Second day in Las Vegas

Day 2 was much more eventful.  I got to meet and have lunch with a Facebook friend, Heather.  Before, I only knew her from Facebook.  Now I know her personally.  She grew up in Las Vegas like I did.  We were going to hook up last night but that feel through.  It probably worked out better that it did.  She suggested we have lunch at Macayo's.  I was definitely up for that.

 Macayo's is a well known Mexican restaurant in Las Vegas.  When I was growing up, it was the cool place to eat.  Going to Macayo's after church dances was a tradition.  I had their beef chimichanga plate.  Yummy!

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Heather and sat and talked for a couple hours while we ate our lunch and had a wonderful little visit.  After lunch, I drove her home and then had a decision to make - Should I go to see Hoover Dam or should I go see Lake Las Vegas?  I opted for Lake Las Vegas.  I haven't seen the new highway over the dam but I have still seen the dam.  I have never seen Lake Las Vegas.  And it was also closer than the dam so it seemed like a cinch it.

I got on the freeway, took the Lake Mead exit and headed out to Lake Las Vegas.  Once again, there were some nice clouds in the sky that I hoped would bode well for my trip.

 I stopped and got a back shot of Sunrise Mountain.  My whole life growing up I saw the front of this mountain every day of my life until I was 17.  Seeing the back of it is a completely strange and different experience. 

 

 The entry to Lake Las Vegas.

Tuesday was probably not the best day to go.  Practically no one was there.  But the lake looked nice.  And they had other nice stuff to have a look at.

This feature was of particular interest.

I immediately noticed that the bridge was in the style of Venetian architecture.  And not surprisingly, they call this bridge the Ponte Vecchio.  I maneuvered myself onto the bridge and got a nice shot of the lake.

I also wanted to get a photo of the western side of the bridge but had to wait.  The sun was straight

ahead and too bright for a good photo.  I'd have to come back in 45 minutes when I hoped a nice sunset would offer a good photo op.  In the meantime I wanted to find a place to sit down and maybe eat something while I did a few crosswords and waited for sunset.

After looking around some more, I learned that there were not a whole lot of casual eateries at this place.  All the restaurants were a "sit down and be served" type of establishment.  Under normal circumstances, that would be okay, but with only 45 minutes, it obviously wasn't going to work.  The only casual place I could find was this Starbucks style coffee shop called Perk N Post.

It's a coffee shop that offers a kind of postal service along with the Latte's....hmmm.  The problem was that I don't drink coffee and I didn't have any mail to send either.  But it was my only option so I went in to see what they had.

They didn't have much in the way of pastries, either.  I was about to give up.  Then the lady behind 
the counter suggested I get one of their Smoothies.  For some reason a Smoothie seemed like it would really hit the spot.  So I ordered their Banana and Strawberry Smoothie.  The lady got right to work.

I sat down at a table, began sipping on my Smoothie and worked on Craig Sheffer's daily crossword.  The cafe also had a musician performing.  He was good!

He sang oldies for the most part from 60's and 70's.  He performed a number of John Denver songs and of course he sang "Heart of Gold" by Neil Young.  The big surprise was him singing Hot Patootie, a classic song originally performed by Meatloaf.  Even fans of Meatloaf may not be to familiar with this song. He performed it in the Rocky Horror picture show.  I gave the guy a nice tip.  This all turned out to be a nice distract while I waited for sunset.  I finished up my Smoothie and went over a little early - At 6:30, to get my photo.
 
It was a good thing I went early.  Becsause of the proximity to the mountain, sunset was 20 minutes earlier than expected.

  

Not a bad photo.  Interestly, it was on my way back that I found the best place to shoot.  I was actually lucky that sunset happened earlier at the lake.  I stopped on Lake Mead Boulevard by some palm trees and began firing away.

The last one could have easily been the best....if only I hadn't got the corner of my car in the bottom right of the photo.  I'm still learning this art.