Las Vegas Day 3: Schools and Hoover Dam with a little French thrown in.

This will be the shortest post in the history of vacation posts because I am so. very. tired.

This morning Leah visited a middle school on the well-to-do side of town. She loved the school and I loved the area. Of course. We both have expensive taste. Then in the late afternoon we went out to see the Hoover Dam, which was pretty cool even though it was 95° and we were not feeling all the walking. On our way back through Boulder City, we stopped at a tacky tourist shop and looked at overpriced turquoise jewelry that we were assured was handmade by Navajos. Except that the Indian lady in the mall back in Virginia sells the same stuff. Anyway, I decided we needed food more than we needed $75 rings, so we left. After that we came back to the hotel and chilled a little bit, then went to dinner and now we're back home behind our locked and bolted door hiding from the prostitute on the corner out there, and no, I'm not kidding. They don't call this Sin City for nothing.

Anyway, here are just a couple of photos du jour.

The view from the ritzy neighborhood.

Standing atop Hoover Dam looking out on Lake Meade.  The white shows where the water level used to be. There's been a drought since 2008, so the level is down a lot.

Standing on top looking down. I was feeling woozy doing this. Woozy is a medical term.

I don't have pictures of myself with any of my kids at very many famous landmarks (do I have any?), so this is pretty cool. Some random woman took it for us.

It is now my turn in the shower and then I have a date with my very comfy bed. Au revoir.

Be thankful ~

P52 Week 19: Still Life

Very late this week. I blame real life. Sorry!

I am loving my new (to me) 50mm f1.4 lens. I feel like, even though I have trouble holding perfectly still, I'm getting much clearer photos. I love the textures. Happy spring!

For more P52, go here.

Be thankful ~

Las Vegas Day 2: Sunday

Woohoo! Made it through two days in Sin City and even went to church twice today. One of the things Leah wanted to do on her survey trip out here was visit a couple of churches, so we went to one this morning and the other this evening and loved them both. In between we walked the strip. Don't judge. Here are the day's most interesting moments, with some commentary.

Yes, that's gas for $4 a gallon. When I saw that, I was glad we didn't upgrade to a bigger car. We've been driving all over the place and the gas gauge hasn't moved off of full yet.

After morning church, we changed our clothes and went to visit the famous Las Vegas strip, just so we could say we did. We thought we'd probably be safe on a Sunday afternoon. We were amazed by so much, but mostly by how many people bring their kids here. I can't imagine.

Sensory overload. We learned that you can make money doing anything here. One guy was playing jazz guitar. Another guy had a cooler and was selling bottles of cold water. A woman had a cat dressed in a pink T-shirt that said "Pimp." There was a sign in front of him telling you to put money in the jar and take a picture. Of a cat in a pink pimp T-shirt.

It's a strange place. Right next to a casino you have Ross (of the "Dress for Less" slogan) and Denny's.

This sign in the parking garage may well be my favorite of the entire trip. 

After we parked in the garage, we tried to get to Las Vegas Boulevard but couldn't find our way out to street level. Finally we gave up and walked out the way we drove in, only there were no sidewalks. We wound up hugging a concrete wall and sort of sidling our way along the very edge of the street. Yes, my daughter led me astray here. And I followed.

And then we saw this sign. But you know what they say: What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, right?

Our goal for the day was to find the awesome fountain in front of the Bellagio, the one made famous in the Ocean's Eleven movie. If you've never seen it, do it soon.

The Bellagio.

After an hour and a half, we were ready to get out of there. Rather than illegally walk on the street to get back to our car in the parking garage, we followed signs, crossed pedestrian bridges, and walked through the Aria casino to get there. We were very ready to leave.

More views of the mountains every way you turn.

Our redneck vase of flowers from the Mother's Day church services.

Now it's dark and we are safely cocooned in our hotel room with every lock locked. We'll be out when it's daylight.

