Who Said It Doesn’t Rain In Vegas?

Evening everybody!

Well, as the title of this post would suggest, today it rained!

I’m not sure it rained on the strip (probably not), but it did rain around the city, and in particular at the Red Rock Canyon where we went late this morning for a very interesting side trip to admire this incredibly colorful rock formation outside the concrete jungle of Las Vegas Boulevard.

There’s an administrative fee to get in the park, I believe it’s $5. Red Rock Canyon is a loop road with some very interesting stop along the way. The loop measures roughly 14 miles, and with a speed limit of 20mph or less, it takes about an hour to go through the park and get back to the entrance.

The first stop after the fee station is Calico I and Calico II, where you will see, in my opinion, the most interesting formations inside the park (So, this is not a “Save the best for last” kind of thing!).

Here are some pictures of the red rock formations:

And another one:

And another one!

Being as cloudy as it was, you can’t really see the redness of the rocks, but hopefully even with these pictures you will be able to catch the beauty of this place.

We then proceeded to the High Point Overlook, at an elevation of 4,771 feet, is the highest point in the park.

Unfortunately, it was raining pretty hard at that point and I haven’t been able to get out of the car to take some photographs.

After another 10 minutes in the car, the visitor reaches the other side of the loop, the second part of the scenic drive. This is the area where several different canyons are, I took some pictures, but I must admit I was sort of scared to be there, because during the whole drive you can see several different road signs warning visitors about flash floods all over the Red Rock Canyon area.

This is a picture of Pine Creek Canyon in all of his majesty:

We then came back home, and found a nice surprised waiting for us, our new license plate!

Matt has been so nice that he actually went outside and screwed it on my rear bumper with some washers. Tomorrow we will put two other screws on the bottom of the plate as we’re planning on going off road in the next few days and I want to make sure the plate will stay with us till we get back to Florida (if you know what I mean!).

We just got back from another nice evening out and about. Matt, Hap, and I went to a very good and authentic Italian place called Tuscany Grill, where the owner and the staff made us feel welcome and at home from the very first moment. I would suggest you try their Martinis before you sit down for your meal, as they’re excellent.

I had Chicken Piccata this evening, tender and moist, exactly the way I like it.

Matt had a dish with Italian sausage and peppers, Hap had Veal Marsala, and trust me, both looked very good.

I still can’t get over the fact that no matter where you go here in Vegas, you’ll always find ways to gamble. I was totally amazed looking at the young lady sitting next to me while we were having a drink at the bar who totally burned $200 at a video poker machine in less than 10 minutes! And trust me, she didn’t look like she could afford that either!

Now we’re back home, I’m doing some planning and some reviewing for these next days coming, studying the route, looking for interesting places to see, and things to do.

Tomorrow we plan on driving to Zion National Park, and then hopefully get to Flagstaff, AZ in the afternoon, therefore it’ll be a busy day for us, going over three states, Nevada, Utah, and Arizona.

Now it’s time to do laundry, another day has gone, but there are still many more to come.

Have a goodnight, I know I will,
Nico