VALLEY OF FIRE PARK - NEVADA

 This is the other end of the Prospect trail. that was the one we did when we were here last time. We didn't quite get to where we stopped and had lunch but we arrived at a pass and could look down on the lunch spot. This picture was taken after hiking just 15 minutes or so. Beautiful right from the start unlike the 'other end' where we had to slog through some pretty dull flat desert land before getting to the red rocks.

this prospect trail is off the White Domes trail which is an easy 1 mile loop that goes past an old Hollywood set. The last time it was used was to film the Professionals in '66 with Burt Lancaster.

To give you some perspective on how massive these boulders were. The trail was an absolute magical mystery totally isolated dream. Because its going through canyons and around rocks and over passes and through washes; its very twisty and we never knew where it was heading.

 This is approaching the pass where we could see our previous lunch spot.

You can walk everyplace; its a super user friendly area. so as we were heading back to the parking lot we decided to end the day by just clambering on some of this slickrock.

THE MAD GREEK CAFE - LAS VEGAS, NEVADA

we hiked  across the road from the Red Rocks area (which was totally jammed; there was even a long line just to get to the parking area for the visitor center. When we hike here we will, for sure, go during the week.) at a place that also had horse stables for rides in the Blue Diamond Hill area.

The map we had was not very good and neither was the description so we 'wasted' quite a bit of time trudging around huge mounds of horse dung and laboriously making our way down the soft sand trail. Finally when we got up to a lookout we could see where we should have gone which we started doing.

I'm glad we didn't turn around and just leave because the hike turned out to be lovely; with a great trail that had super switchbacks and the view at the top of the city and the red rocks was worth the stumbling frustrating start.

So since we were in the diversified "this is where its happenin'" part of town we took advantage of the culinary offerings and ate at this greek restaurant. What a lucky find.

It was just beautiful with a great outdoor area with blue and white lights and lots of plants and comfy places to sit in corners and under arbors and the inside was just as inviting. The atmosphere was noisy fun festive. Service was superb and the portion size and prices were very reasonable.

We shared an appetizer of puffed  sesame seed pastry stuffed with a ricotta and feta mixture  which was light and flavorful. We also shared a gyro plate and a small Greek salad. The dressing was wonderful; full of herbs and there were lots of tomatoes and slabs of feta cheese and kalamata olives. The gyro meat (we picked a combo of beef and lamb; they also had chicken) was great and this came with a large portion of tender slightly lemon flavored rice and some vegetables.

Wonderful ending to another day on the road.

ANNIVERSARY NARROWS - LAKE MEAD - NEVADA

bill is standing at the small entrance to the narrows which are about 500 yards long. The narrows gets its name from an old borax mine which was called Anniversary Mine.

inside the twisty narrows.

We met a lovely couple from Texas who took our picture. It is possible to drive right to the entrance of the narrows but we parked about a 1/4 mile in  from the trailhead and just walked the high clearance/4WD road for a 3 mile distance.

this was the other side of the narrows; the wash widens a lot. we were searching for a lunch spot.

shafts of late afternoon sun as we retraced our steps. this was truly a fantastic magical hike.

along the road out; can you see the 2 cars? lover's quarrel perhaps?

BOWL OF FIRE TRAIL - LAKE MEAD RECREATION AREA IN NEVADA

 This area was a lot like Valley of Fire except on a grander scale. Plus we had to walk about a mile over flat uninteresting mesquite desert land before we even got a glimpse of this red sandstone (petrified dunes). So this added some surprise when we finally rounded the last ridge.

right after this picture was taken of me, Mrs. Buddha, we started our loop back to the truck. Well, we THOUGHT we were starting the loop. but after many dead end canyons & huge boulder obstacles & trudging up a hill looking for a landmark and seeing that everything looked the same plus the hour getting later (it gets totally dark about 5:30 here), we hastily beat a retreat back the way we came.

I had some panic moments which come easily to me but we made it back to Toto in plenty of time to go home and take a shower and have an absolutely delicious Salvadoran dinner.

VALLEY OF FIRE STATE PARK - NEVADA

Great day at this park; its a  magical playground. all the rocks and boulders have interesting windows and holes and some even have actual passages through the rock. We didn't see anyone on this trail.

This is the oldest state park in Nevada.

 you can barely see Bill among the rubble. He is looking for an ideal lunch spot which he found.

OUR CONDO STAY IN VEGAS AND SOME ODD MUSINGS

 This is the view from our living room.

small patio.










You cannot believe how quiet this complex is. its like the world has ended and bill and i are the only survivors besides the gamblers on the strip.

everything is new in this place and gleamingly clean. The refrigerator is a side by side which has tons of room. The stove is gas and therefore NOT a ceramic stove top which we came to detest with much passion by the time we moved out of our rental house in Tucson.  The beds are all queen; 2 in one bedroom and 1 in the other; 2 bathrooms.

