My night walk on the strip.

I got back to my hotel at around 8:00 p.m.  I laid down and watched O'reilly Factor while I rested for an hour.  Then it was time to do a walk on the strip and see what kind of amusement I could find.  It didn't take long

 

The former American Idol winner, Taylor Hicks, was performing at Napoleons at the Paris.  He just wrapped up  his show and was outside meeting people and signing autographs.

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I began walking North and ran into a little surprise when I walked by Bill's Gamblin Hall.

I was on the strip only a few months ago and everything looked fine at Bill's.  Now it's gutted.  I don't know much about Bill's except that it's a good place to take a short cut when I'm walking north and it's cold.  I'm sure it won't take long before it's back up and humming.  That's how things go in Las Vegas.  Here today, gone tomorrow and back the next.

I walked through Harrah's and spent a few minutes listening to the babes playing in the dueling piano bar.  The time on the strip was 12:30 a.m.

 Moving on to the Venetian.    I wasn't finding too much there until I walked out onto the veranda. Something was definitely going on.  They were filming. 

 

I didn't know what was being shot but it all seemed worthy of an investigation.  The man with the camera is pointing it at the people down below.

I snooped around for  awhile to see if I could get the info on what they were filming.

I learned that the lady in the purple sweater is the director. Here's a few photos of her directing people for the next take.

I found out from her that they were filming a commercial for Las Vegas.  She also said it would only be shown in Europe so we wouldn't even get to see it.  Bummer.

None of the people below were actors.  They were extras that were randomly pulled off the street.  It was a chance for all of them to have a good 15 minutes of fame.  By this time, it was 1:30 a.m.  I swear, this city never sleeps.  But it was getting late.  I headed back to my place and hit the hay.  In the morning I would be driving back to Utah.

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.

First day in Las Vegas

Now that I'm in Las Vegas, I have to find something to do.  The drive down is always the funnest.  Las Vegas is fun, too, but I do have to find something to do.

Here's the place where I'm staying.  Terrible's Hotel & Casino

I know that Terrible's sounds like a terrible name for a business but if your from Las Vegas like me it doesn't sound terrible at all.  In fact it is a well respected local business name.

I ate lunch at the the Bougainvillea Cafe located in the Hotel

There are some excellent deals at this restaurant if you have their players card.   I had the pancake combo which comes with two pancakes, two eggs and two slices of bacon all for 2.99.  You see, that player card does come in handy.

It looked like I was going to just have a nice lunch - an unmemorable lunch but a nice one none-the-less. That is until this guy sat down not far from me.

The photo's I took of him had to be taken subtly, of course.  I doubt he would have agreed to pose. The guy was an ogre.  The first thing I heard him do was grumble some bossy orders at the waitress.  I also heard her grumbling something about him as she was walking off to the kitchen.  I got the impression that he had eaten their before and was just as unpleasant and ogrish in his previous visits.

Of course, he didn't just irritate the servers.  He irritated the other patrons as well.  Guys like him aren't happy unless they are bothering everyone.  He had brought in a small radio.  Rather than put some headphones on, he sat their and blasted some talk radio station so everyone around him could also hear it.  What a jerk!

This is a photo I got of him on the way out.  The whole world revolves around him.

There aren't a whole lot of clouds to be seen in Las Vegas but it's nice when they do show up.

The HDR mode on my camera came out with some slight variations of the same shot.  It gave Las Vegas a mice futuristic effect.

Second leg of my Las Vegas trip.

The second leg of the trip wasn't to get to Las Vegas so much as it get to Mesquite.  My plan was to have dinner at the Virgin River Casino buffet.  I didn't eat much for breakfast.  I didn't eat much for lunch either.  I was saving my stomach for a really good buffet.


By Sunday, the sky had cleared up.  Though not as many cloud to capture, I still enjoy the drive on Highway 89.  It's nice to drive through these small Utah towns.  The one photo I got was of an oblong mesa type mountain with a small cloud hovering over it.

 

The next leg was I-70 to I-15.  There isn't much at all to see on I-70 except this small black peak that the freeway had to be built around.  I had a small moment of awe when I saw it which seemed enough to pull out the camera and take the photo.

I merged with I-15 and headed south.  After 20 miles, I came to Beaver and took a break at my favorite truck stop.  It looks like I'm not the only one who likes the truck stop.  I've never seen so many cars there.   A bunch of drivers had to invent parking spaces by the pumps.  The place was packed.

I got a snack and was again back on my journey.  By the time I got to Cedar City, I realized that I was way ahead of schedule.  I still had three hours to kill before dinner.  What to do?  It was simple really.  I needed to make a detour over to Zion's National Park.

This decision turned out to be more of a wrong turn than a good idea.  I should have been thinking that Zion's would be busy on the weekend but I didn't think there would be no easy way to get into the park.   There was a procession of cars waiting to get in and non of them could stay.  They all had to pass right through to the other side.

The entrance to the park is right around the corner of the road ahead.  The cars parked on the side of the road shuttled in.  I was faced with the prospect of shuttling or turning around and heading on to Mesquite.  I decided to go.  It was a nice little excursion, at least.  I did stop at the Zion's adventure store and got some good info about future hikes that I will probably want to do in the park.

And thus I was on my way again.  I stopped in Springdale on my way out to get a photo of the  small town everyone passes through to get to and from Zion's.  It's  a nicer shot in the summer but adequate in the spring.  The side of my red car is slightly in the photo.

After taking the photo, I heard loud barking to my right.  I turned around and whoaaa!!!!

I'm pretty good with dogs but I couldn't quite place these.  Whatever kind they were, they weren't too friendly.

I had to make one more stop on the way back to I-15.  This place was irresistible.

The Fort Zion gift shop.  It really does look like a fort.  I went in and had a look around.  Excellent gift shop.

The little town on the side wasn't free to enter but it was only a dollar.  I still go in.  I was satisfied to just take a photo.  Kids would get a real kick out of it, though.

Fort Zion's was a fun little excursion but I was get hungery and Mesquite was still a  hours away.

The Virgin River gorge is an incredible site but you also have to be careful driving through it.  There's a reason why the speed limit is only 55 miles an hour.  There have been some very bad traffic accidents on the road.  Some of the freeway looks like the curved roads of a Nascar speedway.  Mesquite is just on the other side of the gorge.

I mad it through just fine.  And then it was on to Mesquite and the Virgin River Casino.  I arrived at around 4:30 p.m.

They had all the goods in the buffet - pot roast and prime rib.  I feasted to my hearts content.

I lounged around for a few hours and complete my last crossword puzzles.  This was one of the more enjoyable dinner I have had in Mesquite.

Before leaving I got a photo of the Virgin River Casino neon sign.  Twilight was in progress and I plane was jetting across the sky.  It was a near perfect photo.

The only problem was the pedestrian walking toward me on the left.   I didn't know what else to do?  I couldn't wait.  The plane was right where I want it and I had to take the photo.  I guess life isn't perfect.

It was on to Las Vegas.  I got in at around 9:00 p.m.