Be thankful ~

Las Vegas Day 1: Travel

In case you didn't know, I am in Las Vegas for a few days with my daughter Leah, who is interviewing for teaching jobs in some local middle schools. I have never felt more "country come to town" in my life, and words are seriously failing me to describe all the sensory overload I'm experiencing. So in lieu of words, I'll just share a few photos from day one, with some minor commentary.

Here's Leah on the first flight. At this point, we have not yet taken off out of Richmond and the pilot is explaining that our flight will be rerouted because of some bad weather around Chicago, and because of the rerouting, we have to go back to the gate to get more fuel. Well yes, thank you, let's do that. Because of the getting-more-fuel thing, we will subsequently miss our flight out of Chicago. Off to a stellar start.

The United ticket counter in Chicago, made up mostly of people from our flight. You can't really appreciate how long this line is. We were thrilled to be among the first people there.

The psychedelic moving walkway in O'Hare, which I used no fewer than six times in my finally successful quest for a wireless mouse.

The Rocky Mountains.

Canyonlands in Utah.

Approaching Las Vegas. It's pretty much a high desert bowl surrounded by mountains.

The famous strip.

On the ground. It's completely flat, but every direction you look there are mountains. It's gorgeous.

More mountains.

Literally the first thing we saw when we got off the plane.

Woohoo!

Priorities.

Day two has proven to be just as eventful. Photos coming tomorrow.

Be thankful ~

Las Vegas

Daughter Leah and I are safely ensconced in our hotel room just down the road from the Las Vegas strip. We began our day with the first flight being delayed over an hour, thereby causing us to miss our connecting flight in Chicago before we even left Virginia.

Stellar.

It was a long day of travel, but we finally made it, safely got dinner, and here we are locked down for the night.

I'll write more tomorrow if I survive my first night.

Be thankful ~

Itchy

Don't you just love a good nap in the sunshine?

You know how sometimes when you wake up, you have an itch?

You start to stretch an . . . yeah . . . there it is . . .

and then as you turn to scratch one side, you realize the other side has an itch . . . ooo . . . and there's another . . .

and you wind up turning in circles trying to scratch them all

because some of them are hard to reach

and maybe you can't . . . quite . . . get . . . there . . .

and finally you've got them all and now you're awake and ready to go?

Yeah. That happens to me too.

Be thankful ~

*Thanks to Mansquared for the photos*

Randomness.

I've been having a lot of fun playing around with my new lens, which takes super-sharp photos even though I can't hold still. I'm always swaying or shaking or breathing or something. Nevertheless, it's the lens I leave on all the time now and gives me better results than anything else.

I love the fact that I can see the texture of the petals.

In other news, Abbey is finished with her semester and will be home after commencement (she's staying to help). She had to move out of her dorm room today, so Man-squared drove down to help with all the schlepping and to bring a bunch of stuff home. Yes, it takes two trucks to move that girl. I have no idea where we're going to put it all. She's bringing home some artwork, in particular this bust she sculpted of my Jewish grandfather, who we affectionately called Poppa.

If you've ever wondered why I occasionally use a Yiddish word (like schlepping, which has the idea of carrying a lot of stuff—but it's more dramatic than that, like someone who has too much luggage in the airport is schlepping all their stuff), that's where it comes from. 

Abbey and a few of her friends went to the annual senior picnic at the Falwell Farm, and sent this cell phone photo. That's Jerry Falwell Jr., the chancellor of Liberty U., standing next to her.

It's hard to believe she's been there three years.

Also, I ran my 12 miles today and my Achilles tendon didn't hurt much at all. It was definitely stiff and tight while I was running, but I didn't get that sharp pain I had on my last long run. I did a lot of walking on the hills, which they say you should do when your Achilles is acting up, but still ran a respectable 2:20. No more long runs now until race day, which is May 20.

So I've taking my epsom salt bath, rubbed my calves with peppermint oil, and now I'm going to get horizontal. TTFN.

Be thankful ~