Go East, "Young" Woman

I'm embarrassed to realize that it's been over a year since I last blogged. Much has happened, much is in the throes of happening, and much has yet to happen, and I've been telling people about it all for the last month or so. It suddenly occurred to me today that I should be blogging it. Then whoever wants to hear what's going on with me can do so at his/her leisure. And from now on, I only have to tell the story once! So here goes.

I came to Washington state almost 13 months ago (5/5/08 was my first day on the job that brought me here--which I talked about in my last blog). I was blown away back then by how beautiful this place is and by my gorgeous apartment, and over the year that's passed, those feelings have only increased. I have LOVED my time here! And in the last six months, I've met three women my age and with similar interests, and we've become fast friends. Here I am with Judy, one of the three. So all of that will be hard to leave. But leave it I must--and am about to do--as you will see.

My original job ended sooner than any of us wanted--12/5/08 was my last day, and I immediately got on a plane for Austin: if I'm not working, I might as well be traveling! I spent 10 days in Austin, and while I was there, my "manager" in New Hampshire arranged for me to have a phone interview for a new job. I did the interview, which I thought went quite well (the fellow, whose name was Peter, was going to be in Yarmouth, ME, visiting his mother for Christmas, at the same time as I'd be in Westbrook, ME, visiting my son, so it even looked like we might meet). I did, in fact, go on to Maine on 12/20, and stayed there until 1/4/09, seeing friends and family and thoroughly enjoying Christmas--but I did not meet my potential new boss, due to inclement weather (in Maine in December? Who'da thunk it!).

I actually didn't hear about the job until I'd been back home for a couple of weeks--I was beginning to be nervous! Can I interrupt here to add a picture of the wind turbines that I can see from my apartment, but that (in this picture) are up close and personal? More about these wind turbines in a future blog. Anyway, Peter did finally call and I was hired to spend 3 months writing training documents for his company. The training documents were for a pollution-removal process at two coal-fired power plants in South Carolina, and Peter felt it would be a good idea to have a site visit to familiarize us (he had hired two editors), so I flew to SC at the end of January and spent a week touring the two plants. THAT was an experience: picture me in hard hat and steel-toed shoes, as I put it, "boldly going where no 67-year-old fat lady has ever gone before." I climbed to the top of a 7-story limestone milling structure and then came back down, and pretty much followed everyone else around this fascinating place for 3 days in one plant, and two in the other. Then I went back home to write with my fellow editor. This arrangement could NOT have happened 10--or even 5--years ago: I worked for a company in NH whose client (in MA) needed documentation for 2 plants in SC, and that documentation waw provided by two editors, one in WA and the other in TN. 

Anyway, that job ended on 4/8, a few weeks early, and that left me adding to the fast-growing unemployment statistics here in Washington state. But I have to say I was never fearful that there wasn't something fabulous out there for me! And sure enough, my "manager" in NH asked me almost right away if I wanted to go to the Savannah River Site in Aiken, SC (where Kent, my former partner, and I had already spent two 2-3 month periods helping on proposals back in 2003 and 2005) for a salary that knocked me over! I am still not taking it in. In the middle of this recession, I'm going to be making more than twice as much as I've ever made in my LIFE! Absolutely incredible!

Well, needless to say, I said "YES!!!" It took a while for the offer to actually come, but it has come, I've signed my contract, and all I have to do now is get there. And leave here--I'm picking this point to show you part of the view from my apartment, the cable bridge in Pasco that just fascinates me. Anyway, that part of the adventure, too, is proceeding absolutely without a hitch. I took a "can't hurt to try" attitude a few weeks ago and called my wonderful mover from Las Vegas, hoping I could persuade him at least to come up here and pack my stuff onto whatever vehicle I could get to take it to SC, and he said, without hesitation, "For you, I'll do the whole move." That was almost as mind-bending as the job itself.

As I write this it is Sunday night. JR, my wonderful mover, will arrive on Friday night, pack my things onto an ABF trailer on Saturday, and fly back to Vegas on Sunday. After I take him to the airport, I'll head out for points south and east: 2,148 miles from my door to Karen's in Austin. I hope to make that trip in 4 days (3 nights), and I also hope to blog along the way to let y'all know how I'm doing. After a week in Austin crammed with lots of interesting events, I'll head directly east approximately 1,100 miles to South Carolina (or perhaps Georgia, since it's looking like there are more opportunities for house in Augusta than in Aiken). My mover will fly in from Vegas to meet me and my stuff, which should arrive on 6/19, we'll unload on 6/20, JR will fly back to Vegas on 6/21, and I'll start work on 6/22.

That's the bare bones of the next three weeks. I'll try to keep you up to date on stuff as it happens (what do they say? "Pictures at 11"? although I'm not going to put many pictures into this blog). Meanwhile, I've had a lot of time to sort through stuff and cull out what I haven't used for years (decades, in some cases). I've cut my books down by nearly half; I've given away more than half of my video tapes, I've gotten rid of almost all of my CDs (after digitizing them to my hard drive), I've got several pieces of furniture that I'm going to give away or sell, and this last week is going to be spent disposing of, one way or another, at least half of my clothes. This is going to be the easiest and pleasantest move ever! There's no "bad Elizabeth" to deal with (see earlier blogs on the move from Vegas to here), JR is the best when it comes to packing, and I'm going to have everything but my dishes and pictures packed and waiting for him.

One of the best aids in this move was a visit by my lovely daughter, really the only person to visit me here for the entire year. Her company, TIP Strategies, just established a new client in Ellensburg, WA, about 113 miles up the beautiful Yakima River valley from here, and she went with a team from TIP to meet the new clients on 5/6. They had their meetings, did some touring of the area, and then, on the next day, Thursday, 5/7, they "released" Karen to me and we drove back down here to Pasco and the Tri-Cities, where we spent the BEST 3 days, unhassled by kids, husbands, agendas, or whatever. We did some sight-seeing, visiting places I'd always intended to see but hadn't yet--and would never have seen if she hadn't come. Here we are at the site of the wind turbines, which I can see from my apartment. We also tackled my books. Karen is THE BEST at helping me go through things and recognize that I don't need to be carting this, that, or the other across the country AGAIN! As I say, nearly half my books are gone (and I now have over $500 in store credit at Hastings and a local bookstore. I can use that credit online, and I have vowed (to myself and to Karen) that I will give up two books every time I order one!

I've sprinkled a few pictures throughout this blog, hoping to give you some idea of how beautiful things are here. But they really don't do it justice. Still they're an attempt. I'm hoping, too, to give you some more information on the upcoming job, some other events that I'm excited about, and where I hope to be living in SC/GA. And, as I say, I'll blog my way from here to Austin, and then from Austin to the east coast, as the days go along. For now, though, this is Patsy signing off on one of her last days in this west coast Wonderland. 

 

Leaving Las Vegas

I promised in last week's blog to tell you how I came to be living in Washington state, and, true to that promise, here is the $2 version. Anyone who expected the 25-cent version doesn't know me very well!!!

This chapter of my life started when I was laid off (2 weeks later than expected, actually) on March 16. A few days before my last day on the job, I had had a telephone interview for a job with the Department of Health and Human Services in Washington, D.C. The interview went well, and RED Inc., the staffing augmentation firm I had been working for since last October, when Intera had to lay me off, felt that I was a sure thing.

