I'm soooo behind!

It’s Monday.  I’m so behind on our adventures and our thoughts about life here in Paradise.  And, it really is Paradise.  I promise to catch up in the next few days.  

Today’s surprise is this Olive Tree, right here in the complex!  Tom and I saw it when we took a loop around the complex this morning.  I don’t know much about Olive Trees.  I don’t know whether birds eat the fruits (like they do for other fruit trees) or whether they leave the olives alone.  I don’t know whether you can harvest the olives (pizza anyone?!) or if they’re ornamental.  But, it was cool to see.

Grand Canyon West

Today’s “Harley Map” location was Grand Canyon West.  This is Grand Canyon access via the Hualapai (pronounced Wall ah pie) Indian Reservation.  It’s not the National Park, another couple hours to the east.  

Grand Canyon West is home to the Skywalk – that horseshoe shaped, glass floored, heart attack waiting to happen.  As we entered the skywalk building, where we needed to leave our belongings (not unlike at the Stratosphere’s Big Shot), there was an image of tall things in the world compared to the Skywalk.  I didn’t get a snapshot of it, but found one online.  The Stratosphere’s 112 floors (my first Las Vegas heart attack) look miniscule compared to the Skywalk’s 4000 feet above the Grand Canyon riverbed.  (The Stratosphere is the buliding closest to the canyon wall in the image.)  

Tom strolled around the horseshoe like he was walking down the block – looking both out across the canyon and down through the glass floor.  I, on the other hand, gripped the handrail like a lifeline and looked down only once – briefly.  But, I did it. This photo was taken BEFORE we did the skywalk!

You take a bus at Grand Canyon West to three different points.  The Skywalk is at Eagle Point.  

The Native American village is also at Eagle Point.  We saw examples of several dwellings.

Another stop is Hualapai Ranch, where we saw a couple of burros and some wood carvings.  

Tom went to Jail.  

I visited the undertaker.  Tom thought about riding the mechanical bull.

The third stop was Guano Point.  We walked all the way around the point and took some snapshots from the abandoned tram.

On the way out, we saw hitchhikers!  This excited me much more than it did Tom.  After the “no hitchhiking” signs we saw in Nebraska, I’ve been on the lookout for them. 

And, we saw countless “watch for animals on road” signs.  My response to these signs was, “puh leeze” and “promises promises.”  We took some (small) comfort in the fact that most desert wildlife is nocturnal and we were traveling mid-day.  On the way out, we saw flashing lights and wondered if someone had gone off the road.  What we saw, instead, was a sheriff shepherding a herd of cattle safely across the road!  I was driving, so Tom got a quick snapshot!

The Reservoir

Today, I decided to see how long it would take me to walk to “our” South Point casino and back.  I figured I wouldn’t have enough time to do it at lunch, so as soon as the afternoon meetings were over, I grabbed my sneakers and I was off!

One of the things Tom has remarked on more than once is that the speed “limit” here seems like much more of a “suggestion” than a “limit.”  Even on residential streets, where the sign says 35, it’s rare than ANYone is actually heeding the sign.  So… you can imagine my trepidation about walking on busy streets – even on the sidewalk.

Luckily, I found a quiet street, where there was almost NO traffic! It runs right along the reservoir across the road from our complex.  The reservoir is a landmark that helps us identify our apartment when we’re looking at a map of the area.  On the map, it’s HUGE… yuge!  And, it looks like it’s filled with water.

However, when I walked by, it was dry.  If we hadn't had rain on Sunday, I'd say it was "valley of dry bones" dry.  I couldn’t believe it.  But, then I remembered how low the water was at Lake Mead and was reminded about the drought conditions in this part of the country.  Here in Las Vegas, the NWS issues a Drought Information Statement on the third Thursday of the month.  The January statement says “extreme drought conditions continue…..”  The next statement is due on February 18^th. 

It’s drizzled a couple of Fridays since we’ve been here, and Sunday night, we had a good thunderstorm (which dumped some good rain, but dried up almost immediately).  The stats from Lake Mead say the water is going up, but I don’t think the reservoir across the road is going to hold water anytime soon.