Our primary purpose in coming to Vegas was to attend the Scottish Highland Games. Paul and I both have a fair amount of Scottish in us, and we enjoy these Celtic Festivals.We were joined by Mike and Julie, and Randy and Liz, who had all just left our house the day before. We also met up with Dave and Jan, friends of Mike and Julie.
Paul and Mike both look great in a Kilt, and seem to enjoy getting into the spirit of things by wearing the traditional garb (the man in the middle is the leader of one off the Celtic bands).
Highland Way was one of several bands that performed on the main stage. There was live music all day long.
There was plenty to see and do, with competitions taking place all day long.
The Athletics, such as the Caber Toss, are always fun to watch, and other competitions included Drum Major, individual piping, drumming…
….and pipe bands.
Food and beverage were also plentiful, and several of our group attended a whisky tasting.
Over Yonder, away from the music, was an area of tents where you could buy all things Celtic, and check out the Clan tents. Neither the Johnston or Campbell clans were represented, so I affiliated myself with the Clan Inebriated. Easy to join- just look them up on Facebook!Closing Ceremonies featured Scotland The Brave:
The only time we ventured into the city was to check out the Carroll Shelby Museum.
Anyone who is interested in cars should check this out. We had a guided tour that lasted an hour and a half, and I never got bored!
This is Shelby #1- the first car Carroll Shelby ever modified. He was offered $26 million for it, and turned it down.
The Super Snake- topping out at over 200 mph. And even though Carroll Shelby died a few years ago, you can still have one of these built for you 
The tour was full of anecdotes about Carroll Shelby- his racing life, the cars he built and his relationships with auto manufacturers .
Our adventuring mostly consisted of hiking. Maybe surprisingly, there is a lot of hiking available in the Las Vegas area.
We first headed to Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area.
The Calico Hills area is one of my favorites. The rock colors and formations are just really cool, and fun to hike on.
We also hiked to Madre Spring on a different day, but we called that hike “exercise”. Not much to see of interest, but at least we were out and about.
On one of the hotter days we headed up to nearby Mt. Charleston, which sits at a higher elevation. The trail we chose was to Mary Jane Falls. It was almost 5 miles long, and over 1500 ft of elevation gain.
We call this type of hike a “twofer”. The scenery along the way was great, and there was a cave. and a waterfall at the end of the trail.
Julie and I sat by the waterfall while Mike and Paul wandered over to the cave. The arrow points to the guys.Of course you can’t hike all day every day, so we had plenty of time to hang out.
The RV park where we stayed happened to be a shooting range, and all the guys took advantage of that to do some target shooting.
Life is good.
Soon enough, it was Wheels Up, as we all scattered for our summer destinations. Our next stop is Utah, where we’ll do some hiking.
