The comments of the severe drought in the west is true, check out Lake Powell at Bullfrog, Utah. Those white lines on the mountains on the other side of the water – that should be the water level.
In normal times there is enough water to take a ferry across, but we ended up going the long way around and crossing at Hite Crossing. While the Colorado River is present, the area between the lower canyon walls should be filled with the water of Lake Powell.
The drive up Utah Highway 95 was impressive.
Rock formations near Lake Powell at Hite Crossing.
Further north on Utah 95 is the Hog Springs Canyon rest area. The hiking trail was overgrown with grasses from recent monsoon rains, but these rains are far too little to help Lake Powell.
The rocks along Hog Canyon also had great erosion holes.
The drive back south to the town of Bullfrog passed the Henry Mountains, again with some of those classic Southern Utah looks.
The mountains in the background are highlighted with the Aspen tree leaves changing to their bright yellow.
As most people know the western United States is in the midst of a long term drought, where water is precious. In previous posts I have shown Lake Powell, at historic low levels. The same is true of Lake Mead, sitting behind the Hoover Dam.
Yet here in the middle of the desert is Lake Havasu, made possible by Parker Dam. It is constantly at 97%+ full. Why – because 100 year old water rights says parts of California get the water first, and Havasu is that reservoir.
What to do with that water – create an island out of what was once a peninsula, and use the 200 year old London Bridge to cross the channel.
Havasu City was created by an eccentric millionaire back in the 1960s who bought thousands of acres of desert along the reservoir, only to find that nobody wanted to come.
The city of London needed to replace the bridge since it was sinking into the Thames River, so they held an auction where, as legend has it, had 1 bidder – Robert McCulloch.
Once purchased, he had it disassembled after carefully labeling each block, shipped by boat 1/2 way around the world through the Panama Canal to the Port of Long Beach, then across the couple of hundred miles of desert to Havasu.
They then set to it building a bridge in the middle of the desert (water to come later). This photo is off the internet.
Legend also says that McCulloch thought he was buying Tower Bridge, but this has been debunked. Eventually he had his bridge, and it was a success – thousands of tourists came, and now Lake Havasu City is home to over 50,000 people, with probably 3 times as many here for the 4th of July weekend.
While you are there you can enjoy the sound of hundreds, if not thousands of people on boats and jet skis that have been towed hundreds of miles to this remote location by their giant trucks and SUVs, to cruise around and complain about the cost of gas.
The Colorado River leading up to Havasu is similar.
Another of the attractions of Havasu is a collection of replica lighthouses. There are 28 of the houses scattered around, many of them on private property (behind gates), so the only way to see them is by boat. We chose to drive to those we could get to.
The sun set on the roar of engines and the London Bridge.
As we left Havasu early the next morning we passed the solitude of a nature preserve. Ahhhh.
The small city of Vernal, Utah is in the far northeastern corner of the state. It is a short distance from two impressive, albeit very different, landmarks.
First is Dinosaur National Monument. While the entire park contains archaeological sites, as well as impressive canyons and rivers, it’s fame is due to the ‘Quarry’, an excavated wall with over 1500 dinosaur bones dating from 149 million years ago.
While some complete dinosaurs were removed and shipped to the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh, the wall retains the ‘scraps’
This important wall is preserved in an enclosed space.
While most are fragments, washed upon a long ago sea, one is nearly whole.
The remainder are scattered about.
Just north of town, at the Wyoming border, is Flaming Gorge. This reservoir is a result of the damming of the Green River at the Flaming Gorge Dam, towering 500′ high.
The resulting reservoir is immense, covering 3.8 million acre feet of water.
The Flaming Gorge comes from it’s location (among others) in Red Canyon, with it’s vertical walls accenting the water.
Part 2 of the Drone Views of Central focus more on structures.
Up first is the Perkins Observatory near the city of Delaware, Ohio. Completed in the 1920s it once had the 3rd largest telescope in the world, but they discovered Ohio’s cloudy weather, and light pollution from Columbus made it impractical.
The Delaware tour continues with the football stadium for the small college called Ohio Wesleyan. It too dates from the 1920s – with the claim to fame that all 9000 seats are between the 15 yard lines.
The Delaware County Fairgrounds is home to one of the largest harness races in the country with the Little Brown Jug. The race will occur this year, without spectators.
Somewhat of a continuation of the posting from earlier this year of Columbus Sports Venues is this birds eye view of a few of them, starting with the vacant and partially torn down former Cooper baseball stadium.
From above it is easy to see the outline of the field. The stands continued around the first base side – but were torn down years ago.
Not far away is the new stadium, Huntington Park.
The Ohio State Fairgrounds is home to Mapre Stadium – the Columbus Crew soccer stadium.
The new stadium is under construction just down the street from Huntington Park.
All over town you see ‘brown field in fills’, taking either vacant in town property or tearing down existing structures to build new apartments and condos.
Another brown field redevelopment near Grandview Heights.
Even suburban Dublin, Ohio has gotten into this, with this large new area called Bridge Park replacing a car dealership and shopping center.
A park in Dublin is home to Chief Leatherlips, who was a renown leader of the local Wyandot. This interesting sculpture of him goes down the side of a hill.
O’Saughnessy Dam and Bridge – This is one of my favorite of the recent drone photos.
In this part of Ohio we grow plastic houses in our fields.
The confluence of the Scioto and Olentangy Rivers. Clearly low water season.
From Bicentennial Park. The building on the left of the river is Center of Science and Industry (AKA – COSI).
The drone does provide some nice views of the bridges and buildings.
German Village is one of the most interesting neighborhoods in town – but tough to shoot with the drone because of all of the trees.
I will recreate later in fall after the leaves drop.
We end up in suburbia – with the distant view of the skyline of downtown along the horizon.
The Chestnut Hill Reservoir in Boston has been providing water to the city for 130 years. For about 100 years the impressive Waterworks pumping station was the engine behind the supply.
The huge pumps and pipes pushed millions of gallons of water a day.
Driven by large steam engines, it is an impressive sight.
The 3 massive steam engines take up most of the building.
Giving the entire building a true ‘steam punk’ vibe.
The wheels are massive, nearly 10′ high.
The building is roughly 40′ high, with the view from the balcony providing an excellent overview.
Some of the other buildings have been converted to condos.
A visit to the Boston Waterworks Museum is well worth the time.
RDZ Photography 