We spent about a week with Tuzi at home, cleaning thoroughly, checking things out, and loading, then left Tuesday, May 8. Here's the scene at an AZ rest area.
Stopped for the night in Williams, AZ. I got up early the next morning and explored some of the town on foot. Wms. is the terminus for train trips to the Grand Canyon. Also, part of the Route 66 lore. Some pix:
In a motel parking lot I saw these two Route 66-era beauties.
Had Ontario tags. It was early morning (the street sweepers were out), so not very good lighting for these pictures.
We got to Las Vegas about noon on Wednesday and set up Tuzigoot in the Oasis RV Park, located near the intersection of Las Vegas Blvd. and Blue Diamond Road (S Vegas, for those who know the area). A nice park that we've stayed at several times before.
We've been keeping up pictorially the last 10 months or so, including ultrasound images of "the boys." Here's the most recent shot of Heidi we had gotten, making use of the motorized shopping cart in Target.
She looks ready to deliver twins, don't you think. Her stretched-out belly button is a good facsimile of the Target target logo, but I don't have a picture of that (and if I did, I wouldn't use it and Target probably wouldn't either).
At her bi-weekly check-up on Thursday, the doc said Heidi still looks good for a May 23 C-section double delivery.
We've been mostly relaxing, either here at Oasis or at their place (about 20 mins. away). I went out Friday evening to see UNM playing UNLV in baseball. Nice day for a game.
The Lobos lost, however, and fell into second place in the Mountain West Conference, behind TCU. Two weeks from now the conference tournament will be held here and if I get a break from diaper and rocking chair duty, I'll try to catch a game or two.
The UNLV stadium is under the take-off flight path from the Vegas airport, so I got this picture of a SW jet flying over.
Sent Mandi a note saying SW jets have a distinctive sound - I could identify them before they came over. She replied saying something nice about those wonderful red-bellied planes.
Saturday, our outing was to the Henderson Art Festival followed by some quality time at the Oasis pool.
That's the family pool. The adult pool is behind those palm trees.
Wouldn't you know. We ran into someone at the art show that Susie had connections to. A New Mexico artist, Charles Carrillo, had a display of his traditional art - mostly santos, but also some amusing depictions of northern NM cars and trucks, occupied by various saints. Susie said, I taught with a Carrillo. Turned out to be Charles's late father. We had a good visit. You can see some examples of his art here.
On Sunday, Mother's Day, we attended the Green Valley United Methodist Church in nearby Henderson. This was the home church of our friends, Carolyn and Budd Bornhoft, for many years until they moved back to Albuquerque about six months ago. We had dinner with them just before we left Albq and said we'd plan to visit their former church, as we have when they still lived here. Nice service and music. The special music was provided by what the bulletin said was the Men's Chorus, which consisted of 6 men and 2 women. Hey, I'm a modern guy, so, Nothing wrong with that, I say. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Don't ask, don't tell. Whatever. You get your tenor voices where you can.
To celebrate Mother's Day, Heidi and Joey treated Susie and her escort to dinner at a fine restaurant (the waiter characterized it as a French steak house, but I had fish) in the Paris hotel and casino. Mother and daughter wore nicely coordinated in their black and white ensembles.
And, here are the parents-to-be.
Monday morning I made a trip to Mount Charleston, about an hour NW of our Vegas location. Mount C rises to nearly 12,000 ft. elevation and it's quite a surprise to go from desert floor to Ponderosa pine forests in about a half-hour. There's also a sizable ski resort up there. Budd Bornhoft had suggested this locale for summer hiking.
Online I found out about a hike to Mary Jane Falls so that was my plan. At the trailhead, though, I found out the trail was closed for two days for the installation of toilets and septic drain fields. Following the lead of some other hikers, I took another trail that climbed up toward Mount Charleston. Some shots from the trail:
That's Mt. Charleston, there. The trail I was on eventually connected with a summit ridge trail, but I didn't go quite that far.
After my hike, at a nearby visitor center I asked about biking trails and found out there were a couple on the other side of the mountain, at the base of the ski trails. I drove around and checked out the area, but didn't do any riding - will do that another day, earlier in the day.
Here's the other side of the mountain, the other side of the mountain, ... to see what he could see.
End of the trail.
Went back to Vegas and found my way to an Italian Ice and Custard shop, after twice being led by my GPS to shopping centers that allegedly included Coldstone shops, but I couldn't find them.
The countdown continues. We'll be in touch.
Susie and Rob
No comments:
Post a Comment