Rocking the Recovery

After a cold wet Boston Marathon and a delayed flight leading to excess airport time I was happy to finally be on my way to Las Vegas. I sat next to a pretty interesting (and chatty) gal on the plane who was a teacher in Boston headed to Vegas just to sit in the sun for a while. After the winter New England had I can see why. We arrived around 2:30 AM, my sister met me at the airport (she drove from Colorado) and we checked into our hotel, the Paris.

Hotel Paris, things in Vegas are bright

 Neither of us had been to Las Vegas before, so even though it was late we decided to wander the strip for a bit and see the lights, since we were only staying for the one night. We made it a few blocks, but both of us were pretty exhausted, so we soon headed back and went to sleep.

Inside the hotel at 3:00 AM, or anytime really

The next morning we did do some exploring though. There was a pretty good french pastry shop inside the hotel, which had the same partly cloudy sky as when we went to bed at 3:30 the night before. We went to the Venetian, since Casey has been talking about a trip to Italy. We also went through Caesar's Palace and the botanical gardens at the Bellagio.

Lobby at the Venetian, pretty much the same as actual Venice I'm sure

Botanical gardens, with a very floral turtle

After that we started our trip west. My original plan after Boston was to head right to the west coast, relax, and hopefully get my legs working again. When my sister volunteered to come along on the trip the plan rather quickly changed to meeting her and driving through some parks. The first stop on our list was Red Rock Canyon. My legs were still pretty iffy, so we got good advice from a park ranger on a good hike that wasn't too long or strenuous. The hike we chose ended at a little lake and just beyond the lake there was a great view down into the valley where Las Vegas lies.

This is why it's called red rock canyon, among other reasons I'm sure

Casey and I doing some hiking

We got back on the road, crossed the border into California, and dropped into Death Valley. The
valley is pretty sparse, but not nearly as dead as it's name implies. There was lots of scrub, not at all
the salt/sand I was expected. When I hear the word desert the thing that always comes to my mind is
the completely barren sand dune type of desert where the only living things are vaguely humanoid cacti. The deserts we went through on this trip actually have a pretty legit ecosystem going on.

How I picture desert ecosystems

Part of an actual desert ecosystem

Death valley was really cool. The views of the mountain ranges that ring the valley are spectacular, and we could watch the thin clouds rolling over. It was getting on to evening when we dropped into the valley, so the weather was pretty great. The barrenness and remoteness of the valley was in stark contrast to walking along the Vegas strip that morning. There were a lot of really long views down the road, everything is very expansive without trees and hills blocking the views. Casey and I played a game called cloud or mountain, where you had to guess if the giant grey blob on the horizon was a cloud or a mountain. It was actually difficult to tell sometimes.

 

Head West!

Cloud or Mountain?

Badwater - the literal low point of the trip

A gorgeous sunset in Badwater Basin

That little sign on the mountain near the top of the picture marks where sea level is.

We made the long drive up and out of the valley, the same thousands of feet of climbing that the folks running the Badwater ultramarathon climb on their race course, and camped near lake Isabella before heading North to Sequoia National Park the next day.