While I was waiting to hear, I took an 8-day hiatus and went to Austin, to see the grandsons, to check out my condo and my WONDERFUL property manager, and to reconnect with my good friends there. It was a perfect time--about which more in a later blog, perhaps.

Anyway, the D.C. job looked good--they just were waiting for the contract officer to get around to writing the contract. I was okay with going to D.C.--not ecstatic, but okay, since they were going to pay all lodging expenses--in addition to $1/hour more than I had been getting--AND monthly flights home, wherever I decided that was each month. Also, right after I got back from my Texas trip, a former co-worker recommended me for an editing job out at the Nevada Test Site--that job didn't yet have a job description OR a budget, but the fella seemed very interested in hiring me once those things had gotten firmed up. So I waited.

By April 16, a month after my last pay check, I was feeling a little nervous and my bank account was getting kind of skinny. On that day, Wednesday, a friend emailed me a website, roadtechs.com, that catered to technical people who didn't mind travel. Well, that sounded like me, and I looked on the site, and that night, just for grins (because the job had been advertised already for over 3 weeks, so I was pretty sure it was gone), I pushed one button and sent my resume for a tech editor's job at Hanford, WA.

To make a long story short, I got the job, and I now live in WA state. And I LOVE it here! The job was offered through a staffing augmentation company based in New Hampshire, I interviewed for it by phone the day after I applied, and I was told I had it the next Tuesday--while I was in Maine! That's how things happen, when you go with the flow. They wanted me to start on April 28, the day after I got home to Vegas from a week in Maine, but I said no way. My lease was up in Vegas and I figured I might as well move my stuff out of that apartment and into something up here, so I took the rest of that week to get ready to do that.

I took three days to drive up here, May 2 through 4, and started work on May 5. I LOVE my job and I love the people I work with. I'm part of a 4-person team that's working on procedures for the IT part of the work here at the Hanford site--I'm subcontracted to Bechtel, which is working with Washington Group International, a company Kent, my former partner, and I did a lot of work for.

But even more, I LOVE this area, and I especially LOVE my apartment. I have the best view in the whole valley here, a broad view of the Columbia River valley and the mountains on the other side (well, they're hills, really, low and round, with wind turbines marching in lovely rows across the horizon) and nothing but vista in between. It's a panorama that takes my breath away every time I look out my windows or go out my door. And for 2-3 days, I didn't even think I was going to FIND an apartment!

Sunday, the day I got here, and Monday and Tuesday, I went looking after work--and there was NOTHING available in Richland, where the office is, or Kennewick, where all the apartments I had looked at online before I came up here seemed to be located. The weather was gorgeous, and it seemed that spring had sprung and everybody was out looking for a place to live here in the Tri-Cities area (that's what it's called). On Wednesday, though, John, my boss, said I should look over in Pasco (the third of the three cities), that he lived there and his daughter lived in a very nice apartment complex there, and he was pretty sure I could find something.

He was right: I have a 3-bedroom apartment (which is HUGE--1,326 sq. ft.--I had planned to get a garage, but I really don't need one except for the car and since the garages are way on the other side of the complex, why bother?) for $350 less than I paid for a smaller three-bedroom apartment in Vegas. I have an office in one bedroom, my piano and books in another, and there's so much storage all over the place--closets everywhere--that even I can't fill it up.

Moving was, in almost every way, a dream--a bit expensive, but so well-done that the money was happily spent. The ONLY fly in the ointment turned out to be my roommate, Elizabeth. Yep, another "Bad Elizabeth"--not QUITE as bad as the first one, but certainly a real problem when I was trying to move. [A little note here for those who are worried about things like this: one of the best of the many wonderful things about this apartment is that Elizabeth is NOT in it--and I will never live with a roommate again--no matter WHAT her name is. As I said to someone recently, poor Elizabeth is stuck with living with herself, but--thank god--I am NOT!!!]

She absolutely seemed to do everything she could to make problems, though it would have been so easy to be helpful. I had to leave on 5/2 and the movers came on Thursday, 5/8, six days later. She was planning to move on the weekend of 5/3 and 5/4, before the movers came, into my old one-bedroom apartment, two doors away from the apartment we shared. She picked those days because her boyfriend could help her. Seemed perfect: she'd be all moved out, and my movers (who are the GREAT Crown Mover guys who brought my stuff from Austin last October) would only have to empty the apartment--all her stuff would be gone, and it would be a lead-pipe cinch, right?

Wrong! First, Elizabeth "forgot" to put her application in for the other apartment, so she couldn't move in over the weekend. She let me know that on 5/2, the day I was set to leave for the drive up here, so there wasn't much I could do, and I was VERY disappointed (though not really surprised--the whole year that I knew Elizabeth, she NEVER did things on time and she rarely did ANYthing she said she was going to do--one thing she taught me was the true meaning of "procrastination."). However, all did not seem lost. I said to her, over and over and over before I left, "Please, Elizabeth, just be sure your stuff is out of the kitchen [that was the only place in the house where our stuff "blended," so to speak], and put the four pieces of furniture I loaned you for your bedroom into the living room, so the movers will know to take them." "Yes, I will," she said over and over and over, "I don't have much stuff, so it'll be easy to do and Delfin [her boyfriend] will help me." And she had Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday nights to move her stuff out of the kitchen (that was the most important part). Not a huge task, not an impossible job, by any means, and not a job that would be difficult to do to help a friend.

AND help herself, because, as it turned out, she had a really really difficult day on the day the movers came. And so did they. She was only just barely out of bed at 9:30 a.m. when they showed up--and she had not done ONE THING towards moving into her apartment in the six days after I left. I was absolutely incredulous when the movers called me that morning to tell me of the problems she was causing. They'd pack a box of kitchen stuff--and she'd be right on top of them saying, "No, that's MY stuff, you have to unpack that." Or she'd be running around saying, "Where are my sunglasses? I can't find them. I'm sure you packed them in one of those boxes. You have to unpack those boxes so I can find my sunglasses."

And she called ME in a panic because the electricity had been turned off (as she and I planned for it to be)--and how was she going to CLEAN??? Aside from my lack of real concern about her problems, since she had created so many additional ones for me, I wondered what she thought I should do about it, 1,000 miles away and hard at work at my job. The hardest work she does on any given day is complain about how terrible her job and the people she works with are, so I guess I understood her lack of comprehension about my being unable to help because I was "at work": it is, after all, a fairly foreign concept to her.

When the dust settled, and the movers finally got underway--you guessed it: they didn't have any of the stuff from her bedroom that I had loaned her. She hadn't even bothered to pull that stuff out and put it where it could be packed. And things like my mop and broom and stepstool didn't come, and about half my silverware and glasses were still in the dishwasher, which she didn't bother to open and unload for them, so they didn't come. Oh, yes, and of course, she didn't bother to make sure that the cable company's box and remote and modem stayed in Vegas--that all arrived up here, and I had to pay to send it back. All in all, the move was an unmitigated disaster from that end.

However, the movers did an absolutely fabulous job on everything that didn't have to do with Elizabeth. They packed things superbly--and very quickly, except for (they estimated) the 1-1/2 to 2 hours that her nonsense cost them. And at this end, they were supposed to arrive at 8 a.m. on Saturday morning, the day before Mother's Day, but they actually got here at noon on Friday. There were two of them, and they just drove the whole 1,000 miles without stopping except for gas. Amazing.

