New Year's in Vegas

Last blog post about 2023, finally!  Time to return to Las Vegas for a couple days (one main reason is detailed below).  We did some reminiscing about past races with friends.  My favorite experiences in any city is time spent doing urban races.  The "good old days", from our perspective.

The theme of this particular visit was something new, however.  There's this Sphere thing there now, and you really can't miss it:

The display is always moving and changing - sometimes it has giant eyeballs:

We briefly looked at ticket prices for an inside-the-sphere experience (ex-sphere-ience?) and decided to watch from the outside instead.

An up-close look at a small fraction of the gagillion LED lights:

You know I rarely take pictures of our food.  This lunch, at Down 2 Earth, was deliciously photo-worthy (and close to a Rivian charging station):

Um, sure... but what about when I make this face?

We walked up and down the Strip, remembering mad dashes in various directions for checkpoints and selfies:

We saw a couple fun shows - Potted Potter (all 7 Harry Potter books condensed into 70 minutes of silliness and lively use of props) and RuPaul's Drag Race (with a lovely host and talented "competitors").  Shows like these are excellent reasons to go into casinos, for those of us who rarely gamble.

Something else new and also tall (maybe not quite as tall as the Sphere though) - she's near the Vegas Arena, and she's quite stunning:

We didn't manage to capture the fountain show at Bellagio...

So instead, here's a picture from 2002:

Ducks!!

A global (and rotating) Sphere scene:

Ah, here we are at the "reason for Vegas" - a New Year's Eve show with John Oliver and Seth Meyers!  We heard the announcement for it while listening to the Strike Force Five (explosion!) podcast, and it didn't take long to throw together a little trip to Nevada.

We attempted way too many pictures trying to get a decent selfie on the way into the show, most of which were like this (or worse):

Here's the only shot that halfway works, although even our mimicry was rather lacking:

At least the show itself was really good, hilarious and entertaining, and fun to see John and Seth doing stand-up comedy instead of their TV gigs.  The rest of our trip was good, and this topped it off to made it completely worth it.

A brief interlude while waiting for the midnight fireworks show (which was way past our bedtime, but hey, how often do we get to ring in the new year in Vegas?), so we wandered over to the back Conservatory of the Bellagio.

Admiring the elaborate Nutcracker display:

A giant Clara on a huge couch:

Impressive!

Then it was time to find a place to watch the fireworks.  We'd scoped out a parking garage roof (above where we parked Tug-E, conveniently) and started that way.  With the crowds on the Strip and the road closures, we ended up having to run to make it on time...

Happily, we had at least 34 seconds to spare (we could see the Sphere from our vantage point, for the official countdown):

What an amazing fireworks show!  It was coordinated from the tops of various casinos up and down the Strip, all doing similar (and large) displays of light and sound:

We could see much of it from our parking garage roof (which was also much less crowded than the streets).  A shot from the finale:

Happy 2024, y'all!

And finally, one random picture that I think we took by mistake while clowning around:

Super fun trip!

Valley of Fire!

I'm not always sure where we get our ideas for places to visit, but I'm sure glad we had a star on our Google Map for the Valley of Fire State Park!  Going to Las Vegas for New Year's (details in my next post) gave us a great opportunity to go camping in the desert first.

If nothing else, a couple days of beautiful (quiet) scenery was a good lead-in to Vegas craziness.  And, my goodness, it was way more than that.  What a stunning place!  Everyone should put this on their "to go" list.

The best kind of selfie - mostly pretty rocks plus shadows of us:

First wildlife sighting on our first morning - hello Mr. Bighorn!

This post is basically "look at the amazing rocks" and a plug for state parks everywhere.  The world is a big beautiful place - keep exploring, you never know what you'll find.

Some scenes from the Fire Wave/Seven Wonders loop:

Tug-E doesn't mind waiting for us in spots like this:

Loving the shapes and colors:

Found a little canyon:

Live long and rainbow:

An old movie set, built in 1965 for the movie "The Professionals".  The movie "Star Trek Generations" was filmed in the park too - now we need to watch it again.

