Balloon Fest

Every year our small town (if you call 40,000 people a small town) has a Balloon Festival.  This year it is combined with a high school rodeo so that's extra fun.  It is part rodeo part carnival and balloon stuff.  Lots of excitement for us (I really like the photo the newspaper used!)  My wife and I have hit the rodeo before but didn't go this year.  However, we do get to see balloons from our house!

That balloon in the second photo is up north with part of the 'Last Chance' range of mountains in the background.  Of course, today it rained, so there aren't any balloons to be seen.  That photo was taken using a small Celestron C90 Spotting Scope that has an attachment for my camera.  I've had this thing since the mid-1990's.  OMG, I just looked it up and it is still sold on Amazon! 
 
I talk about this being a small town because those 40,000 people are spread over a large area.  Call up Pahrump on Google Maps and you get the outline of a roughly triangular area that is about 35 miles north/south and 15 miles east west at it's widest part.  It isn't all built up for sure!  Those mountains are actually included in what Google calls Pahrump.    It's kind of fun to pick a street in town and call up the photos of that spot.  Often there is nothing to be seen except desert.  If you see a tree you know that it is being watered!

That is something that bothers me a lot.  When you buy a home that isn't in one of the subdivision communities you get water rights.  You drill a well and there is your water.  People seem to think that means you can use as much water as you wish and it will never end.  That is just really unlikely BUT no one has ever done the research to figure out the size of our aquifer.  This area started out with people growning cotton in the valley.  Then people started growing feed for cattle.  Both of these activities take a lot of water.  But now we have lots of people and lots of trees.  It's not unusual for an acre lot to be completely surrounded by trees and every one of those things is being watered.  One of these days Pahrump will have a nasty awakening. 

Sorry about the rant.  Thanks for stopping by.