Red Rock Canyon

Suzanne attended a nursing conference is Las Vegas on Thursday and Friday. I went along to keep her company, to see Las Vegas (well, a little bit of it) and to explore the desert around Las Vegas.

I spent as much time as I could at Red Rock Canyon. It's at an altitude of over 3000 feet, which made it 10 or 15 degrees cooler than Las Vegas. Still, the time I could spend there was limited by how much heat I could take. When it's in the upper 90's and you can't get out of the sun, it's hot.

The first day out there, I hiked the Calico Tanks trail. It goes up the Calico Hills to a tinaja near the top of the hills. The rock there is formed from sand dunes that had piled sand over half a mile deep. It reminded me of Zion National Park, and it turns out that Calico Hills and Zion were formed from the same huge dune field.

Here's a video made as I walked along a narrow ledge to get around the tinaja. I really wanted to get to the other side and I thought this was the only way. I wanted a video in case I fell. Normally I wouldn't walk along a ledge like that, but there were other hikers around. I figured they could call for help (I had a cell signal up there) and my body would be out of the hills before Suzanne knew I was dead. Sorry about all the popping noises. I don't know what does that, but I've got to find out and stop it.

As I was standing on a cliff above the tinaja, a large bird landed on a ledge near by. I thought it was a red tailed hawk at the time, but I looked it up in our bird book and it's a peregrine falcon. Here's a video of the falcon getting a drink of water. Sorry it shakes so much. I was zoomed in all the way and couldn't stand still. Maybe I was still shaking from the stroll along the narrow ledge.

Sometimes (well, probably most of the time for me), pictures can't show things in perspective or how they look in relation to each other or how big or small things are. That's why I made a video walking up to the tinaja from the southeast (you approach from the northwest on the hike).

Oops, that video is broken. I've been having a lot of trouble with Google videos lately. OK, I guess I'll go on to videos I made at the Bellagio on our last morning there. The first is a cool fountain at the Conservatory.

There are several G-gauge trains set up there. Here's one.

This is a model of the Bellagio with a fountain in front.

I'm still having a lot of trouble with my video uploads. Until I get that figured out, here are the pictures.

Vegas_2008_06