My lovely friend Melinda, here at the Crossings at Chapel Hill (the name of my new home), was happy to let them get into the apartment after I got off work on Friday, and they had everything unloaded and in place by 8:30 that evening. I brought them back to my motel room, where they had a quick shower, and they were on their way home by 9 p.m. They both have wives and young kids, so they really wanted to get back for Mother's Day--and by golly! They worked very hard and they did it!

I've been unpacking ever since--fast on the early days, because I kept needing this or that to get going--didn't find the few pieces of silverware that Elizabeth DID let me have until I'd been here about 10 days, for example. I'm going a bit more slowly now: mostly what's left is books, and you can only read one at a time.

In several of the lovely emails Elizabeth sent back when I voiced my frustration over her roadblocking everything, she provided a new name for me: "Materialistic Bitch." I can't argue with her that I certainly have more "stuff" than she does: All she ever bothered to bring to Vegas was a bed, a TV, and her clothes; the rest she left in a storage room in Oregon. Once in Vegas, she bought a table to put the TV on in her bedroom and some dishes--and that was it. My sense that she'd be happy in her frugality to share an apartment so that, without having to pay for it, she'd have furniture to use, turned out (she said in her emails) to be wrong: she always felt that since she didn't have as much "stuff," she was being WAY over-charged to have to pay halves on the apartment.

The interesting thing is that, like the first "Bad Elizabeth" that many of you had to hear me bitch about for the six months it took to get her out of my condo, this "Bad Elizabeth" also did me some good. The first one introduced me to Abraham, which has been life-altering and SO instructional and helpful. This one has gotten me to thinking about two things: procrastination and "stuff." She taught me by her eloquent example to set myself something to do--and DO IT. Don't try to put it off, don't think of reasons to do it tomorrow, and, above all, don't spend the time you could be spending DOING the thing sitting in front of the computer watching music videos on YouTube (well, that's what she does all evening--and much of the day. I tend to play poker on pokerstars.net). Just do it--now there's a slogan for the times! And as to "stuff," I've been thinking a lot about what I do and don't need.

Here's what I've been thinking: my job ends on 12/31/08 and my lease here is up on 5/31/09. That five-month period will, I think, be easy to fill with income-producing activities. They're already telling me on the job that I should be able to get on with Bechtel itself, or, through my New Hampshire company, with one of the other big firms here, Washington Group, Fluor Hanford, Areva. And there's always free-lance editing right from my apartment, which is my preference and should also be easy to do. But when 5/31/09 comes and I DO leave here, I'm going to have the furniture that I bought in Vegas, my piano and desk from Austin, and a FEW books--and not much else that has to be packed up and moved back to Austin. And I'm NOT going to procrastinate on doing the sorting, recycling, and throwing away!

So. That's how I came to leave Las Vegas and wind up here in Pasco, Washington, home of the Tri-Cities Fever (an Arena Football League team that I'm going to go see next weekend--my boss says it's GREAT fun: hockey with a football!). My first blog, last week, talked a bit about the beauty that is rampant here--quite a different kind of beauty from the dramatic natural beauty and the bling-and-neon beauty of Vegas--but in its own way JUST as remarkable. You ought to see the roses that I drive by every day on my 10-mile commute (about 6 miles is done at 70 mph, so it's only a 20-minute business one way). The roses climb fences all along my route and just burst out in the most glorious colors and in full rich profusion. One of these days I need to stop and get a picture.

But for now, that's all. In upcoming episodes, I'll tell you about my drive up here, about the site and the people I work with, and about other things that make this one of the neatest and best--and friendliest--places I've ever lived. Not to mention my Six-Month Plan that I'll be putting into play next year. Oh, life is good--and then it gets better!!!

A River Runs Through It

Well, folks, remember me? Patsy is still in Wonderland, but Wonderland was Las Vegas, for 16 months, and now it's not! I was blogging about my adventures fairly regularly--until June 18, 2007. Then, ahm, er, ah--the dog ate my grandmother and my pen died? So I couldn't blog for a loooong time?

Not sure that anyone's buying that. Regardless, I'm back, and I'm in the Tri-Cities area of Washington state, and I'm happy as a hog in mud, and I'm going to tell you all about how I got here and what's going on. BUT FIRST----

I had a three-day weekend this weekend (May 16-18, 2008), and after unpacking some more of the endless boxes BEAUTIFULLY packed by my wonderful movers in Vegas, Crown Movers, with J.R. Schults in charge, I decided to take some time on Saturday. Not the least of the reasons for my trip was that it was Bill's and my 21st anniversary (which HE let me know he remembered by sending me a happy anniversary email on Friday! What a guy!) Anyway, I was emailing him (and the whole Shepherd tribe) at great lengths to tell everyone about my trip, when it suddenly occurred to me that it really belongs in a blog, NOT in the email. So I cut it out, pasted it here, and finished the email, making it much (well, at least a little) shorter.

My plan is to write a few blogs that bring everyone up to date on the adventures of Patsy in Wonderland (Wonderland, now, being Washington). In the meantime, here's my new address, for those who care: 6626 Chapel Hill Blvd., Apt. #H1o8, Pasco, WA 99301-3766. Phone number is still the same, 512-294-0080 (cell phone) and I'll be getting a new permanent work phone sometime next week, but for now, that should do it. Now, on to the trip.

Yesterday I drove up towards Yakima. It's only 63 miles from my door to the door of The Legends Casino of the Yakama Indians (the tribe spells their name with two As, but the rest of the world uses an A and an I, for some reason), and I'd been 2 weeks without setting foot in a casino (and hadn't missed it, as it happens--a surprise to me, who used to go 2-3 times a week), so I thought it might be fun to see what The Legends was all about. The drive was absolutely spectacular, in a way entirely different from the spectacularity (that just became a word--because I said so!) of the drive up here from Vegas. The Yakima Valley was almost indescribable (though I'm going to try) in its beauty, and I thought often about stopping to take pictures. Never did, though, because I decided it needs a panoramic camera--and a photographer--to really do it justice.

As I've said, this is a wine-growing region. Coincidentally, I unpacked a box yesterday that had two bottles of wine that were mine (and two bottles that were strange concoctions and I guess were Elizabeth's. Too bad for her: I may just throw them out the way she did with my ficus tree! But more about that in a later blog.). One of the bottles was a Riesling from Hogue Winery in Prosser, WA, and I drove through Prosser on my trip yesterday. Didn't stop, but if the Riesling turns out to be good, I will go back and ask for a tour and a tasting! Anyway, my travels took me along the Yakima Valley, with the wide beautiful Yakima River flowing broadly and quite majestically on my right as I drove northwest, and lovely soft hills with deep creases made by creeks flowing down to the river on my left. The hills appeared to be covered in grey-green velvet, and they looked like you could smooth your hand over them and the texture would be just that, soft and velvety. And there were clusters of trees around little nestled farm houses (or larger homes that clearly belonged to a vineyard owner). The trees were so neat and green that they looked as if they'd been trimmed into tall tapered or shorter round shapes--though I'm sure no one took the time to actually trim them; it was just how they grew naturally.

