house with 2 views

It had been a very busy day yesterday - hence the rather delayed blip of Angels Landing but since then I have found a really good image of Walters Wiggles by typing that name into the search engine. If you were interested in yesterday's trail then it is well worth looking at the site to fully appreciate the gradient of the wiggles!

This morning I woke to a very dull sky and the hills were covered by dark heavy clouds which were almost certainly depositing snow in their wake. After breakfast I joined my daughter-in-law at a coffee morning with other wives of members of the RAF Squadron based out here. The blip is taken from the garden of the house where the coffee morning was being held and it gives an example of the type of residential homes here. This view shows the back view of the houses and you can see that the back yards are quite small. The particular conurbation that we were visiting this morning had a delightful feature in that it was built around a small man-made lake which could apparently be used for boating, but not for swimming. You can also see the backdrop of hills with their mantle of snow laden clouds providing a tremendous view out of the front of the houses.

Many houses are white with terracotta roofs and inside they are nearly all open plan because it is much more economical to keep them cool during the hot summer months. Some have swimming pools which take up the entire small yards while others have paved areas and perhaps some plastic grass - as is the case at my son's house. The climate here definitely does not encourage gardening. It is so hot for much of the year that plants struggle to survive unless they are linked into a piped watering service fed by water from the Hoover Dam, although there are many palm trees dotted around both in yards and in the streets. They seem able to survive the extreme heat and drought.

On our way home we stopped at one of the numerous retail outlets and found some red ribbon and bows with which to hang the Christmas cards. It is quite difficult to get my mind around the fact that Christmas is just around the corner as it is so warm. It did amuse me though when we passed a rather scruffy looking stall beside the road which was making the very extravagant claim that it offered "The best Christmas trees in the World". It obviously hasn't heard of Scandinavia or even Scotland.

I look forward to seeing the mountains when the cloud cover lifts, hopefully by tomorrow. The evening finished with some persistent rain, which is most unusual.