Here's one of the things i love about this journey. I do my usual bathroom and kitchen cleaning but i have the freedom to sleep in another bed on fresh sheets instead of washing the sheets  on bed #1 and putting them back on. The foam top mattress is set deep inside this heavy dark frame making pinched fingers and sore wrists a given to make up the bed. Love the cleaning fees; totally worth every penny.

This condo has lots of bowls but not many sauce pans and only 1 frying pan that is barely 9 inches in diameter so cooking is always a challenge and an opportunity to practice my goal of flexibility with humor and gentleness. Our dinner of a salad, potatoes and sloppy joe's was a multi hour project given the stages we had to go through due to the kitchen equipment.

Another thing that has happened (oh, i hate all this techno stuff. the latest is that yesterday morning and this morning; i hear this rapid beep that lasts about a minute and i haven't been able to locate it except for recently; its an alarm clock set on OFF ??  which for some reason began alarming after we had been here a week.) we have no wireless connection to our 21 inch computer; had to buy a long long ethernet cable and the cell phone connection is horrid; dropped calls and static and lost words.

and speaking of lost, we can't find our a t & t calling card which had over 900 minutes on it.

the only thing to do in the midst of this electronic chaos is to hike which we are doing today; to the Valley of Fire state park.

FINALLY OUT OF TUCSON ON OUR ROAD TRIP - FIRST HIKE IN LAS VEGAS

 A coot on one of the many ponds in the Wetlands Nature Preserve. This area is home to the famous (though i've never heard of it before) Las Vegas Wash. This is where all the water that the vegas residents use (which comes from Lake Mead) gets de-toxified and de-poopified and gets pumped back into Lake Mead.

The bridge over the Wash which was just a fast flowing sudsy foul smelling body of water and the city in the background.







Yes this hike was pretty dull. Lots of grasses and reeds and people. About half the trails are paved so easy to walk on for anyone or for families with babies in strollers. But we managed to find a private space for our apple break and lunch stop. And in the afternoon for about 90 minutes all the clouds (which i think is mostly caused by all the air traffic) disappeared and the breeze stopped and it was heavenly as we had found a quiet area with benches.

We are headed to the Valley of Fire State Park later this week so stay tuned to this channel.

AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY

We were so turned off by  the endless repetitive trailers that we saw before every main feature for months and months that there was no way we wanted to see it. But based on our friends' recommendations and the fact that this was the only movie at a conveniently located theater and at a good time, we saw it and we are very happy we did. The rating was a solid 10 from both of us.

All the actors were superb; not only Meryl Streep who i expect a sterling job from, but Chris Cooper, Julia Roberts, Ewan McGregor, Juliette Lewis.

The story was so multi-layered and complex and yet very simple; the tale of a family decimated by drug addiction and alcoholism. Streep was Violet the matriach who was married to Beverly (Sam Shepard). She has a sister who is married and they have one son and also Violet has 3 daughters. all of them come together to support and help Violet when her husband, Beverly, disappears.

The dialogue was sharp and believable; the music was wonderful; the photography of Oklahoma was bleak and there was constant action and tension. Nothing was forced or fantastical. it was a perfect glimpse into dysfunction.

CAPTAIN PHILLIPS

Tom Hanks does it again. He manages to  keep a movie interesting even though he might be the only main actor on the screen for a long time or in the case of Castaway - the ONLY actor.

This movie is based on a true story about Somali pirates taking over a cargo ship and attempting to extort money from the owners of the vessel.The first third of the movie which was Tom Hanks getting ready for this boating job and getting his ship in order and interacting with the crew and then realizing they were being approached by pirates and readying the men for the attack was very very suspenseful and tense.

what was amazing to me was the utter chaos of the pirate attack. The pirates (at least in this one situation) are poor, uneducated, totally disorganized, competitive men who have no real plan and no leader. For some reason i had always thought these pirate events were military precision operations.

The movie was too long and once Captain Phillips gets on the life boat with the pirates it  dragged. Plus there was too much navy seal and coast guard rescue scenes.

We both rated this movie an 8.

BROADWAY PIZZA CAFE - TUCSON, AZ

We tried yet another pizza place. This one was OK and the flavor was very good plus the price was cheap, cheap, cheap; but we didn't like it enough to go back especially since there are other pies we like a lot better.

We got an 18 inch pizza with sausage, mushrooms, olives and onions for $16.00. The toppings were flavorful but sparse. We re-heated the pizza on a good pizza pan so the crust got nice and crispy.

But nothing to write home about.