Rainbow Valley

The colours of the rocks were astounding. These pictures remind me of that three colour ice cream, Neopolitan. For those who watch Star Trek movies, this is where Captain Kirk died in Star Trek Generations. It was filmed somewhere in this valley, suitable, since it seems so science-fictiony.

It's a small world...

We weren't in Disneyland, but the theme song "It's a Small World" was whirling through my head anyhow. You can see from the above picture that it's dark, even with all the glitter and neon, and it's crowded as well, on the night streets. When you walk, you're usually gawking up at things, ot gawking at the people that put Lady Gaga to shame, or just trying to bump your way through the crowds without falling. That's why, when I heard a voice say: "Look who's there!" I felt my jaw drop as I looked and saw our wonderful friends, Ian and Coral. really, what are the chances?

The above creature was the only sign of life we saw. Below, is what I thought looked like an old, pot bellied man, with a large nose, with his head looking down.

So many secret looking places that I wanted to climb to, or peek inside. However, the thought of rattlers and scorpions kept me out.

Valley of Fire

As we drove out of Las Vegas, the land got redder and redder, and hillier and hillier. ("hillier" Hmm, that doesn't look right, but I'm pretty sure that's the correct spelling.) Our driver told us that the red in all the rocks is magnesium. The shapes were just so other-wordly, it was exactly how I imagine Mars to be...red and filled with these undulating, smooth shapes. I fully expected aliens (or at least rattlesnakes) to peer back at me as I peered inside. The above picture is an old Anasazi ruin.

Pink Jeep.

Half way through the trip, we went on a Pink Jeep Tour. We have done this once before, in Arizona and we were really pleased with them. The price is kind of high, it was $140.00 each (yikes!) but they pick you up at your hotel, take you for the full day with a nice lunch provided, and an extremely well taught guide. He was amazing! There were only 4 other people, so it wasn't like a crowded bus tour. We went to the Valley of Fire, and it was truely like another world.

A lot of westerns were filmed there, particularly in the 40's and 50's, and a lot of science fiction movies as well. Some of the Star Treks were filmed here. It was indeed very alien looking, I could pretend I was on Mars.

Some of the various cacti that we saw in the desert.

This (above) is the one I leaned against, trying to get a close-up of the flower, and I ended up with little cactus slivers on my leg. Very fine, and they went right through the denim of my shorts and into my leg!

The free photo from Binions, with millions. Well, one million. As well as the bling that the casino's in Fremont provide. Below, the tickets from 2 of the shows we saw, as well as my cash out tickets for my wins. Girls, you can see why Tuscany isn't a "go" this year...

Fremont Street

A few more pictures of Fremont Street. The screen above (for The Fremont Street Experience) helps keep both sun and rain off, so it's a constant nice temperature. LI

Fremont Street

After we said Goodbye to the Sahara, we took a cab up to Fremont Street, passing by the Pawn Stars pawn shop on the way. We considered, for a moment, stopping there, but the line-up was incredible, just to get inside. So our cabbie continued on, pointing out the scuzziest bars and "girlie shows" as we went. He almost seemed sad that we didn't care to stop at some of them. He tried to tell us about one, where they supplied you with a bottle of Windex and some cleaning cloths. I think the look of horror on my my face made him stop talking. I'm no prude, but that was something I didn't want to hear further about. Although...in hindsight, I wonder now if it was for cleaning tables, or women....or both.

If you have gone to Las vegas, and have never made it to Fremont Street, you have done yourself a great disservice. It's kitchey, old-schoolish, neon engulfed, glittery fun. Cheap drinks...I mean, seriously .99 Margarita's and $1.00 beer? In Vegas? You can find them in Fremont Street!

They even still have a few slot machines that spit out actual money. In "Mermaids" Steven won $40.00 and decided to cash out, to his suprise, and my great amusement, the machine proceeded to drop out $40.00 worth of nickles. It was worth the trip just to watch him frantically trying to scoop his bounty into the plastic bins they provide.