A taller/darker slot canyon:

It was a good idea to come here in the winter - I can imagine summertime being much more challenging for wandering around.

Duck!!

I found some out-of-the-way petroglyphs - thank you Gaia!

A stunning sunrise the next morning:

Admiring the Fire Canyon overlook:

One of many arch-like features carved into the sandstone:

More petroglyphs along the Mouse's Tank trail:

There was something to take a picture of every time we turned a corner:

One of several cabins built by the Civilian Conservation Corps (thank you, CCC!)

A scenic view from inside the cabin:

A bridge from the Star Trek movie - apparently Kirk fell and died at this spot, although there must have been some editing to make it look a whole lot higher off the ground!

Super cool Elephant Rock!

The petrified logs were underwhelming, as they were mostly covered with dirt/rocks and behind fences.  Not every park can have everything - go to Petrified Forest National Park for the epitome of petrification.

Back to what Valley of Fire excels at - incredible stone shapes.  This one is called Piano Rock:

I'm not sure if this is officially called Dog Rock, but it should be:

We stayed in one of the prettiest campgrounds we've come across.  Our site was quite nice, and others like this one were spectacular:

Just another random arch - keep your eyes open, most aren't labeled on the map:

More bighorn sheep, wandering through showing off their horns:

Steep stairs up to get a good look at Atlatl Rock (also a good place to find a tiny bit of cell service, funnily enough):

Atlatl Rock petroglyphs:

After every hike we spent a few minutes dumping sand from our shoes.  The parking lot shows evidence of this frequent practice:

One last morning, one more trek, doing a key swap with John so we could both go one-way (in opposite directions) on the Prospect Trail.  Glad we did, as there was more to see:

And one last little bighorn for good measure!

Thank you, Valley of Fire, for all the amazing scenery, perfect weather, and motivation to roam around outside for several days!

Superstitious minds

John had a week off from work between Christmas and New Year's, so we packed up the truck and went off to explore.  We did some camping, and then pretty much the opposite of camping.

First off, a day in the Superstition Mountains.  For being close to Phoenix and easy to see, they are anything but easy to get up into.  We looked forward to climbing Siphon Draw again, I wanted to see some of the trails on the ridge, and if all went perfectly I might even get an FKT.

Camping out with Tug-E at the base of the Superstitions:

Getting an early start:

A beautiful sunrise shadow as we were climbing Siphon Draw - the downside being that we wouldn't have sun on us until we reached the top:

John led the way up the boulders.  It's a steep, scrambly climb, and we made a wrong turn even having been here before (maybe someday we'll remember from one time to the next):

Yay for sunshine!

John headed down while I started the next phase of route-finding.  The "figure it out" challenges continued, small detours to one side and the other.  It's mostly a real trail, just not well defined every step of the way.

I tried not to get too distracted by the wonderful scenery and interesting rock shapes:

On the other hand, this is one big benefit of climbing up here - excellent views in all directions.  Looking back to the little saddle I had come from:

Lots of little boulder climbs/descents, and then a nice runnable section on the way to the next peaks:

After a bit more route finding, I came to a spot that I wasn't super keen to try.  At least not by myself.  I worked out how I might make it happen, but still decided to bail and turn around.  No FKT, no matter.  It's all good training.

I let John know (he was going to meet me at the other end of the trail) and started back west.  More smile-inducing views, including a side look at the Weaver's Needle:

This cholla ball almost looks like a dead bird... either way, don't touch it:

The trail occasionally gives you difficult (and pokey) choices:

Hey, it's John!  He had climbed back up Siphon Draw to meet me - so he got even more elevation gain than I did for the day:

John's view of the situation (aka dueling cameras):

Since we had time, we checked out a couple of the overlooks at the top of Siphon Draw:

A lovely desert sunset to close out a fun day:

Next up - Nevada!