Be Present - Be Real: OMGoodness – what can I say?

We just spent a week in Las Vegas and I didn’t put one penny in a slot machine.

[I didn’t play nickels or quarters or anything else either – ha.]

Craig piddled around enough to get us $20 each off of the buffet at Green River Ranch...

But here are eight things we did do [in no particular order] -

And a WARNING that this has turned out to be quite a long post!

ONE

Neon Light Museum

It's the one thing [besides the TC Event] that we had reservations for

a few months before we flew out...

Described as a 'boneyard' that has some of the classic signs from Vegas..

We did the night tour - and enjoyed playing round with our cameras a bit.

They actually moved the lobby of this classic motel out to the boneyard

and use it as the welcome center.

I loved that some of the signs were still working with full neon and others were just beat up and rusty and a remembrance of the first big hey-dey of Vegas...

I mostly used my [not so] BIG camera and Craig played with different settings on his phone. - He got some pretty cool shots - like this one...

We took as many photos of the letter H as we could ... just because.

And, just a note... it was after nine p.m and temps were still in the nineties.

TWO

Red Rock Canyon

Just a short drive out the freeway from downtown Las Vegas...

It was gorgeous...

Lots of different colors mixed into the sandstone and limestone too!

I was so hoping to see some of the wild burros I'd heard so much about.

Instead... I got to see THIS.

A tarantula in the wild -in the rest area - yikes!

[Might want to check under those toilet seats!]

And we saw Jackson, a 'little' burro that had been 'rescued.'

He was as big as a donkey.

SUCH a disappointment.

THREE

The Strip.

The neon lights are dazzling...

We stayed out in Henderson,

but drove down The Strip a couple of times...

It actually appeared a little 'cleaner' this time -

but we weren't out walking about either...

I want to say that we never even stopped -

but that's not true...

We did eat dinner at Maggiano's,

right across the street from the Luxor.

FOUR

We observed the eclipse.

It was unusually cloudy that evening...

But the clouds parted about half way through...

[These photos are SOC with my little BIG camera and it's super zoom...]
FIVE

The Valley of Fire

- a Nevada State Park that a friend from the scrapbook event told us about -

It's a bit of a drive north on I-15 and then really off the beaten path...

but sooooo worth it to see these beautiful red rocks....

and petrographs...

and hike a bit on the red sand trails....

Craig lasted longer than I did...

Because, hello?

It was 90+* at 7:30 a.m. HA.

SIX

Enjoyed our little hotel pool -

We fully expected it to feel like bath water

[as has been our experience with desert pools in the past,]

but it was FREEZING.

And quite a shock to go into when the temps outside were 101*.

SEVEN

[Finally] ate Indian Fry Bread / Navajo Tacos...

--- I've been craving them for a while now ....

So I was very glad to find a little local -yokel place that served up a FEAST.

[We had NO IDEA how much food we'd ordered. ha.]

It was excellent.

Although, THAT, and all the green sauce I ate at every opportunity, have set my little gall bladder into a tailspin that still hasn't recovered...

and

EIGHT

We visited the Pawn Shop form the TV show.

This wasn't on our agenda, but we happened upon it while going downtown to the Neon Light Museum so took the time to stop in and do a couple of photo ops -