You can get a free photo taken of yourself with One Million Dollars in Binions, and it wasn't the cruddy Polaroid picture I expected, but a professional 8x10. No catch, totally free. What a fun souvineer. Showgirls garland your neck with beads and everyone is walking around, happy and silly. If you're going to go to Fremont, you have to play the Tourist Game. We had a blast!

Neon cowboys and cowgirls

Vegas, Baby!

We flew to Las Vegas out of Kallispell, on Allegiant Air. It's a "no frills" airline, but I was pleasantly surprised by the plane, it was a lot larger than I had anticipated, and the seats were extremely comfy, although they didn't recline, kind of a bummer. Luckily, the flight was only 1 hour and 59 minutes. However.....we left 2 hours late due to some sort of mechanical problem. First they had to call in a mechanic, then after he did whatever magic it was that he did, they had to call in a second one to "sign off" on the work that the first one did. The whole thing struck me as odd, that they don't have a mechanic on site...does that mean that they have problems so very seldom that they don't need one? Or does it mean that they are such a no frills airline that they can't afford to keep one on staff? Either way...they fixed the problem and off we went. It was a quick and painless flight, and what's more, we had an empty seat beside us, so lots of room to stretch out. When we got to our hotel (Bally's) Steven jokingly said to the desk clerk: "So, the airline said that since we had a 2 hour delay, you'd take care of us with a nice upgrade?" The lady laughed and said, "Well, I can give you an upgrade to a Junior Suite, or give you a top-of-the-line-suite for half price." Ummm...no brainer, we took the free Junior suite.

By the time we had arrived and got settled, it was about 9:30 PM, so we had a quick snack and wandered around our hotel, gambled a bit and just relaxed. The place is huge, and it took us most of the evening to figure out how to get around and where the coffee bar was for morning, 'cause that is crucial. I was dismayed, but not shocked (after all, it is Vegas) to see that a muffin was $4.00 and a small coffee $3.99. So, $16.00 just to start the day.

You can go to some nearby places for much less, but when I get up in the AM, believe me, wandering around and looking for somewhere to have coffee, then waiting for it, is not worth the stress. Gimme caffeine NOW.

Next AM we decided to take the monorail to the end of the line, which is the Sahara Hotel, and to spend a few hours there, maybe have lunch, and then take a cab up to Fremont Street. To our surprise, when we got to the Sahara, we discovered that it was closing, forever, that afternoon. The end of an era. Kind of sad. Some of the staff had been working there since the 60's, and there was a gloomy feel to the place. However, they were allowing cameras in the casino, which is normally a huge no-no in any casino, so that was a bit of a perk.

As we gambled, banks of slot machines were falling silent, the ringing of bells and the sound of money getting fainter and fainter. The hotel had personified Vegas's glory days of gambling and glitz.

The hotel opened in 1952, and was Morrocan themed, with faux camels at the door, onion domes throughout the casino, and rows of the fabulous chandeliers.

Above, one of the giant crystal chandeliers. Below, a bank of slots and the car you may (or more likely, may not) win.

Above, one final spin of the roulette wheel. Below, Steven trying for one final win at a Sahara slot. Alas, 'twas not to be.

Some of you loyal "Zanzibar" readers (OK, all six of you) may be wondering why I haven't posted much in the past while. Here's why: I have an acute case of laziness. I just don't have any creative energy right now. My mind feels like a pile of mush. So there's that, and a generally short attention span. Plus, I am having a love/hate relationship with Facebook

So I get a lot of crap from my husband about having a Facebook page (which, I might add, he's never even seen). He's too busy and too important to waste his time on such things. Well, good for him.

And I get another lot of crap from some of my friends who are convinced that I'm going to go to Identity Theft Hell because someone's going to steal my identity and all my money (well, they can have it all ... ) because I like to post pictures of my kids and dogs and house on my Facebook page. AND I like to shop online. Someone would like to be me? Have at it, I say. I love the social media. Except Twitter. I'm way too wordy for 140 characters.

Today I had the opportunity to truly enjoy my personal time. Very important indeed. In the past few weeks I have found a sense of stability that is quite freakish ... there has always been some sort of happenings and goings-on in my world. Though it is so refreshing. I find it is quite easy to get wrapped up in the gossip and drama of your surroundings. But just as easily you can simply step back and close the door. Just shut it. Can you hear my door slam?

