Day 31

31/365, originally uploaded by Aaron LaRue.

I've finished my first month, and it feels pretty good! I went back through my photos the other day, and I'm actually proud of a number of them, especially the portraits. Hopefully I feel the same way with the next month's worth of pictures. Yesterday we headed up to Lake Mojave and it was quite the adventure...


We left the house at 8 and groggily drove to the lake. After launching the boat, we headed 17 miles up river to Cottonwood Cove to have breakfast with my dad's captain and his family. The lake is notorious for being windy, and the water was terrible with swells as big as 4 ft. We were getting WHOMPED in our tiny little ski boat, but it was actually kind of fun. We met the Mckernans (super nice people) and got breakfast at the cafe at Cottonwood (the waitress was really rude for some reason, she was not happy to be there) and then set out on our grand adventure. We drove another 43 miles up river (which took about 2 hours), stopping every so often to swim and hang out. The water is super warm at the lake, so that was really nice. And we got to see a mountain goat climbing up these cliffs which was pretty sweet too.


All day we had been searching for these hot springs that surround the lake. Garrett and I thought there might be one up in this cave, so we went exploring. The cave was really cool and kind of creepy, there was water dripping from the ceiling consistently, and calcium had built up all over the place which kind of made it look snowy in a weird way. I really like this picture because of how monstrous and menacing the cave is, it makes me and Garrett look tiny. After the cave, we went a little farther up the river and finally hit the cutoff point. You can't actually see Hoover Dam from the river anymore, they won't let you get close enough after 9/11. They also want to divert traffic off of the dam now, too, and they have been building a giant bridge spanning the river as a new roadway. 


The bridge is 1600 ft from the dam, 1900 ft long, and 840 ft off of the water. It still isn't done, but it should be pretty cool once it is, because you'll be able to walk across it and see the dam in its entirety. 


We ended up finding a couple of hot springs back in a canyon, and it was really cool. Mojave is easily one of the most beautiful places I have ever been to, the canyons are amazing and overwhelming even, especially around sunset. We had some stressful times with the giant swells, one of the boats breaking down, and having to go downriver while our gas tank was on empty with all the gas stations closed, but overall it was a good day.