Good news!

First things first: Sean started his new job as a law clerk for the Presiding Judge in the Hudson County Superior Court, Chancery Division. Congratulations!

We enjoyed one of the longer spring break trips we've ever had – ten days in the Southwest. Some highlights and lowlights:

We flew first class both ways. When I booked the tickets, first class fares were only about eighty dollars higher each way, so we sprung for it. Our flight out left Newark at 8:00 and arrived in Las Vegas at 10:30 local time. Sean was kind enough to drive us and took Dasha for the duration. He and Johanna house sat the house the weekend we were gone. Our trip back was a red eye: departed LV at 11:00 and arrived at Newark at 7:00 am. Although there was a lot of turbulence, we mostly slept. Because there is no charge, we checked bags for the first time in many years.

I had booked a Toyota Corolla at Sixt, a big European company just getting started in the US. But they had no cars at all when we got there, because of the NCAA basketball games, they said. They gave us the next car that came in: a Mercedes small SUV. I mostly enjoyed driving it, although the controls were very confusing. I never figured out some of the heating controls. The transmission was electronic auto, and it took me a couple days to figure out how to put it in park (press a button at the end of the stalk.)

Gambling is everywhere in Nevada, starting with the airport itself and hotels, gas stations, convenience stores, many restaurants and more. It's pretty depressing. Casino hotel room rates mid week are very cheap, so we stayed at one south of the Strip. After you checked in, you had to walk the entire casino floor to get to the elevators. We had no interest in seeing Las Vegas, although we drove along the Strip a couple of times. On our first full day I tried to go fly fishing in a park north of the city, but high winds defeated me. Janet spent the day catching up with old friends from West Orange and high school.

We spent most of the trip in Grand Canyon, Zion and Bryce Canyon. We planned things so that we would spend at least a day and a half in each park, to allow for real exploration and hiking. But even going to and from these national treasures is spectacular country.

Grand Canyon was very crowded and we didn't think the Park Service did a good job of managing the crowds. It's Spring Break, and so that accounts for the crowds, including hordes of Asians taking hordes of photos. We spent as much time waiting for and riding the shuttle buses as hiking.

Zion was our favorite and we did some prodigious hiking here, even to the point of getting lost one day and having to go back a re-ford a stream we'd had difficulty getting across.

Bryce had a surprise for us. The weather turned very cold – one day did not get above 24 and blustery winds made it worse, and it snowed. We had insulated jackets but no hats or gloves, and so we were not prepared. They closed the southern half of the park and the trails were icy and slippery. But it was magical seeing the park in snow.

We're so used to driving 45 minutes to the farthest reaches of New Jersey, we forget how big this country is. We drove 1300 miles and hiked 24 miles, and we still saw only a very small portion of the southwest and the parks we visited. We live in a very beautiful country.