Death Valley, CA

We drove (about 2 hours to the edge of the park) to Death Valley this weekend to see the wildflowers.  There is only one word I can think of to describe everything.. 

Bizarre... 

 

There is no green, just rocks and yellow dots.  They were everywhere, but this was one of the best spots to see them.

 This was a spot with more clumpy wildflowers and other vegetation with the flowers.

 

I loved these white wiry flowers.  The purple flower was one of the only ones like this that we saw.

Badwater Basin in Death Valley is the hottest, driest, and lowest point in America at 282 ft. below sea level.  It also has an enormous salt deposit that was so bright it hurt our eyes.  The peak in the background is Telescope Peak at 11,043 ft. 

This is the picture we would have gotten last October had it been during the day still.  We came here after hiking Mt. Whitney.  We hiked the tallest mountain in the continental U.S. and stood on the lowest point in the U.S. in one day.  Now we got to see where we were in the daylight.

 This was a huge arch in the mud we hiked to called "Natural Bridge." Very creative.

 Here was a cool hike up Golden Canyon to the Red Cathedral. 

The lake that was here before was called Manly Lake, and this was Manly Pinnacle.

 

 The Mesquite Sand Dunes.  We walked a while in these and decided it wasn't worth it hiking in the sand anymore.

Death Valley National Park is not my first choice in National Parks to go to, but it was very eerie and felt like we were on the moon in some parts.  It has 3.1 million acres of land in the park that are protected wilderness areas (why?).  It also has pupfish that can live in 115 degree salt water and kangaroo rats that never drink water, but their noses can take the moisture out of the air to live on.  Crazy place.

Vegas is Turning Green!

This week we stayed close to home and went mountain biking.  We chose something flat though because my front brakes don't work at the moment. My brakes were squeaking so we tried to fix them and didn't realize they were hydraulic so we let all the fluid and pressure out accidentally.  I learned that you can stop really well by using the same technique that cars do - anti lock brakes.  It was fun even though it was super windy.  We had gusts up to 50 mph on Saturday.

This is our garden.  We have a tomato plant, then radishes, watermelon, carrots, and peas!  The peas are doing awesome as you can see.  There's also a cactus thing that we almost killed because we put it inside where it didn't get enough sun.  Its great having a garden even though its all in pots. 

 

 This was taken a few weeks ago at the Las Vegas Wetlands Park.  There is water here and its beautiful and green.  A blue heron lives there too and we tried to get a closer picture, but it never worked.  He kept flying farther away from us.

Would you believe this is in the desert?

Two Pleasant Surprises

Eagle Point Ski Resort was a great ski resort and we were very surprised at the huge amounts of snow (7 feet next to the road) and the steepness of the runs. Its a 3 1/2 hour drive from Las Vegas near Beaver, Utah.  One side of the mountain is blues and greens and the other side is mostly blacks.  It was beautiful weather and nobody else was on the whole mountain.  Every run was all to ourselves.

 

Here is a video of me on one of the steep runs.  I was trying to show how steep, but it really doesn't show up well on the video.  This side of the mountain was very similar to the King Kon lift at Park City Ski Resort (long, wide, and steep runs that end in a flat that takes you back to the lift).  It was awesome and we had a blast.  Jeremy also got his first complement on his skiing from the ski patrol.  Yes, we skied at full speed past the ski patrol and they followed us to tell us we were good skiers and must not be from around here.  That doesn't happen just anywhere.

 

While driving home, we finally decided to take the turn off right before St. George that says Kolob Canyon.  Wow.  Its only 5 miles from the freeway and you would never guess.  Huge red cliffs all over the place.  I can't describe it, but I would highly recommend anyone driving by St. George to stop here.  It is well worth going 5 miles out of your way.  Plus it was awesome with snow.  

I loved the red road.

The Grand Canyon

We drove 5 hours to the Grand Canyon on Friday night and camped at Mather Campground.  There was still snow on the ground, but we found a dry-ish spot to set up the tent.  Then we got up early Saturday and realized we were in a forest.  Who knew that the grand canyon had huge trees pretty close to the edge.  We hiked the Grandview Point Trail to the west point of Horseshoe Mesa.  It was about 9 miles round trip and 2760 ft of elevation.  We got to see the sunrise over the canyon which was pretty awesome.

