further plans for the next several days.