Vegas, Baby! (04-22-16)

For Paul and I, Vegas falls into the “been there, done that” category. And yet, we just spent over a week there. However-  we only went into the city itself once- and it wasn’t to gamble or see a show!




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 Shelby 1000- Yup, that’s 1000 horsepower!

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. 

After dinner it was time to get out the firewood and the musical instruments.




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.

Playing Catch Up (04-14-16)

Apparently “some” inquiring minds would like to know what we’ve been up to since my last post, which was, egad, over a month ago. 

After leaving Tucson, we headed to El Paso, by way of Chiricahua National Monument, where we spent some time hiking.

Hiking among the hoodoos at this park is quite a blast…..

…and offers some spectacular views as well.

We spent two weeks with Paul’s mom, taking care of some yard work and just general stuff that she wanted help with.  We also both had our dental check up since our favorite dentist is in El Paso.  How exciting!



In early April we went home to Havasu, stopping in Tucson to visit one more time and see our friends’ new house. 

We no sooner arrived home when we got a message inquiring if we were home.  Our friends Mike and Julie were looking for a place to celebrate Mike’s birthday:

So, along with friends Liz and Randy, they came to hang out with us for a few days.  The weather wasn’t very pool friendly, but we still had a great time.


As usual, the kitchen was well used and we cooked several meals together.

Of course, there is always something going on in Havasu and this weekend was no exception. 

The boat show was about more than just boats- also on display were side by side ATVs- do I see one in our future??

  

There were also Jet ski races on the lake, which were actually fun to watch.

Come Monday, they all took off again, but there was no need for long good-byes. They were headed to nearby Vegas, and we followed them the next day.


More on Vegas later…..

Tucson (03-14-16)

After finishing our doctor appointments in Phoenix, we moved on to Tucson, for More doctor appointments.  But at least here we got to visit with friends, too. 

And what’s better than visiting with friends? Visiting with friends that have their own grapefruit tree!  Yummy!!! Thanks to Tom and Dianne I have all the grapefruit I can eat!





Although we only had a few days, we did manage to cram a lot in.

I have always wanted to do the scenic drive up nearby Mt. Lemmon, and when the weather forecast called for temps in the high 80s, we packed Mike and Julie into the truck and headed for the hills. (Thanks for the pic, Mike)

As we climbed to higher elevations (Mt. Lemmon stands at 5000 ft higher than Tucson) the weather got cooler and cooler, and the highest elevations had snow on the ground! 

There were lots of viewpoints where you could get out and admire the view, go for a hike…..














…or get your exercise by pushing some rocks around.

     Gee, can you tell which way the wind comes from??

We started getting hungry for lunch so we bypassed some of the turn outs and bee lined for the restaurants at the top of the mountain, in a small town appropriately named Summerhaven. 
There are only a few restaurants, so we chose the Cookie Cabin (no surprise there!) and had a reasonably good lunch before heading back down the hill into the warmth of Tucson.







Our other major outing was to the Marriott Starr Pass Resort.  It sits high on the mountain pass and has a nice view of the sunset.




We first came to this restaurant last year with Mike and Julie, and came away with a new favorite toast.  Most of our friends have heard it from us-  “Arriba, Abajo, Al Centro, Al Dentro” (Up…Down….Out…In ….)

Every day at 5:30,  after telling the story of Pancho Villa, a toast is made, using a complimentary shot of tequila served by the restaurant. The full story is quoted below, from the restaurant’s Facebook page.

This year we were joined by our friends Tom and DIanne, who are in Tucson, waiting to close on a new house!

After a short time enjoying the company of our friends, we continued our trek towards El Paso to see Paul’s mom.

The Legend of Arriba Abajo:

“the legend of Arriba, Abajo  goes back to a traditional Mexican custom where a prospective groom that wants to marry his beloved asks for her hand in marriage through her father.  Now, Pancho Villa, the great Mexican revolutionary, wanted to marry his dearest Juanita, and in ritual custom he asked for her hand in marriage through her father.  Her father, knowing whom Pancho Villa was, refused the offer, but…he offered a very interesting contest.  He said… if you can drink more tequila than me…than you can marry my daughter.  Pancho Villa scratched his head at that request, but he loved Juanita, accepted the offer, they sat down at the table and the tequila was brought out.  They started doing shots, but after a while Pancho Villa noticed that the father was doing one shot for every two of Pancho Villas.  Pancho Villa takes his shot glass, slams it on the table and says from now on we drink together.  He toasts Arriba, Abajo, Al Centro, Al Dentro.  A couple more shots are taken, a little bit more of the bottle goes by, and the father ends up face down, passed out on the table, and that’s how Pancho Villa won the hand of his dearest Juanita.”