I have always had a fear of shutting the door and never being able to open it again. So I have mended many friendships and relationships with the fear of losing, on missing out. But what happens if you finally just let that door swing shut? Dunno probably nothing. Eck! Excuse my rambling today.I am appreciating how much more I have actually accomplished by minding my own business.

Extraordinary Easter Sunday

Every Easter weekend I wander through the bush and look for crocuses. And every Easter weekend I find some. It's sort of odd, really, because Easter is at a different time every year, so it doesn't really make sense that the crocuses would come out on that particular weekend. I mean, Mother Nature doesn't know it's Easter.

But this year seemed different. We have had snow and freezing weather up until 2 days ago. We must be at least 3 weeks "behind" in Spring weather. Even yesterday (Saturday) as we scoured the bush for crocuses we found more mud than anything. But, today I was determined to take another look.

Well! What a day! To my great delight, not only were there quite a few small, purple, fuzzy crocuses (croci?) pushing their way towards the sunlight, there was also ground squirrels, doing their herky-jerky dance along the forest floor, gophers blinking in the sunlight and whistling to warn their compatriots that an intruder (me!) was in their area, and the stately Canadian geese returning for the summer. What a great way to celebrate Spring. Mother Nature never ceases to amaze.

Little gopher, peeking his head out of his winter burrow, whistling his warning tune.

Squirrel looking for his hidden cashe of nuts? Below, the geese. Remember to click twice on each picture for greater detail.

Good Customer service.

I ordered 2 little sterling silver "urns" to put a little pinch of Gypsy's ashes in. They're from a company in the States called Ashes to Ashes. I had looked in town first because I do like to try and shop local, also, if you have a problem with something, it's so much easier to run downtown as opposed to long distance calls and emails and credit card rebaits and so forth.

However, we only have 3 jewellery stores in town, and two had never heard of them, and the third, Delamonts, had some (they are called "cremation jewellery") but they were $199.00 each while they were nice, they were just plain silver, and not what I had envisioned. I think they had a ball, a heart, a cross and a small teddy-bear. I wanted something with a paw-print on it.

So, I found this company and they had exactly what I wanted, and as well, they were waaaay cheaper. The total, including shipping, for the 2 pictured here, was $117.00 (Cdn) Plus they came with the tiny heart shaped screwdriver to open the small space, as well as a tiny funnel to fill, and they arrived tucked into 2 small black velvet bags. That's $117.00 for BOTH, not each.

However...when I went to put my silver chain in the star one, I realized that all my chains have too large of a closing link thing, and none of them would fit. Damn it!

So, off I went to Delamonts to see about having a small silver link put through the teeny hole in the star. They told me it would only take an hour, and cost about $10.00, which was pretty much what I figured they'd charge.

On the way out the door I spotted a nice silver chain, nicer than the one I was going to use, plus it was a box-link, which is much sturdier. I asked the lady to set it aside and I'd pay for it when I returned. Long story short...when I came back, the jeweller hadn't put the link in, he wanted to ask me if the chain I was buying was for the urn, because this chain fit perfectly through the little hole. If not, he said, he would quickly do the link in two minutes. He came out from his jewel-room and showed me the whole thing and explained which way he thought would be best, both in sturdiness and visually as well.

I was really impressed that the saleswoman mentioned it to him, and that he waited to talk to me, instead of just doing it and making a quick $10.00. And yes, $10.00 for that link isn't a lot of money to him or to me, but the point is, he (and she) paid attention to me, the customer, and I was really very appreciative of this. Good customer service is just so hard to receive these days. Plus, he (this is Mr. Delamont, for those who are in Cranbrook and area) put the little urn on the chain, and put it in a lovely blue velvety-type case. And then they put the whole sha-bang in a nifty yellow gift bag. And this chain wasn't an expensive one either, but they made me feel like I was a valued customer.

So "Hooray" to Delamonts for being such good sports for what they thought could easily just have been a $10 sale. I have shopped there before, and I will assuredly shop their again.

Finished product. So now I wear a bit o' Gypsy near my heart.