When I was little, 8 or 9 or 10, I had a book called something like "Patsy and Peter in Fairyland," which I'm sure was given to my family because we had a Patsy and Peter. Unfortunately the book was destroyed in 1956 when our cottage on Bustins burned up, and I don't remember the plot at all. But I STILL vividly remember that book because of the gorgeous romantic cumulus clouds in every picture of the sky and the beautiful fairyland where the story took place: little squares of fields lined with tall tapered and short round trees growing as they could ONLY grow in some kind of fairyland--or so I thought until I drove through the Yakima Valley. The little squares of fields were bigger than the ones in the P&P book, and they were usually vineyards (grape-growing requires the kind of climate and environment that you find on hillsides like these, which gently slope to a river, or so I've been told) or large fields that had 8-foot-tall sticks planted in neat rows about four feet apart for acres and acres. I'm not sure what grows in these "stick" fields, although in one such field there seemed to be something like bean vines starting up the poles. Anyway, I'm pretty sure they weren't going to be grapes, because the structures that the grapevines grow on are about 3-4 feet tall and have wire strung between the poles for the vines to grow along. And in most of the vineyards, the vines, which are cut back each winter, had already started a pretty healthy bit of growing.

I got to the Casino about 6, and it was packed. They were celebrating the next-to-last day of their month-long 10th anniversary event, and they were giving away the 9th of 10 cars (one a day for 10 days). No, I didn't win the car, but I played until about 2 p.m., and came home with 250% more than I came with, so I consider that part of the trip almost as successful as the actual drive up there. AND the drive back: It amazed me to see as many lights as I did at that early (2-3 a.m.) hour. Driving up in daylight, you didn't have the sense of a lot of people out there. The farms were literally nestled in the bosom of the land (I mean it, folks, it was SO beautiful that it is really hard to describe) and there didn't seem to be all that many. But judging from the breadth and number of the lights that showed up in the dark, the valley is moderately well populated.

The Casino itself was, as I said, packed, and it was also smoky (though not the worst on that account that I've ever been in) and noisy (it WAS the noisest casino I've EVER been in, I decided). It was also kind of strange, in that it was divided into two large sections or rooms, and if you played in one section and got tickets out of the machines you played (slot machines don't spit out coins anymore, for those of you interested--it's all paper money in and tickets out--that is, you get a ticket if you don't use up all your paper money--and I never did. I won at every machine I played, and then I doubled my money when I played Ultimate Texas Hold 'Em, which is a table game)--anyway, if you got tickets in one of the rooms, you had to take them to the Cashier's cage and get them cashed if you were going into the other room, because that room only took it's OWN kind of tickets. Sort of made me think that warring factions of the Yakama Tribe ran each room--almost expected Yakima Canute (I do remember him, Bill) to come out of one side leading a band of brothers in a raid on the other side!

As a new member of the Players Club, I was given a T-shirt (size L, with a pocket. Too small for me, but I guess I'll bring it up to Maine this summer and give it to whomever it fits--unless there are takers in the audience?) and a free meal. I chose the Deli (the Buffet stopped serving at 10 p.m., and I didn't think I'd be hungry at that point) and, because it was Saturday, they had a special: steak and eggs and hashbrowns and toast for $5 until 2 a.m. I was all excited--until they brought my meal. I had been given a $6 voucher, but, because I had my Players Card, the meal only cost $3 (I had to get 2 big bottles of Pepsi to use up the rest of the voucher--they're sitting in the fridge even as I write). Well, let me assure you, the steak was worth EVERY bit of---$1.25! Yuck! The eggs were good--what can you do to scrambled eggs, after all? But the hashbrowns were a FAR cry from good, and the toast was dry and hard--with only something called "Freezerves," freezer jam that gets mushy in the freezer and then almost liquifies when you spread it on your toast. I guess I won't be going back to the Legends because of its "legendary" steak and eggs anytime soon.

But I WILL be making that drive again--it was an hour of beauty and interesting things to see, and there were lots of things to stop and visit along the way, wineries, museums, an old airfield that seems to have been updated, and, of course, the river. I'll go back often, even if no one ever comes to visit me and wants to go along.

Tune in again next time, when I'll reveal the strange series of events that brought Patsy to this new Wonderland. It'll be titled (can you guess?) "Leaving Las Vegas," and it'll probably take several cliff-hanging installments.

The African Queens

Well, all right, we're only AFRICAN queens because we spent an hour in the Kalahari on Friday. And of course we spent the next day in Venice (here's one of the "living statues" that show up here and there around the Venetian, that I didn't get to show you on the last post). But we're certainly royalty in all other ways, and besides one of the high spots today involved a boat that reminds me of the one that Katharine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart took down that river in Africa. Hence the title.


Speaking of yesterday, here's another picture of our heroine Xiaoming with some more movie royalty. Not too hard on the eyes, is it? Anyway, it's Day 3, and we needed to find ways to make it as unique in its way as the other two had been. And we did!

We were up early today--11 a.m.--and proud of it. We lounged around on our computers for a bit, and were off to eat right on schedule. We had a great fresh Mexican dining experience at Rubio's here in Summerlin, one of a really nice chain that started in San Diego 30 years ago. I hope it finds its way to Austin soon--Karen and crew will really enjoy the food here, I think.

Bought gas for the car--first tank full since 5/17--exactly one month ago. The price has been at $3.17/gallon at the nearby Shell station, but in honor of my purchase, it came down to $3.13. And I hope I don't have to buy another tank for another month (or more, actually, since I'm leaving for Maine on 7/18, a month and a day from now). That is one of the real pluses of not having to drive to work (though I admit I have taken the car more often than not--it's HOT! Although that's a very good reason to leave the car home, where it's covered and stays cool. I'll have to be a better girl about that).


Then we headed east and eventually south into the desert (where we stopped and took a picture or two of the scenery--how do you like the view?) and then up into the hills. What a multiplicity of environments! We began here in Summerlin, a fairly upscale part of Vegas. Heading east on Summerlin Parkway, passing rows of tall crowned palm trees, we crossed into a much less upscale part of the city, predominantly little Mexican convenience stores and check-cashing establishments peppered with the ever-present local casino. Then at the eastern edge of the city a lower-middle class area with neat small homes, few trees, but fairly wide streets--and straight ahead the mountains. And suddenly, you're in those mountains, and there's not a dwelling to be seen. Just like someone pulled a switch. We drove through twisty passes in the mountains for a while (with me wondering silently, since we didn't seem to be turning south, the way the very stylized map said we would, if I had missed a turn somewhere)--and suddenly, we saw in the middle distance a tiny patch of blue-green: water!


Well, it wasn't Lake Mead but, when we got there, it turned out to be a real oasis in that desert: tiers of VERY nice homes and condos, with lots of lush patches of grass and terraces with stone retaining walls speaking of more development yet to come, and palm trees: quite an inviting mirage out there where there had been not very much for quite a few miles. Did I saw we had paid $5 at a checkpoint along the way just before that oasis to get a day pass (well, 5-day pass, actually) into the Lake Mead Recreation Area, the first of its kind in the nation, begun in 1963, I believe, so it's as old as my darling daughter is.

Anyway, a few more miles of arid land with dramatic mountains all around, and there was more blue-green--well, really green-blue: it was Lake Mead, fer shure, this time, and the water is greener and greener as you get closer. We passed Boulder Beach, named I believe more for nearby Boulder City than for
actual boulders lying around the beach, because there seemed to be few of those. But it was a sandy beach with cars and campers parked all along its edge (no worry that the tide will eat the sand out from under them and maroon them, which is a concern on beaches like this along the Gulf Coast) and people clearly enjoying the water (forgot to ask about the temperature of these lakes). Lake Mead is very deep, so I expect it doesn't warm up too much. But this lake was not (or didn't seem to be) so deep, so I wonder if it isn't something like bathtub water, which even the Gulf Coast water becomes along the shore after a long hot summer.

