First up, a good washing:
Driving to Las Vegas, with a couple interesting sights along the way. A bit of breakfast at the curious Mad Greek Cafe (fun decor and good food):
The tallest thermometer in the world! And it's hard to see, but it's showing something like 95 degrees. Our first summer of the year! If you don't count Hawaii for the winter/spring...
Joshua trees, love these shapes (photo on the fly):
What the heck? Huge bright lights in the middle of the desert - turns out it's the huge Ivanpah solar plant using mirrors to collect concentrated solar heat. Very cool that you can see it from the highway (couldn't miss it, actually):
We found a nice short - but steep - hike up Frenchman Peak on the east side of Las Vegas. Heading up the trail, already getting some great views on this early morning:
Love the desert topography around here. The road going over to the top of Frenchman:
Bit of a view of Las Vegas:
Through the saddle before starting the last part of the climb:
John takes a turn at "yoga on the rocks" - oh wait, he's just cleaning his shoe...
Most of our hike was in the shade while the city starts warming up already:
A seashell on the mountaintop!
We were in Las Vegas so John could attend a solar conference. Like last year they started off the conference with a "Run with the Sun 5K". This time it didn't rain, and it was a much nicer route, around a golf course. Runners gathering:
Last minute instructions to follow the man on the bike (they promised it would be better marked, and I don't believe anyone ran extra distance this year):
And... go!
Runners stream away toward the woods, on the far side of the green:
The largest bottle of Listerine I have ever seen - the golf resort bathroom is very nice, but I'm not sure what's up with this:
Lovely sunrise sky, with the Stratosphere in the background:
John making his way to the end of the course:
Go John!
3rd place, well done!
Urban Challenge 2002 checkpoint!
Wisdom available from Yoda AND Zoltar, two for one:
John ran into some buddies from the Hawaiian company he worked for - aloha!
A presentation on micro grids and how one such neighborhood in NYC still had power during Hurricane Sandy:
Flashback to Australia!
This was really funny - it's Austin "DC" Powers, doing an amazing routine that wasn't far off from the Mike Myers version, yeah baby, yeah!
Hey, it's where I worked in Albany! All kinds of references this week to places we're been:
American Jucy's!
Larry, another of John's Hawaiian buddies, who was in town for a softball tournament. It's great to see people from Maui again.
That was a fun week, thank you Vegas!
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