We start out with an early breakfast while waiting in line at Bradley airport's Southwest Airlines gate. With a direct flight to Las Vegas and after declining the gate agent's friendly offer to safekeep our wallets while we are in Nevada we are on our way. Across Nebraska we see the landscape getting drier and drier with square, township and range dominated fields giving way to the circles of center-pivot irrigation. Flying across Colorado and reaching the Rockies it is disheartening to see big space hogging houses creeping closer and closer against the Front Range.
Center pivot irrigation systems in western Nebraska.	(Sub)urban sprawl along Colorado's Front Range
Snow capped peaks of the Rocky Mountains
	As luck would have it our pilot flies just south of Lake Powell and Capitol Reef, one of the stops on our field trip two years ago.  Even from up here it is stunning how low the lake is.  The drought that we experienced on that trip still shows no sign of letting up. Soon afterwards we're landing in Las Vegas, where - after a few complications with our rental company - we are off to the Strip. Folks from the peanut gallery in the back of show a sudden interest in western sports (bull riding) and geology (hey, mud will turn to stone sooner or later), but for us it's no stopping, no gambling (most of us are under age anyway), no gawking, but we are on our way to the first campsite near Mt. Charleston, just west of town.
Lake Powell with Henry Mountains and Capitol Reef in the background.
The fake sights of Europe, lots of air conditioned rooms and a big waste of water in the desert.
		Oh, man, we should have come on a weekend!
Jenny setting up camp.	Sam and Jenny working on the perfect burgers...	...with Beth and Deepti keeping a watchful eye on the chefs.
There is no such thing as too many chefs!	A sign of things to come: Jason climbing trees in search of that perfect Lizard shot.	Catching bugs after dark.
		next day
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