We drove on and up and over and around and up some more and through and between and up even more--and then suddenly downward into the Black Canyon Valley--and suddenly, where the high-tension lines became so numerous and close together that you were almost threading your way through them--there was the dam down below us. With these HUGE cantilevered sections of the new highway that is under construction high above us!!! Truly amazing feats of engineering here in 2007 and 2008, maybe not to rival the engineering of the actual building of the dam (1931 through 1935--and finished ahead of schedule at that!) but certainly impressive.


We drove down and around the hairpin curves that lead past the gift/food building (of course) and suddenly we were on the bridge across the dam itself. Did I say, by the way, that Xiaoming was leaning out the window, lovely black hair flying all around, taking picture after picture of all of this? No? Well, she was. She's quite the cameraperson, as the pictures throughout these blogs have, I hope, demonstrated. We went across the damn dam, pulled off into an overlook, got out and took a few pictures of the backside of the dam from the land, and then headed back across the dam and up again and over and under and--all that, following the bread crumbs that we had been foresighted enough to strew in our path so that we could find our way out. Let me just pass on one statistic about that dam: the concrete that was used to build it, if laid out in an 18-foot wide road, would pave the way from California to New York. AMAZING! And again, I say, AMAZING!


Okay, back a few miles into the Lake Mead Recreation Area, and we found the Lake Mead Cruises sign. Follow that 2-3 twisty miles, and you're suddenly staring a small paddle-wheeler in the face. Turns out that's the Desert Princess Too; our vessel was the Desert Princess herself--and we were two queens well worthy of her. We were about 3/4 of an hour early, so we bought postcards and (Xiaoming's suggestion--brilliant!) actually wrote them out! Otherwise, they'd have come home with me and gone right into my stationery drawer, where I'd find them years from now and. . . . But no, they're written, addressed, stamped, and will be mailed tomorrow. What a gal I am!

The cruise was just spectacular (I have overused just a few adjectives this weekend, haven't I? Maybe I should invent some--or use the one that Jon-Michael used on my birthday card: "supercalaefragelistikexpaladoshis" ("P.S," he noted, "I like cheese.")) None of that really does justice to the things we saw on that cruise: Spectacular lava peaks towering over piles of colorful "painted rocks" next to the water; all around the rim of the lake this 20-foot strip of white rock that had, at some point, been under water and so was no longer brown like the upper reaches; little coves, occasionally populated by a boat and a family diving off the backend, their own private nevada, if you will; and then
a U-turn (quite an accomplishment for a stern-wheeler) and we're heading down this narrow twisty passageway that opens up to reveal--Hoover Dam! The backside of the dam, which Xiaoming and I had been looking at from the eastern shore just 3 hours earlier (and which you see in the picture above). Amazing!

Oh yes, all of that and we started off with dinner--did I mention that? Roast beef for me and salmon for Xiaoming--a decent meal, but, as she just pointed out to me--and I agree--we didn't go for the food: we went for the scenery--and we were not in the least disappointed. And we got a lovely pastel sunset thrown in for good measure. It was great, and another MUST-SEE item for any Vegas itinerary. As we disembarked, we were met with a row of photos that were taken as we embarked: a large photo, two small ones, and a magnet ($20 for the lot). Yes, I know, Xiaoming has hundreds of photos and she is uploading them as we speak so that I can pepper these three blogs with some of them. But I'm a sucker for something as permanent as a magnet: how could I NOT buy the package. So I bought, and here we are in wind-blown splendor (and it was very windy: Xiaoming was afraid that the sunglasses she rescued from the clutches of George Clooney would get snatched off her head by the wind (most of the time they're holding her hair back: she pointed out that they were a fashion statement, not a functional piece of equipment), so she actually wore them on her face, where they were more secure. And the end of THAT particular story is that they made it home with us.


We're here now, it's 1 a.m., Xiaoming's packing, and we'll have time for a quick nap, I guess. Her flight leaves at 6:25 a.m., we want to be there by 5 a.m., since the security line is unpredictable and likely to be long even at that hour. So we'll leave here around 4:30, which means she has to get up at 3:30!!! Two and a half hours, if she dropped in her tracks right this minute! Me too, because I plan to go to work as soon as I get back here, so that I can leave early and put pictures in my blog tomorrow (er, tonight!) and post this.

Okay, folks, that's it for a while: a smorgasbord of Vegas's delights and pleasures, which will, I hope, entice you here some day soon. I'm leaving you with a symbolic (but representative) picture of a typical road out here, which just goes on and on, into the future. Let me know when to meet your plane, and we're on our way!

Blues in the Night

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It's Day Two in the 3-Day Wonderland Saga, and dawn finds our heroines--well, frankly, dawn and most of the morning, found our heroines oblivous to the wonders of all but sleep. We were out until 1:30 a.m., and one of us was still suffering a bit from jet lag (that would not be your faithful scribe but her trusty companion Xiaoming), so we slept the sleep of the blameless and innocent. And got up at pretty much high noon. Okay, so we'll admit it. We slept the morning away. But this is Vegas. What happens here STAYS here--and generally happens at night! Anyway, we meandered around--Xiaoming did NOT work out today. Look, folks, when you're hitting more than one casino, you're WALKING. A LOT! So lay off about the working out already!

We got dressed and this time our destination was the middle of the Strip: a casino I had never been in, the Venetian. What a beautiful building that is. From a ceiling that is a replica of the Sistine Chapel ceiling, to gondolas that ply a canal that is always in cloud-speckled sunlight (that's it above). Today, though, we heard from a gondolier himself that the gondolas stopped plying anything toward the evening because the wind was so strong it pushed the gondolas where IT wanted them to go, not where THEY were supposed to go. I had no idea the canal was out in the open, but I guess it is for a certain distance--long enough that the elements determine the schedule. Well, we weren't really going to go for a gondola ride (it had originally been on Xiaoming's extensive itinerary for Saturday and Sunday--but she decided she'd ridden in a real gondola in Italy, so she didn't need to do this one in Vegas). We started off with a meal in the Grand Lux Cafe--and this was the best meal we had all weekend. We shared some seared raw mahi-mahi medallions dipped in a kind of soy sauce, then shared a Salad Caprese (lots of greens, big slices of mozzarella (on The Sopranos, it's called Moozadel), thinly sliced parmesan and an excellent dressing), and we shared a margherita pizza (with lots of cheese and tomatoes). Absolutely fab, as they say.
And no chance of overeating, either: each serving was just right for two. Our waitress, Trish, had just returned to her native Vegas from Dallas (Xiaoming's home), and she got me thinking, because she said she has started a list of "Things You Don't See in Dallas." It's long. And growing. I told her I was going to mention her list here, so we have a picture of her. And I highly recommend both her AND the Grand Lux Cafe.

