And We're Back...

..from Las Vegas!  Our niece was turning 21 and we were invited to spend the first January weekend in Las Vegas celebrating with family.  It had been a very long time since I was last in Vegas (2004!), and just slightly less long for my husband.  We decided to drive and only left about 1 1/2 hours after we planned to--sound familiar to anyone else?  Our kids, for Christmas, had bought us tickets to the Friday night Beatles Love show.  We had just about half an hour after checkin to relax before heading to the other end of the Strip from the New York, New York hotel where we were staying. Grant had never been to a Cirque du Soleil show and we are both big Beatles fans.  Our seats were very good and we enjoyed it all. 

The above photo was from the act for the Octopus' Garden song.  There is something happening every second with performers and acrobats dropping from the sky, sets popping up from below the stage, and some interaction  with the audience.  You cannot see it all!

This photo was from near the end of the show, I forget what song was playing then.  Amazing set changes every few minutes and so many talented performers.  I had previously seen Mystere and O all those years ago. After getting back to the hotel, we met up with other family and stayed out very late (3 a.m.!)

We spent a lot of time relaxing on Saturday, with nothing planned except attending the birthday dinner, and really felt no desire to do much in town.  I was still suffering with the shingles, two weeks into it, and moving around was pretty painful.  The workweek prior had been hard because of that.  Grant needed the relaxation too.  Our niece had a lovely family party at Il Fornaio in the hotel, and the younger folks headed out to a dance bar afterwards.  Us old folks turned in by midnight!  I took absolutely no photos of the evening, sadly. 

It had rained over the weekend and the clouds were clearing as we prepared to go.  Our intention Sunday was to get on the road by 11 but that did not happen.  Remember that 1 1/2 hours late leaving thing  I mentioned?  Yeah, same thing happened from Las Vegas, but mainly because we wanted to help out the birthday girl by giving her a ride home in our roomy backseat instead of her cousin's crowded vehicle housing our daughter and her boyfriend as well.

I had a good time shooting out the window at the vast desert in Nevada, loving the cloud patterns.  By the time we neared the border, traffic had backed up for a mile, it seemed.

This hotel/casino in Primm, Nevada, had some enticing advice--Get Even Before Leaving. 

Coming in at night on Friday, we had missed all this scenery, but the clouds were spectacular driving back.  This is the Ivanpah Solar Power facility in California.  What you see are thousands of mirrors in huge fields.   It is an amazing sight to pass by.

I liked this solo cloud over the ghost town of Calico, a tourist attraction in the Mojave.  Long after leaving Las Vegas, we finally arrived home, after traffic delays that added almost two hours to our trip!  While flying would have been faster, the desert scenery was enjoyable.  

Since coming home I have been gradually feeling better every day, the shingles lesions are nearly all gone, and so is the burning and tingling.  I have been de-Christmas-ing for days  and we finally packed it all back in the garage today.  Last was the wooden advent box my father-in-law made for me 30 years ago, from an idea I saw in a magazine.  

When open, the felt flaps I added to the box read Merry Christmas to You, and brass tacks hold the flaps closed. This (not great) photo is actually from 2010!  The openings are 2" and I have acquired many special items to fill them. For scale, I included the Sharpie pen.

I bought the tiny glass Santa, Snowman and Tree a few years ago, the slightly larger Netsuke owl maybe a year or two past, and added the bow to the miniature wreath many moons ago.  It has been a fixture for all these years and will be for many more :)