| Tempe has a large lake which is part of the Salt River
water park. It is a major resource for the city and today it was being used
to hold dragon boat races. Teams of 20 paddlers from all over the south west
of the US were competing. I thought it would have been mainly Chinese or
other Asian communities but most of the teams were from universities and
definitely of Caucasian stock. |  |
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They were also often much older than I had expected. Two to three teams were
competing in each heat and some were closely fought. There were men's and
women's teams. The building in the background is a football stadium for ASU
(Arizona State University - Sun Devil Stadium). |
| One of the closer heats which I think was won by San
Diego. The Korean Chamber of Commerce was also in this heat but got lost
somewhere along the way. |  |
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We had small children (3 and 6) with us belonging to our host and guide so
we went on to a dinosaur museum in Mesa. I found this gar fish which is
quite ancient in origin. |
| Some of the dinosaurs were a bit plastic but they were
more realistic than many of these places seem to manage and the kids liked
them although some of the sound effects were a bit scary. |  |
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This is a large fossil of a coelophysis baurl from the late Triassic and was
found in the Chinle formation on the Ghost Ranch in New Mexico. |
| This is a more traditional dinosaur skeleton with
horns and a cowl. |  |
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These figures came from the pyramids at Teotihuacán
(100BC -750AD) in Mexico which is one of the places we hope to visit on this
trip. |
| A complete change is a display of landing craft for
Mars. A lot of the design work and testing for these craft was done at ASU.
The circles are not for helicopter landing, but are solar panels. |  |
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This wall picture is of the shape of the canals uncovered during work on the
Salt River project. These canals were dug and used by the native Americans
around the Salt River and formed the largest irrigation project for
agriculture of the period. |
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