The Reservoir

Today, I decided to see how long it would take me to walk to “our” South Point casino and back.  I figured I wouldn’t have enough time to do it at lunch, so as soon as the afternoon meetings were over, I grabbed my sneakers and I was off!

One of the things Tom has remarked on more than once is that the speed “limit” here seems like much more of a “suggestion” than a “limit.”  Even on residential streets, where the sign says 35, it’s rare than ANYone is actually heeding the sign.  So… you can imagine my trepidation about walking on busy streets – even on the sidewalk.

Luckily, I found a quiet street, where there was almost NO traffic! It runs right along the reservoir across the road from our complex.  The reservoir is a landmark that helps us identify our apartment when we’re looking at a map of the area.  On the map, it’s HUGE… yuge!  And, it looks like it’s filled with water.

However, when I walked by, it was dry.  If we hadn't had rain on Sunday, I'd say it was "valley of dry bones" dry.  I couldn’t believe it.  But, then I remembered how low the water was at Lake Mead and was reminded about the drought conditions in this part of the country.  Here in Las Vegas, the NWS issues a Drought Information Statement on the third Thursday of the month.  The January statement says “extreme drought conditions continue…..”  The next statement is due on February 18^th. 

It’s drizzled a couple of Fridays since we’ve been here, and Sunday night, we had a good thunderstorm (which dumped some good rain, but dried up almost immediately).  The stats from Lake Mead say the water is going up, but I don’t think the reservoir across the road is going to hold water anytime soon.