Our next stop was--well, Xiaoming went to the restroom, while I sat down at a nearby slot machine with $20--and stood up with $38.75. That was nice. Our NEXT stop was a ticket booth where we purchased tickets for the 7 p.m. "Blue Man Group" show (hence the title of this episode, for those who need it pointed out to them!) More about that in a mo', but we had 1-1/2 hours to kill, so we headed for Madame Tussauds' Celebrity Encounter. More than 100 life-size and life-like wax statues of celebrities and famous people, from Abraham Lincoln and Muhammad Ali and Elizabeth Taylor and Hugh Hefner to John and Jacquie and Princess Di and Angelina and Brad to Elvis and Freddie Krueger and Johnny Mathis and Ole Blue Eyes. We must have taken 100 photos in this exhibit--of which I'm picking just a few, to spare you, although these were really life-like renditions. And the really good news is that Xiaoming's glasses got yanked off her head by George Clooney (she swears she never saw him move) and for a while we thought she'd never see them again--but someone found them and returned them to the box office--and she still has them.




Okay, now we were ready for the Blue Man Group. I had seen the show, but Xiaoming had not--and it was in a new venue. I saw it at the Luxor two years ago, and it was fabulous. But it is now in the Venetian, in a theater built especially for the three blue guys, and it was just as exciting the second time around. And Xiaoming enjoyed it, too. The first five rows are provided with "ponchos" (plastic bags) that protect them from flying--well, debris? cereal? paint? whatever! We were about five rows behind that and almost caught a flying marshmallow. NO JOKE! Xiaoming was on the aisle and looked stunning in her off-white lace-strapped frock, and she was certainly considered by one of the wandering blue men as the audience participant he was searching for at one point, but no, he picked someone else. Anyway, this show is--well, it's a show-stopper. It's sensational. It's a treat for every one of your senses. It's a MUST-SEE item for any Vegas itinerary. Count on it, if you come see me!

And another MUST-SEE item was the next one on our list: the Stratosphere. It's the tall needle-like building (like the ones in Seattle and San Antonio), with a revolving restaurant near the top, and in this case, some really insane rides 3 stories above that! Don't even ask: they make my stomach knot up just thinking about them! We opted for a drink in the Romance lounge, on the 107th floor
(bypassing the Chapel on the 103rd floor, where weddings with just about any theme you could ask for take place several times a day--we saw the leftovers from two of them while we were up there). After a drink overlooking the restaurant on the floor below, which did indeed revolve at a quite-noticeable pace, though I expect the diners down there weren't as aware of it as we were (1 revolution every 80 minutes, we were told), we headed for the 108th floor, which is for observation (the 109th floor is where the insame people go for those rides I mentioned).

And what a view!!! We walked all the way around and saw EVERYTHING (though we usually didn't know what we were seeing). Vegas is literally a light-filled shallow bowl all night long. The lights extend for miles and stop abruptly at the mountains on all sides. It is just unbelievable--until you've stood there and seen it! Well, when we had had our fill of that (which took a while), we had our second meal of the day (10:55 p.m., the last customers allowed in) at Roxy's Drive-In, complete with singing waiters. Ours
was "Bobby Darin," singing (quite well) "Beyond the Sea." After an early breakfast, Xiaoming tried out "The Crazy Armadillo," while I tried out some slot machines. Both of us were quite satisfied.

But the night was still young. At least in Vegas, it is. So back into the car (thank the early gods of the Strip for their decision to have LOTS of free parking at any and all casinos!) and back down the strip (the Stratosphere is at the far north end) to the center of it all: Caesar's Palace. The Venetian is truly beautiful, with murals and arches and buildings reminiscent of Venice and other parts of Italy. Caesar's Palace is opulent. No other word. I felt VERY much the country mouse there, and my money vanished into thin air--like magic! But Xiaoming had hoped that a friend had made a reservation for her at "Pure," one of the most exclusive nightclubs on the Strip. Turned out the reservation didn't exist, but--ever the resourceful young lady, Xiaoming found a couple of guys who were more than willing to get her in there on their reservation. So she had some fun in "Pure," and I had pure losing hands at some slots and a couple of tables. Anyway, we were home by, well, all right, I'll come right out and say it--3:30. There! And proud of it.


We came home (by way of the famous Las Vegas sign, which we were able to take a good picture of, since it was so late) and weren't immediately tired, so we started to watch "The Cooler," one of my favorite Vegas movies, but we didn't get 20 minutes into it before we both crashed. So I headed for my bed, and Xiaoming spent another night on my sleeper sofa (which, by the way, she testifies is very comfortable--so all who are considering flocking to my humble abode can rest assured that the nights here will be comfortable).

Enough for another blog posting. Watch for the 3rd installment, "The African Queens," coming soon to a blog near you.

Return to Wonderland

Well, I'm not really returning to Wonderland, 'cause I haven't left except for a quick weekend in Austin to celebrate some birthdays (Jon-Michael and his Grandma Punkin' Pie both had birthdays within two weeks of each other--so we celebrated together). Otherwise, I've been right here, but it's been so busy out, what with work and play and sleep--there needs to be another 8 hours everyday to be used for whatever discretionary purpose fits one's mood--and I'd write my blog more often.

Regardless, I'm baaaaack, and hopefully I'll keep at it on a regular basis now. So here we go: That's the airport (McCarran--one of my least favorite airports ever--but it shorely is full of glitz and glamor!), where I picked Xiaoming up on Thursday night


The most immediate blog-worthy event has been the visit of my friend Xiaoming. The exciting picture above is just ONE wall in the baggage claim area at the Vegas airport. Xiaoming is someone I met in Austin when she was a student at UT. We decided this weekend that was about 5 years and 4 months ago (but who's counting), and despite the difference in our ages and background, we've remained pretty darn good friends. Anyway, she decided to visit me this weekend and became the first of what I hope will be a steady stream of visitors. Have I got an itinerary for you! Consider this weekend with Xiaoming to be a kind of trial run. I now know a huge bunch more places to take people to show them ALL sides of this great and amazing city of Wonderland. So read on, folks, enjoy the pictures. Xiaoming took almost 220 pictures: I'm going to include some of the best and most relevant, starting with the two of us at dinner on Thursday, the first night. Anyway, between the words and the pictures (which, as we know, are worth thousands MORE words), you'll be convinced to put me on your list of people you MUST come visit.

Xiaoming's visit began literally on Thursday night (that's us at Primo's restaurant, where we certainly started things off elegantly--overlooking some more of Las Vegas's gilt, the Strip!). However, we didn't get into true Tourist Mode until Friday morning--LATE Friday morning. Xiaoming actually got up at 4 a.m. to do some work on the internet for her job (she's an analyst for Accenture, based in Dallas but working since November in Chicago). After about 1/2 an hour, she went back to bed, got up around 8:30 and worked until 1:30 on her computer. Then she was free for the rest of the weekend. So off to the Strip we went.


We didn't have much of an itinerary on Friday, but we "did" three casinos on the south end of the Strip, near where I lived when my motor home was my abode. We started in the Luxor, which is the pyramid-shaped casino (that has a huge spotlight shooting straight up to the stars in the night-time); here's one of three huge pools outside the hotel/casino. We went through King Tutankhamen's tomb (well, a replica of it, full of replicas of what was found in the tomb in 1922--the first time the tomb had been visited in nearly 3300 years, except for one batch of grave robbers shortly after the tomb was closed and sealed. The replicas were made of wood gilded in gold paint, but they looked real enough to give a sense of what it might have looked like when Howard Carter peered through a little hole into the tomb, with the Fifth Earl of Carnarvon panting at his shoulder asking, "What do you see? Do you see anything?", and answered, very slowly, "Yes, yes, wonderful things."