The trail had snow for about half of the time we were hiking.  We took our crampons and were happy we had them because the trail was pretty icy in places.  This was an old mining trail for a copper mine, so it had some interesting spots like this log part.

There's no real way to show how big the grand canyon is.  We hiked 4 1/2 miles in and the other rim never looked any closer.  It was too far to go to the river in just a day hike (we were about half-way to it). Its huge!

This was the biggest one of these plants we have seen, usually they are about half this size.  Does anyone know what this is?  It might be some type of Yucca plant, but I can't figure it out.

Here we are at the tip of Horseshoe Mesa.

We were hiking down and came upon this sign... weird.  There were lots of yellowish rocks around, so we think it was uranium.

It was another great weekend trip! 

Snow in Las Vegas

 Yep, it snowed here in Vegas.  We went hiking up by Mt. Charleston and the snow was pretty deep especially where it had drifted.  On average it was knee deep, but a few spots were waist deep.  Surprise!

The first two pictures look like they could have been taken anywhere, but the next two really are in the desert.  It was already starting to melt.

President's Day Weekend

So we had great plans for the weekend, but the weather was not cooperating, so we decided to drive to LA instead.  It was a beautiful drive and so so green.  We drove down to the beach at Santa Monica and had a great time chasing seagulls and walking in the freezing water.  The ocean was beautiful. 

Skipping rocks...

We ate Sunday dinner at the Winspear's and Brooke and some of her friends came too.  Chris also told us about some caves that we went to look for on Monday.  Jeremy worked on Monday because he got permission to take work off when everyone else is working instead (we got the better end of the deal).  So I went with Brooke and her friends to find the caves. 

They were pretty big caves, but it was sad how vandalized they were inside.  Lots of broken stalactites and spray paint.  Brooke went into a really small hole to try to get further in and her feet were all we could see until she disappeared.  She luckily had enough room to turn around and come back.   It was tons of fun and we had a great time finding yet another thing that most people don't do/know about in Vegas.  Jeremy got to go hit some golf balls once he got home from work, so he had fun too.  Happy President's Day!

Weekend with the Gibb's (the other ones)

Jeremy's parents came and visited us here in Las Vegas and here are a few of the fun things we did.  They got here on Thursday and we started off by going to dinner at a place called China MaMa.  Its a very popular, tasty, and authentic Chinese restaurant.  We went a little early and didn't have to wait which was very nice.  We got adventurous and Ron even tried the Thousand Year Old Egg. 

On Friday, Jeremy had to work part of the day, so we went to explore at Red Rocks.  It was awesome and we just tried to get to the top.  It was harder to pick a route than we were expecting but we did a lot of scrambling and made it to the top!  Then we realized we weren't at the true top, but felt pretty good about it anyway.  We went down a different way and had fun exploring in the sandstone. 

 This looks like an alien to me...

Next we hiked up a canyon called Icebox Canyon to a waterfall.  It was true to its name and we saw ice in several places.

 On the way down we passed this spot and there was a couple taking a picture of the ice.  He told us that they were from Minnesota and his wife was actually taking pictures of ice (its ok, I took one too).

 

Here's the "Waterfall." 

On Saturday, we went to Hoover Dam and walked over the new bridge that is so high up and huge.  It is a bit scary looking over the edge because the Colorado River is sooo far beneath.  Then we walked on the Dam and decided not to do the Dam Tour. 

Here's the huge hole for extra water. The picture doesn't show how big it is.

Here's Jeremy's "I am being forced to smile in a picture" look.

Saturday night was great...We saw Phantom of the Opera!  We got there early and walked over to see the Bellagio Fountains and ran back to get into our seats.  Let me just say that the special effects and the actual theater itself were Awesome!  The chandelier moved around in pieces right above us and there were fireworks and hot flames.  The music was beautiful and everything about it was amazing.  I would highly recommend it.  

On Sunday, we went to church and Ron and Susan were so nice and taught the Sunbeams class (I couldn't find a substitute).  They had fun and told the wide-eyed kids stories about living on a farm and playing outside on the grass.  Both of those things are very impressive to 3 year olds in a hot place like this.  

They finally had to go, but we had such a great time with Jeremy's parents.  We were so happy their flights worked out without too much headache and are glad they got home safely.  Thanks for visiting us!