Did I say that we started the day at Pharaoh's Pheast at the Luxor? Here's Xiaoming relaxing after our pheast! Anyway, after Egypt and the Valley of the Kings, we moved directly to the nearby IMAX theater in the Luxor and watched "Lions 3D: The Kings of the Kalahari." What a show!!! An hour of spectacle and drama, personified as only National Geographic can do it. I am truly in awe of the camera work: in that intense heat (sometimes as hot as 130 degrees) with absolutely nothing to hide behind or otherwise use to disguise a man (presumably) carrying a camera, those intrepid photographers managed to get shots clear up the elephant's trunk, right inside the lion's flea-bitten ear, inches away from five of the cutest lion cubs you'll ever see. Talk about "Mr. deMille, I'm ready for my close-up now"!!! This was wonderful--AND in 3D. The shots taken by helicopter, slanting around the desert just inches from the ground truly took your breath away. You found yourself leaning right and then left, to compensate for the tilt of the helicopter. Wow! I'm going back someday soon to see the other show, on "Dinosaurs." Anyone wanna come with?


After that, where could we go but to the other two casinos that are grouped with the Luxor: Mandalay Bay, where Xiaoming (ever one to sniff out a bargain) bought a lovely green silk dress (which she wore today--and looked absolutely stunning in!). By then it was already 10 p.m., which, of course is a bit early for the party scene (Xiaoming's other passion, besides travel). But she struggled and found a dance club, while I partied in my own way. Yes, folks, I gambled, with a bit of success for a while, but ultimately not. The casinos on the Strip are much more expensive than the local casinos, where I've learned to be much more comfortable. A slot machine that requires pennies in the local casinos wants nickels on the Strip, one that takes nickels locally insists on quarters on the Strip; table games like 3-card poker and Texas hold 'em bonus poker, two games I enjoy, have $5 minimum bids in the local casinos but want $10 or $15 minimums on the Strip. For those of you who want to do a little game-playing when you come here, I recommend sampling the casinos on the Strip, but don't discount the locals! Anyway, we enjoyed ourselves, and (finally) headed home, past the palm trees that we couldn't see 'cause it was dark--but here they are in the daylight.


For those who don't want to spend forever reading one blog posting, I'm going to call a halt here and pick up the adventures of Xiaoming and Patsy in Wonderland in our next exciting chapter, which we'll call "Blues in the Night," for reasons that may soon become clear.

Enjoy the pictures, though--here's an extra one of Xiaoming at my house before we started out on our big adventure--and start planning now for a visit soon. You'll LOVE it!!!

Patsy Goes to the Races

Just two very short weeks ago, I was sitting in the blazing sun at my very first live NASCAR race--and LOVING it. The photo shows our view towards Turn 1 and the Finish Line. I've wanted to tell y'all about it long before this, but the events that are going into my next blog (moving!) have kept me pretty busy. So just stop complaining that I haven't written for so long--you'll get two or three blogs pretty quickly, and that is just going to have to make up for it.

So first, for the two (or fewer?) members of the reading audience who don't know the story of how I happened to be sitting at my first NASCAR race, let me quickly recap. My brother's former service manager and his girlfriend are huge NASCAR fans, and they planned to come to this year's UAW Daimler-Chrylser race that was held here at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway (LVMS, for short). They also planned to get married here, so it was to be a really special weekend. To celebrate, they bought top-of-the-line tickets, worth $750 each for the whole 3-day weekend event. And then something happened, a family emergency, and they couldn't go. When it became clear to them that they absolutely couldn't go, they turned around and handed the tickets to Charlie, my brother. Free! Two of the best seats at the race--for all three days! That was just amazing! Well, when Charlie got over his amazement, he asked around and tried to find someone else who could come out here (he was coming anyway, to drive my motor home back to NJ--but that's another story!), but no one could come on such short notice, so he was stuck with--his sister! He told me later that, since I "didn't like" cars, he figured I wouldn't want to go, and he warned me before the race that I needed to get AT LEAST $750-worth of fun and pleasure out of the tickets. That was a tall order, but let me tell you, I got MORE than that much fun and pleasure!

But let me not get ahead of myself. Charlie flew in on Wednesday, March 7, we got me moved into my (furniture-less) apartment on Thursday, and then it was "off to the races." The qualifying event was Friday, the so-called "Busch Cup" was Saturday, and the Big Event was Sunday. And just to get this out of the way, the weather on all three days was fabulous! Last year, for this race, it snowed, but this year there was warm sun behind a cloud cover on Friday, and bright sun on Saturday and Sunday, with temperatures in the high 70s and low 80s. Perfect--especially for Charlie, who left a snow-covered New Jersey and returned to 2 feet of fresh snow a week later.


We headed out around mid-day on Friday, took a less-traveled route to avoid traffic, and only ran into lines of cars when we got within site of the track. We knew we were there because the Thunderbirds thundered overhead as we neared the track--five jets flying in VERY close and/or very dramatic formation. They thrilled me: the race track and the many auxiliary tracks and garages and buildings lie lengthwise in the valley, so that we were always looking out at mountains, and the jets would sweep in from the left (the west--where this shot is pointed: actually this shot shows the cars coming around into Turn 4 following the pace car, just before the start of the race), and they would streak across above the oval and the thousands of motor homes arrayed opposite to us up on a ledge overlooking the track (the drivers' motor homes, which you'll see in a bit) or down below beyond the track (the many, many attendant staffers and mechanics, etc.). The sound trailed behind but was stirring--that is, until I heard my first race car come out of Turn 4 and past us high up in the stands! Now THAT is a stirring sound.

I can't give you a blow-by-blow (that would require many blog postings!), but I'll tell you the highlights. Parking was right across from the main entrance to the track (one of the perks of these tickets), our seats were in Y section (up high enough to see everything--literally) and right in front of a large suite where there was ALWAYS food and drink. We had lunch the first day (some pork and chicken dishes) and 20 drink coupons (for beer and wine, of which I used 2 and Charlie maybe 6--we gave the rest away), and a restroom that was never full, and a place where we could come into on Saturday and Sunday to escape the sun (that was a blessing). We had passes to the Neon Garage, a new facility (literally, some of the concrete was still wet on Friday!) in the center of everything where you could see through windows down into each of the 50 or so garages where all the cars were being worked on before the races, and where there was entertainment (saw a passably good Elvis imitator and a very good group doing The Temptations, among others). Charlie also had a Cold Pass, something that let you into the actual garages themselves at any time other than when the race was on (that requires a Hot Pass--next year!). We did a lot of walking (my pedometer said I walked nearly 4 miles one day and 3 miles another!), and we saw a lot of fascinating stuff.


But I've got to stick to highlights or I'll never finish. I'll do that, but first let me point out a few things in this picture. First the mountains! Directly below them you see a line of large brown dots. Those are the owners' motor homes--about 100 of them, and almost all of them Monster Buses! Below them on the far side of the inner portion of the track are the motor homes of the hoi-poloi. Then you see the large new headquarters of the LVMS, an impressive glass structure. In this particular shot, taken at the pre-race events on Sunday, the Blue Man Group is playing on the stage in front of us. They were great--but even more impressive was how quickly all of that stuff was disassembled and removed when it was time to start the race! Quite a feat. Okay. On to the highlights.

Highlight#1: Seeing--and especially HEARING--the first car take off in the qualifying heats on Friday. It did a warm-up lap, and then, as it came out of Turn 4, right below us, as I said, it accelerated into the first of two "real" laps! WHAT A SOUND! The only thing that topped it was the first time I heard 43 cars accelerate as they passed in front of us and the Busch Race began. Charlie bought me earplugs, which was sweet, but I never used them: I loved the noise too much!


Highlight #2: We left our seats after about 1-1/2 hours of the qualifying laps and went down to board a double-decker bus (a genuine relic of London streets, bought by some enterprising soul and available in this country now for events like this). We sat up top as they took us under the track by tunnel and up into the center of the oval. We got off there and started wandering around. When we got to where we could see our seats, I was taking pictures (to send back to Paul and Diane, the poor guys whose tickets we were using), and I heard a car coming around Turn 3 and into Turn 4. I turned my camera on it to track ahead a bit and catch it coming around Turn 4--and suddenly the car (driven by Michael Waltrip) kissed the wall, spun around, traveled backward for some distance and then, I guess, kind of slowed down and stopped. Some time later, I checked out what I'd snapped, and I've got a picture about a second or two after the initial impact: the car is moving backwards from right to left (well, it's still in my picture, but I think you can tell from the plume of smoke that he's facing the wrong way, and that he's clearly not going in the direction he started out in. That was exciting!

Highlight #3: We had an errand to run at the far end of the racetrack when the qualifying heats were over on Friday, which meant that we wound up in a long slow-moving line of cars heading down Las Vegas Blvd., into the city. Charlie is not a patient man (hope that doesn't come as a surprise to too many of you), so I tried to pick a side street to take that could get us home without the lines of traffic. Well, I don't know Vegas very well yet, so my pick was not a wise one. It took us 2 hours to get back to the apartment (less than 20 miles from the track). We both thought of the old "Family Circle" cartoon that shows the trail left by one of the kids who's sent on an errand that takes him all over the place, doubles back over his tracks, and requires 4 times the time it should have taken. If we'd been leaving a trail, that's how it would have looked!

Highlight #4: The Busch Race itself, which was my first. Many of the drivers in this race also drove again the next day in the Big Race (forgotten how they designated it), It was actually more exciting than the "real" one, both because the winner was not determined until the last few seconds of the race (whereas on Sunday, Jimmie Johnson in the #48 Lowe's car, was pretty much a sure thing to win his second (or was it third) cup in a row at this race--and he didn't disappoint). But in the Busch cup, one of a pair of local brothers (Kurt Bush or his brother, again, I forget) and the winner were fighting it out to the (bitter) end, when the Bush car (and the Bush brothers are locals but not well-liked here) bought the farm in the very last few feet of the race, giving the win to someone who WAS well-liked (check out the papers or the web for the name: I just can't remember--sorry!). You should have heard the cheer that went up when that happened!


Highlight #5: (Well, this actually made us pretty sad!) Charlie called Paul and Diane to tell them that our seats in the grandstand had their names on them!! Can you believe it? Charlie's seat had a label on it saying Paul Franek and mine said DT Wheaton--amazing. Anyway, he talked to Diane who told him that they had been notified a day or two earlier that they had been chosen as one of ten couples who would be married in a community wedding ceremony held in the Winner's Circle before the Busch cup race. What a real shame that they couldn't be here for that! But we did our very best to get as much enjoyment as we could from the wonderful tickets.

Highlight #6: Did I mention the food? Breakfast (which, actually, I think we missed on Saturday, but not on Sunday) and lunch both days. The food was good, but the desserts were really the best, though I didn't sample much of them: sitting in the hot sun with a beer didn't lend itself to sweet things.

Highlight #7: Did I mention the sun? It was blazing, my first real taste of desert sun and heat--in early March! Of course, we didn't have sunscreen, so my enterprising bro went to find some. He finally came back (this was Saturday--there really wasn't much need on Friday, since it was sunny and bright but cloudy and there was quite a nice breeze), holding aloft in triumph a tiny bottle of about 4 oz. of sunscreen. He'd been to four booths, and finally, at the last one (funny how that happens!) the guy sold him the last one he had! It was enough, covered us both for both days (though I forgot to cover my neck and I wound up with my first Nevada sunburn, becoming before your eyes Patsy the Ruby-Throated NASCAR Fan.


Highlight #8: Meeting some of the personnel involved with the Thunderbirds, the jets who did flyovers on all three days. Before I tell you about them, let me explain the picture: It's of the Neon Garage, but, to space the pictures out, I'm including it here. The structure in the center is where the entertainers did their thing. Okay, now back to the Thunderbirds. The crews who maintained the jets served as volunteers staffing the elevators at the racetrack, and a finer, more personable group of handsome young men I have yet to meet. We learned from one fellow, whose job was making sure the ejection mechanism worked on "his" plane, that ejecting sent the pilot out into the ether at a speed of 14 Gs, and that a pilot was only physically able to do that twice. After he'd had to eject the second time, his flying days were over (Charlie and I figured that this was because he was now too short to see out of the cockpit!). But seriously, folks, ejection was too hard on the spine to happen more than a couple of times. These fellows were very interesting to talk to (and to look at, though I think I probably appreciated that aspect more than Charlie did!)--and they handled those elevators like real pros! Never took a wrong turn, always got us there in one piece (and no shorter than when we started)! Good job, guys!

Highlight #9: Something I'd never seen before: Stunt helicopter flying! This was a pre-race feature that was really unexpected. Nellis Air Force Base is just a short ways up the valley beyond the race track, and there were constantly jets flying in and out of the base, so there was lots of excitement in the air, when there wasn't a race going on on the ground. And Nellis it was, I believe, that supplied a stunt helicopter exhibition, with this CRAZY pilot doing somersaults, stuttering at the top of a turn and plunging down, and just generally taking his life in his hands--especially since at the time of his show, there was quite a strong wind. But he made it, and we were appreciative (though I don't think he heard our applause.


Highlight #10: And this has to be the last, though I'll think of other things I should have told you, I'm sure! It was extremely impressive to me to see how the drivers and their crews lined up for the opening ceremonies (Invocation, national anthem, etc.). Each crew has its own uniforms and there are 6-8 guys for each car, and they all line up at the front of their pit stop area, so that you look down at this line of 43 short rows of guys in all colors of the rainbow. I tried for a picture, but I was generally just a few seconds too slow to get it. Anyway, it was quite a thrilling site. And I'm closing with another thrilling sight that I just can't resist: here are 4 of the Thunderbird jets swooping in from over the mountains in a pretty doggone impressive bit of formation flying.

Oh, and on Saturday, it only took about an hour and a half to get home, and on Sunday, we made it in just under an hour. If the weekend had lasted one more day, I believe I could have actually found a direct route home from the track to my apartment comparable to the direct route TO the track. Going TO the track was relatively simple, but I think, after three tries, I'd sort of have to say, "Hmmm, come to think of it, you cahn't get heah from theah"! The bottom line is that I'm learning about this city that you do not use the highways, if you can find anyway to avoid them--except for the 215, which was the one I took to and from work when I lived in the motor home. That highway was rarely clogged, and I could always do a reasonable 65 (or a Vegas-normal 75 or 80, while the sportscars would pass me like shots on the left).

Okay, that's it for the races. The next posting will be about my new apartment, and then I've got to tell you about Charlie's adventures driving the motor home to its temporary home in New Jersey. And then I've got to show you how beautiful my part of the city (Summerlin) is in the spring, and then. . . .